Postcolonial Theory and the Traditional Castilian Lyric: The Morenita

his article is the revised text of the twenty-fifth Kate Elder Lecture, delivered at Queen Mary University of London, on 27 March 2014. This lecture series com-memorates the life of Kate Elder, who died while a student at Westfield College, and is generously funded by her family. Discussions of the morenita, whose white skin turns almost black as a result of exposure to the searing heat of the sun, have traditionally been dominated by factors intrinsic to her status. This paper, which examines her legacy in the light of postcolonial theory, offers a series of fresh interpretations of the corpus of morenita lyrics, focusing on the epidermalization of identity and the complex relationship between mimicry and menace. It argues that, while the traditional Castilian lyric stands to benefit from an engagement with theory, theoretical explorations of phenotypic identity also have much to learn from an appreciation of the morenita’s peculiar ontological ambivalence

Staging Encounters: The Touch of the Medieval Other

Shuttling back and forth from medieval to modern texts, this essay proposes an alternative vision of temporality and, in doing so, offers a glimpse into a queer (or non-normative) temporality. The purpose of this temporal travel is to reveal the systems deployed in constructing an outcast, a thing of hate and derision. This essay discusses a select number of medieval texts as the starting point for reflecting on the process involved in inventing a temporal outcast. The conversation about normative temporality mostly builds from The Passion of the Christ, which in this essay represents the end point in meditating on the making of a fantastical Other who materializes from fantasy as a thing outside time and humanity