Haven't seen the current ep, but

[lotesse]

I would be fascinated to see an analysis of historical race - as opposed to historiographic race - then-thoughts, not now-looking-back-at-then-thoughts - in Merlin. Using the non-genetic theories of skin pigmentation - anyone who lived in a hot place would look like that eventually! - and maybe even looking at Celtic Fringe stuff.

I'd even love to see a historiographic reading from someone in the UK re: the Celtic Fringe thing. How does the Irish Morgana look through contemporary UK pop culture? And what would her status as an oppressed person be, historically speaking, in relation to Gwen's?

(Obviously, I'm a white girl living in the US. Race here has a particularly, um, hardcore history here. And also obviously, a lot of the people in this fandom are both chromatic and white people living State-side, so our historiography of Gwen and Morgan sort of has to come from the viewpoint of our history. But I know enough about medieval European race theory to know that I don't know much, and I do think it would be cool to read the show through that lens, as well as the one drawn from our own contemporary culture/life experience.)

eta: if this is problematic wittering, feel free to tell me off. I'm pretty much pulling this out of nowhere, and that subconscious nowherespace does tend to be where the icky programming resides.

Comments

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I can't contribute much to the race discussion (and all the above comments are fantastic and I'll have to read through them when I have more time) but you should read The Winter Prince by Elizabeth E. Wein, if you haven't done so already. It's a children's/young adult Arthurian lit novel, strongly centered in "This is how it historically could have happened" and with no real magic to speak of. The book is narrated by Mordred and right at the beginning we find out that Arthur has just had twins born. There are only Britons in that books but later on Mordred returns from working as an ambassador and has souveniers from all sorts of places, including Ethiopia. It's the first in a whole series of books. The following ones are all set primarily in (5th-century) Ethiopia.

[lotesse]

Sounds cool - will def. check it out - in my spare time! ha!