Monster Art History Lecture

          This past Thursday, I attended an art history lecture titled, “Are the Monstrous ‘Races’? Representing Difference in Medieval Art” and it was presented by Asa Simon Mittman. This lecture revolved around the subject of monstrous beings and ethnicities and how they were perceived in the old days and its connection to how we perceive race today. Mittman based his lecture off of a few different definitions of race, each of which he analyzed and provided examples for. One of the definitions of race he provided defined it as being based on physiological differentiation like distinguishing hairstyles and/or clothes (Bartlett). Another defined race as being a structural relationship that is impermanent and unstable (Heng) and a third defined race as being physically discrete, inherited, and meaningful (Blackburn). He used these definitions to help emphasize his point that these beings tend to be so close to us that we have trouble finding the contrast. This therefore, led to his pondering of the question of whether these beings can even be described as monsters or a different race for that matter.

            Another point that Mittman emphasized revolved around the idea of the unknown. In the context of this presentation, the unknown is the East and this unknown is always on the move. It starts out as Persia, then moves to India, and then to East Africa. Mittman brings up the idea of orientalism and how this idea has a large role in this theme of the unknown and that the “West” always believes that they know everything and this mindset is what leads to issues such as genocide.

            What I took away from this lecture, is that by looking at Medieval art, you can understand how many views and opinions of the world have been shaped. By looking through the lens of monsters, it can be easy to understand how different beings are catalogued by their features almost instantly. It brings up the concept of what the “norm” in society is and how it was set in society in older times. Essentially these monsters are setting the standard for what people should base their judgements off of and this idea is very relatable to contemporary society.

            Overall, I would have to say that although I enjoyed the overall message of the lecture I had a very hard time following it. The way in which Mittman presented was as if he was reading a very long speech and he did so in a very quick manner with very little time devoted to pausing and discussing certain concepts. There were many times throughout the lecture that I felt lost or confused and there were many times that I wanted clarification of an important point that I feel I never got. It felt almost as if Mittman had a time limit he wanted to keep to and this caused him to rush through the presentation as a result, but the content was nonetheless very interesting and thought-provoking.