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Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, or The Knight of the Lion, as well as its translations and rewritings, rely on chivalric whiteness to humanize Yvain and his quest for revenge which ultimately gains him a kingdom. Through an emphasis on the construction of Yvain, the lady of the castle (Laudine), and the fellow in the woods, I demonstrate how these characters function to blur the lines between the natural and the supernatural, the otherworld and the human world, and the borders of Arthur's realm and what lies beyond it. Ultimately, these characters (and the supernatural) function as tools to construct knighthood, and Arthur’s realm, through chivalric whiteness—an ideological project of self-fashioning that helps control who counts as human. Chivalric whiteness becomes a moral code that presents the knights as good and under threat to justify aggression against the knight’s enemies. In this way, the dehumanization enacted by chivalric whiteness becomes a part of the process of racialization not only in its strategic dimension, but in its ideological and essentializing functions. The many versions of Yvain demonstrate how these texts materialize and shift the logics of whiteness according to the time and place of creation.
Additionally, we will be announcing the winner of the Carol Kaske Prize at this event!