Have a source to contribute?
Access the Bibliography of Race and Visibility in Medieval Iberia Google Doc.
This bibliography is intended to gather a number of sources in relation to Hispano-Iberianists’ involvement in contemporary uses and constructions of Medieval Iberia and the Twitter hashtag #HereAreTheIberianists. You will find primary sources, secondary sources, and public scholarship. We hope that the bibliography’s sources will contribute to informed, open, and fruitful discussions among ourselves, with medievalists in other disciplines, with our students, and with the broader community.
Our work on this bibliographyhas grown from an appeal from scholars to assemble existing resources on this topic. The bibliography will aid in recognizing and disseminating information on the important work Iberianists are doing in this area. In addition to sharing recent scholarship, this bibliography invites scholars tocontinue pursuing these and relatedlines of inquiry. We encourageLcC users to avail themselves of this resource in research and teaching as we engage in inclusive studies of medieval Iberian languages, literatures and cultures.
This is a dynamic document. Check back often and email the editors ofLa corónicaCommons at [email protected]if you have a source to contribute. Alternately, you may add your source directly to the Google Doc version of the bibliography. The editors will check the Google Doc periodically and update the page inLa corónicaCommons.
The original bibliography was compiled by Ãngel Ranales Pérez, Erik Alder, and Christi Ivers; we are grateful to the various members of our community who have since added to it.
[This sister bibliography focuses on English-language sources and, according to its curators, compiles sources “at the forefront or intersections of postcolonial studies, Dalit studies, critical and premodern critical race studies, Indigenous/Adivasi studies, adaptation/translation studies, travel/encounter/interculturality studies, border/migration studies, and Shakespeare studies.”]
Acknowledgments: The compilers thank Isidro J. Rivera for encouraging us to begin the bibliography and for his suggestions that helped populate the lists of sources. We also thank Shamma Boyarin for his post on In the Middle, reposted onLcC here, which catalyzed this project. We are grateful to the scholars whose work appears on this list and their contributions to the visibility of Ibero-medievalists in conversations regarding race and the Middle Ages. Finally, we show appreciation to the outside reader who contributed to the completion of this bibliography.
Primary Sources
Adler, Marcus N., editor. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation, and Commentary. H. Frowde, 1907.
Alfonso X. [Primera cronica general]. Cronica de Alfonso X : segu;n el Ms. II/2777 de la Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid. Edited by Manuel Gonzalez Jiménez, index by Maria Antonia Carmona Ruiz, Real Academia Alfonso X el Sabio, 1998.
–. Las Siete Partidas. 5 vols. Edited by Robert I. Burns, translated by S. P. Scott, U of Pennsylvania P, 2001.
Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain. Created by Robert Gardner, Unity Productions Foundation, 2007. https://www.islamicspain.tv/the-film/
Constable, Olivia Remie. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. 2nd edition, U of Pennsylvania P, 2012.
Cronica mozarabe de 754. Edited by José Lopez Pereira, Anubar, 1980.
Isidore of Seville. “Book IX: Languages, Nations, Reigns, the Military, Citizens, Family Relationships.” The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Edited by Stephen A. Barney, et al, Cambridge UP, 2006. pp. 191-212.
Jiménez de Rada, Rodrigo. Historia de rebus Hispaniae. Edited by Juan Fernandez Valverde, Brepols, 1987.
Monroe, James T., editor. Shu’biyya in Al-Andalus: The RisÄla of Ibn Garcia and Five Refutations. U of California P, 1970.
Smith, Colin, editor. Christians and Moors in Spain. Vol. 1, Aris & Phillips, 1988.
Teaching Medieval Slavery and Captivity. http://medievalslavery.org/
Wolf, Kenneth B. Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early-Medieval Spain. Liverpool UP, 1990.
Secondary sources
Akbari, Suzanne and Karla Mallette. A Sea of Languages: Rethinking the Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History. U of Toronto P, 2013.
Altschul, Nadia. “The Future of Postcolonial Approaches to Medieval Iberian Studies.” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies vol. 1, no. 1, Jan. 2009, pp. 5-17.
Aronson-Friedman, Amy, and Gregory B. Kaplan, editors. Marginal Voices: Studies in Converso Literature of Medieval and Golden Age Spain. Brill, 2012.
