#  Amherst College lecture 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **October 30, 2025** 

 04:30PM - 06:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Fayerweather 115, Amherst College**  



 

 



 

[Alexandra Montero Peters](https://history.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/alexandra-montero-peters.html) (Northwestern University), *Race, Chess, and Thirteenth-Century Court Culture in the Western Mediterranean*.

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*The art of the thirteeth-century* Book of Games *(*Libro del axedrez, dados e tablas*) reveals visions of a diverse Mediterranean world, but one illumination stands out: that of chess-playing Black Muslims. These figures have been misidentified as enslaved, maligned as debauched, or simply ignored - this talk will instead focus on how the characters in this scene are a key source for positive representations of Blackness, a noteworthy outlier during a period that increasingly cast dark skin in a negative light.*



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Off Campus ](/events/campus)
- [ Five College Medieval Studies ](/events/five-college-medieval-studies)
 
 

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