The Royale Maison de Saint-Louis, commonly known as the École de Saint-Cyr, was created near Versailles in 1686 to give selected daughters of France’s poor nobility an exemplary education. The school was cofounded by Louis XIV and his second wife Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, who also directed it until her death in 1719. Attached … Read more
“My dear! … God has so richly given you His grace so that you … personally see and are acquainted with His kingdom, which is concealed from so many people.” In December 1524, Martin Luther (1483–1546), a theologian from Wittenberg, wrote these words to Katharina Schütz Zell (1498–1562), an evangelical activist and pamphleteer from Strasbourg, … Read more
Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Darlus Thiroux d’Arconville (1720–1805) was a key figure in a community of elite scientists in early modern Paris. This community was composed of anatomists, physicians, botanists, chemists, and pharmacists, and included Pierre-Joseph Macquer (1718–1784), Bernard de Jussieu (1699–1777), Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794), Antoine François de Fourcroy (1755–1809), Bernard-Germain de Lacépède (1756–1825), François Poulletier de … Read more
Isabel of Portugal (1397–1471), duchess consort of Burgundy (1430–1467) and later dowager duchess, was a strong force in the cultural, political, diplomatic, and economic affairs of the Burgundian duchy. Her status inspired a monumental study of her personal history and political role, penned in 1998 by French historian Monique Sommé. Sommé’s and others’ thorough erudition … Read more
To the memory of my mother. When African American pop star Janelle Monáe released her single “Yoga” in the spring of 2015, Indian American bloggers were quick to accuse her of Orientalism and irreverent appropriation. For instance, Sonya Devi on her Bharatanatyam-dedicated Tumblr lamented, “I just cringe watching nonsense like this. Yoga is thousands of … Read more
This issue of Scholar and Feminist Online, “Feminist and Queer Afro-Asian Formations,” edited by Vanita Reddy and Anantha Sudhakar, marks a key intervention into Afro-Asian studies, one that insists upon centering a feminist and queer framework. In addition to critiquing the centrality of male figures in much Afro-Asian scholarship (including cross-racial solidarities, such as friendships … Read more
One night, at a gay party in Bangalore, Andy calls out, “Look what I learned.” He sidles downward with his back pressed against the bar until he is on his haunches. He bends his elbows at his chest, and fans his hands in front of his face. He walks on his haunches toward the crowd … Read more
W.E.B Du Bois’s 1928 novel Dark Princess has had a long and contradictory reception. On the one hand, scholars admire how it offers a prescient model of the possibilities in our own time of intergroup solidarity as well as astute commentary on hierarchies and constructions of race on a global scale. Such accounts recognize it … Read more
In this essay, I examine how queer Iranian American artist and activist Amitis Motevalli attempted to position the 2009 pro-democracy uprising in Iran in relation to the unfinished black freedom struggle in the United States. I explore the potential for diasporic Iranian cultural production to reframe the U.S.-Iran conflict by engaging each national context as … Read more
The grounding impetus of comparative race studies rooted in the genealogy of ethnic studies is to, on the one hand, cultivate solidarities of resistance and, on the other hand, be a legible field of inquiry that is recognized for its academic and methodological rigor. What do we lose when we gloss over the complexities of … Read more