Barton, Simon. Conquerors, Brides, and Concubines: Interfaith Relations and Social Power in Medieval Iberia, U of Pennsylvania P, 2015.
Brann, Ross. The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Johns Hopkins UP, 1991.
–. “The Moors?” Medieval Encounters vol. 15, 2009, pp. 307-18.
Burman, Thomas. Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, c. 1050-1200. Brill, 1994.
Burshatin, Israel. “The Moor in the Text: Metaphor, Emblem and Silence.” “Race,” Writing and Difference. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, U of Chicago P, 1986, pp. 117-37.
Castro, Américo. Espana en su historia: cristianos, moros y judios. Editorial Losada, 1948.
Catlos, Brian. “¿’Conflicto de civilizaciones’ o ‘convivencia’? Identidad religiosa y realidad politica en la Peninsula Ibérica.” XVIII Congreso Internacional d’Historia de la Corona d’Arago. Fundacio Jaume II el Just, 2005, pp. 1717-29.
–. Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain. Basic Books, 2018.
–. Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c. 1050-1614. Cambridge UP, 2014.
Colominas-Aparicio, Monica. The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia. Brill, 2018.
Constable, Olivia Remie. “Muslim Spain and Mediterranean Slavery: The Medieval Slave Trade as an Aspect of Muslim-Christian Relations.” Christendom and Its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion, “‹1000–1500. Edited by Scott L. Waugh and Peter D. Diehl, Cambridge UP, 1996, pp. 264–84.
–. To Live Like a Moor: Christian Perceptions of Muslim Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Edited by Robin Vose, foreword by David Nirenberg, U of Pennsylvania P, 2018.
Coope, Jessica A. The Martyrs of Cordoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion, U of Nebraska P, 1995.
–. “Religious and Cultural Conversion to Islam in Ninth-Century Umayyad Cordoba.” Journal of World History vol. 4, no. 1, 1994, pp. 47–68.
Cosano Prieto, Jesu;s. El arroz negro que tu; no ves. Aconcagua, 2022.
–. Hechos y cosas de los negros de Sevilla. Aconcagua, 2017.
–. Las negras de la Inmaculada. Aconcagua, 2019.
–. Las negras de la mar. Aconcagua, 2020.
–. El negrero de Puente Genil. Aconcagua, 2022.
–. La Venta de la Negra. Aconcagua, 2022.
Dangler, Jean. “Edging Toward Iberia.” Diacritics vol. 36, no. 3-4, Winter 2006, pp. 12-26.
–. Edging Toward Iberia. U of Toronto P, 2017.
Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West: the Making of an Image. Oneworld, 1993.
Dodds, Jerrilynn D., Maria Rosa Menocal and Abigail Krasner Balbale. The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture. Yale UP, 2009.
Doubleday, Simon. “Introduction: ‘Criminal Non-Intervention’: Hispanism, Medievalism, and the Pursuit of Neutrality.” In the Light of Medieval Spain: Islam, the West, and the Relevance of the Past, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 1-31.
El-Hajji, Abdurrahman. “Intermarriage between Andalusia and Northern Spain in the Umayyad Period.” Islamic Quarterly vol. 11, 1967, pp. 3–7.
Feros, Antonio. Speaking of Spain: The Evolution of Race and Nation in the Hispanic World. Harvard UP, 2017.
Fuchs, Barbara. “1492 and the Cleaving of Hispanism”. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies vol. 37, no. 3, 2007, pp. 493-510.
–. Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain. U of Pennsylvania P, 2009.
Garcia-Sanjuan, Alejandro. “Denying the Islamic Conquest of Iberia: A Historiographical Fraud.” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, 2019, pp. 306-22.
Gardner, Robert, dir. Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain. Unity Productions Foundation, 2007. http://www.islamicspain.tv/index.html/.
Gilbert, Claire. “A Grammar of Conquest: The Spanish and Arabic Reorganization of Granada after 1492.” Past and Present no. 239, 2018, pp. 3-40.
Gomez-Bravo, Ana M.“A construção conceitual de raça: propostas teoricas.” [The Conceptual Construction of Race: Theoretical Approaches]. Raça e racismo no mundo luso-hispânico, edited by Michel Mingote Ferreira de Ãzara and Rafael Climent-Espino, Planalto-Pontifical U of São Paulo P. In Press.
