The concept of a person’s “race” is relatively new in the scope of human history. A new exhibit at Chicago’s Newberry Library, “Seeing Race Before Race,” looks at the period before we started grouping ourselves in racial hierarchies.
“From a period of time from about 1100 to 1800, we’re arguing that race was made, through image and text,” said Lia Markey, one of the exhibit’s curators.
In this episode, host Erin Allen talks through the exhibit with Markey and Noémie Ndiaye, another exhibit curator, about its most striking components and the goals of their scholarly research.
“I think it's much more useful to think of what race does than to think of what race is,” Ndiaye said. “Who benefits from this? What is the power structure that is being upheld or made?”
“Seeing Race Before Race”) is open until late December.
