Activity Outcome

• Students will be able to identify (mis)appropriation of the Middle Ages.

• Students will be more prepared to complete the Significance Statements assignment.

Relevant Course Outcome

• Students will be able to recognize and articulate the value of studying early British literature.

• Students will be able to identify the steps of the research process and apply information literacy skills in a variety of contexts.

Instructions:

• Part 1: What Is Information?

Respond in a Discussion Post on this page with one sentence answering each question:

• What is information?

• What does information do? Or what can be done with information?

• If information is power, then what does it mean if your access to information is inhibited or distorted?

• What is your responsibility to accuracy and truthfulness?

Part 2: Examining Artifacts

Each group will discuss the following, recording the main points of your discussion in order to participate in the following class discussion:

• What are the main messages of your group's set of artifacts?

• Upon what assumptions are these messages based?

• What questions do you have about the artifacts?

• What research would you do to engage with these questions?

Note of preparation: some of these artifacts may be graphic, and some may contain distressing references.

• Group 1

• Group 2

• Group 3

• Group 4

• Group 5

• Group 6

Part 3: What Is the Difference between Propaganda, Misinformation, and Disinformation?

Link to Johns Hopkins Research Guide

The National Endowment for Democracy has put together a helpful explanation of disinformation and misinformation that you should read as you confront some of the questions this exercise raises.

• Group 1:

  • Helen Young, "White Supremacists love the Middle Ages"

  • Helen Young, "Where Do the 'White Middle Ages' Come From?"

• Group 2:

  • Paul Ratner, "Why Some Conservative Thinkers Seriously Want the Return of the Middle Ages"

  • Andrew B.R. Elliott, "A Vile Love Affair: Right Wing Nationalism and the Middle Ages"

  • Ellen Knight, "The Capitol Riot and the Crusades: Why the Far Right Is Obsessed With Medieval History"

• Group 3:

  • Mary Dockray-Miller, "Old English Has a Serious Image Problem"

  • James M. Harland, "'Race' in the Trenches: Anglo-Saxons, Ethnicity, and the Misuse of the Medieval Past"

  • Mary Rambaran-Olm and Erik Wade, "The Many Myths of the Term ‘Anglo-Saxon’"

• Group 4:

  • Kathleen E. Kennedy, “What Sansa Stark’s Rape Tells Us About Our Culture”

  • Carissa Harris, "800 years of rape culture"

  • Helen Young, "Game of Thrones' Racism Problem"

• Group 5:

  • David Perry, "Modern Knights Templar Prepare for Race War in Europe"

  • Matthew Gabriele, "Islamophobes want to recreate the Crusades. But they don't understand them at all."

  • Matthew Gabriele,"Debating the 'Crusade' in Contemporary America"

• Group 6:

  • Paul B. Sturtevant, "Leaving 'Medieval' Charlottesville"

  • Josephine Livingstone, "Racism, Medievalism, and the White Supremacists of Charlottesville"

Part 4: Wrap Up

• If information is power, then what does it mean if your access to information is inhibited or distorted?

• What is your responsibility to accuracy and truthfulness?

Part 5: Reflection Post on Activities Padlet (each individual will write a post, due before next class)

The story of Derek Black, the son of Stormfront founder: "Derek finished high school, enrolled in community college and ran for a seat on the Republican committee, beating an incumbent with 60 percent of the vote. He decided he wanted to study medieval European history, so he applied to New College of Florida, a top-ranked liberal arts school with a strong history program...The qualities that had once made him seem quirky — shoulder-length red hair, the cowboy hat he wore, a passion for medieval re-enactment — made him a good fit for New College, where many of the 800 students were a little bit weird. He forged his own armor and dressed as a knight for Halloween...He was taking classes in Jewish scripture and German multiculturalism during his last year at New College, but most of his research was focused on medieval Europe. He learned that Western Europe had begun not as a great society of genetically superior people but as a technologically backward place that lagged behind Islamic culture. He studied the 8th century to the 12th century, trying to trace back the modern concepts of race and whiteness, but he couldn’t find them anywhere. 'We basically just invented it,' he concluded."