–. “Critica religiosa, tachas personales: las raças del Libro de buen amor.” [Religious Critique, Personal Faults: The raças of the Book of Good Love]. Mujer, saber y heterodoxia: ‘Libro de buen amor’, ‘La Celestina’ y ‘La Lozana andaluza,’ edited byFrancisco Toro Ceballos, Centro para la Edicion de los Clasicos Espanoles, 2022, pp. 163-72. https://www.academia.edu/92370860/Cr%C3%ADtica_religiosa_tachas_personales_las_raças_del_Libro_de_buen_amor
–. “Establishing Biological Superiority: Food and Nobility in the Fifteenth Century.” La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, vol. 49, no. 3, 2021, pp. 51-84. https://www.academia.edu/92370563/Establishing_Biological_Superiority_Food_and_Nobility_in_the_Fifteenth_Century
–. “La formation du concept de race à la fin du Moyen Âge: vers une racialisation de la différence religieuse dans les textes ibériques.” [The Formation of a Concept of Race at the End of the Middle Ages: Toward a Racialization of Religious Difference in Iberian Texts]. Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, vol. 68, 2021, pp. 35-54. Special issue on the development of early European notions of race and racism. https://www.academia.edu/100815247/LA_FORMATION_DU_CONCEPT_DE_RACE_À_LA_FIN_DU_MOYEN_ÂGE_VERS_UNE_RACIALISATION_DE_LA_DIFFÉRENCE_RELIGIEUSE_DANS_LES_TEXTES_IBÉRIQUES
–. “The Origins of Raza: Racializing Difference in Early Spanish.” Interfaces, vol. 7, 2020, pp. 64-114. https://www.academia.edu/44858465/The_Origins_of_Raza_Racializing_Difference_in_Early_Spanish
–. “Propuestas teoricas para el estudio de la construccion conceptual de raza.” [Theoretical Considerations for the Study of the Conceptual Construction of Raza]. NaKan: A Journal of Cultural Studies. In Press.
–. “Raza: terminologia y conceptualizacion a finales de la Edad Media.” Archivum: Revista de Filologia, vol. 72, 2022, pp. 259-96. https://www.academia.edu/92369149/Raza_Terminolog%C3%ADa_y_conceptualizacion_a_finales_de_la_Edad_Media
–. “‘Raza’ y racializacion en el tardomedievo: en torno al Cancionero de Baena.” [Race and Racialization in the Late Middle Ages: Considering the Cancionero de Baena]. Corte y poesia en tiempos de los primeros Trastamara castellanos: lecturas y relecturas, edited by Antonio Chas Aguion, Studien zu den Romanischen Literaturen und Kulturen / Studies on Romance Literatures and Cultures, Peter Lang, 2022, pp. 17-46.
Grieve, Patricia. The Eve of Spain: Myths of Origins in the History of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Conflict. Johns Hopkins UP, 2009.
Harney, M. Race, Caste, Indigeneity in Medieval Spanish Travel Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge UP, 2018.
Holsinger, Bruce. “Medieval Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and the Genealogies of Critique.” Speculum, vol. 77, no. 4, 2002, pp. 1195-1227.
Ireton, Chloe L. “Black Africans’ Freedom Litigation Suits to Define Just War and Just Slavery in the Early Spanish Empire.” Renaissance Quarterly, 2020, pp. 1-43.
Jones, Nicholas R. Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain. Penn State UP, 2019.
Kagay, Donald J. “The Essential Enemy: The Image of the Muslim as Adversary and Vassal in the Law and Literature of the Medieval Crown of Aragon.” Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other. Edited by David R. Blanks and Michael Frassetto, Michael, St. Martins, 1999, pp. 119–36.
Kaplan, Gregory. The Evolution of Converso Literature: the Writings of the Converted Jews of Medieval Spain. Florida UP, 2002.
Kimmel, Seth. “Local Turks: Print Culture and Maurophilia in Early Modern Spain.” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies vol. 13, no. 1, 2012, pp. 21-38.
Lampert-Weissig, Lisa. Medieval Literature and Postcolonial Studies. Edinburgh UP, 2010.
