Medieval racialization imprinted anxieties onto non-Christian bodies as punishment

Evidence

Anxieties surrounding ethnicity and bodily differences were imprinted on non-Christian bodies, in particular, on Jews, Muslims, and Africans. This was a medieval kind of racialization, characterized by Cohen as “a phenomenon of multiple category overlap rather than a distinctly verifiable or measurable ‘thing’… (that is, race has no independent ontology), and race is therefore always written on and produced through the body (race is nonetheless biological).” This medieval “multiple category overlap” echoes Foucault’s argument that human bodies are determined by the “effects of power.” Muslim monsters are punished bodies, often suffering with more than one disease or affliction. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 102

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the analytical definition of medieval racialization — multiple category overlap, no independent ontology, written on the body — a precise framework for the reader’s monster categories.
• XREF: Foucault’s ‘effects of power’ on bodies; also the reader’s monster/demon/giant taxonomy — punished, multiply-afflicted bodies is the monster archetype’s defining structure.
• ADDENDUM: Supports ‘On Sacrifice’ thematically by showing how stigmatized bodies were treated as already-doomed, and connects to the reader’s core thesis of monsters as containers.