Lincoln, Kyle C. “‘Because his mother was a Saracen’: Pope Alexander III and the Case of Miguel de San Nicolas of Toledo (with two new letters from the Archivo Catedralicio de Toledo).” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung, vol. 107, no. 1, 2021, pp. 356-67.
Linehan, Peter. “The Court Historiographer of Francoism?: La leyenda oscura of Ramon Menendez Pidal.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, vol. 73, 1996, pp. 437-50.
Mann, Vivian, Thomas Glick and Jerrilyn Dodds. Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain. George Braziller, 1992.
Mariscal, George. “The Role of Spain in Contemporary Race Theory.” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies vol. 2, no 1, 1998, pp. 7-22.
Melamed, Abraham. The Image of the Black in Jewish Culture: A History of the Other. Routledge, 2003.
Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage. U of Pennsylvania P, 1987.
–. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Little, Brown and Co., 2002.
–. “The Myth of Westernness in Medieval Literary Historiography.” The New Crusades: Constructing the Muslim Enemy. Edited by Emran Qureshi and Michael A. Sells, Columbia UP, 2003, pp. 249–87.
–. Shards of Love: Exile and The Origins of the Lyric. Duke UP, 1994.
Mirrer, Louise. Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile. U of Michigan P, 1996.
Monroe, James. The Art of Badi az-Zaman al-Hamadhani as Picaresque Narrative, American U of Beirut, 1984.
Nirenberg, David. Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. Norton, 2013.
–. Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton UP, 1996.
–. “Conversion, Sex, and Segregation: Jews and Christians in Medieval Spain.” The American Historical Review vol. 107, 2002, pp.1065–93.
–. “Mass Conversion and Genealogical Mentalities: Jews and Christians in Fifteenth-Century Spain.” Past and Present vol. 174, 2002, pp. 3–41.
–. Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today. Chicago UP, 2014.
–. “Race and the Middle Ages. The Case of Spain and Its Jews.” Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires. Margaret Geer, Walter Mignolo and Maureen Quilligan, contributors, U of Chicago P, 2007, pp. 71-87.
–. “Was There Race Before Modernity? The Example of ‘Jewish’ Blood in Late Medieval Spain.” The Origins of Racism in the West. Edited by Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac and Joseph Ziegler, Cambridge UP, 2009, pp. 232–64.
Patton, Pamela, editor. Envisioning Others: Race, Color, and the Visual in Iberia and Latin America. Brill, 2016.
Pearce, Sarah. The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition: The Role of Arabic in Judah ibn Tibbon’s Ethical Will. Indiana UP, 2017.
—. “The Inquisitor and the Moseret: The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages and the New English Colonialism in Jewish Historiography.” Medieval Encounters, vol. 26, 2020, pp. 145-90.
Phillips, William. Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. U of Pennsylvania P, 2014.
Pick, Lucy. Conflict and Coexistence: Archbishop Rodrigo and the Muslims and Jews of Medieval Spain. U of Michigan P, 2004.
Otano Gracia, Nahir I. “Borders and the Global North Atlantic: Chaucer, Pilgrimage, and Crusade.” English Language Notes, vol. 58, no. 2, 2020, pp. 35-49.
–. “Vikings of the Round Table: Kingship in the Islendingasögur and the Riddarasögur.” Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 47, 2016, pp. 69-101.
Ray, Jonathan. “Beyond Tolerance and Persecution: Reassessing Our Approach to Medieval ‘Convivencia.'” Jewish Social Studies vol. 11, no. 2, Winter 2005, pp. 1-18.
–. After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry. New York UP, 2013.
–. The Sephardic Frontier: the Reconquista and the Jewish Community in Medieval Iberia. Cornell UP, 2006.
Remensnyder, Amy. “Christian Captives, Muslim Maidens, and Mary.” Speculum vol. 82, no. 3, 2007, pp. 642-77.
Roth, Norman. Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict. Brill, 1994.
Ruggles, D. Fairchild. “Mothers of a Hybrid Dynasty: Race, Genealogy, and Acculturation in al-Andalus.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies vol. 34, no. 1, 2004, pp. 65–94.
Sanchez-Albornoz, Claudio. “Al-Andalus en la historiografia nacional catolica espanola.” eHumanista vol. 37, September 2017, pp. 305-28.
–. Espana, un enigma historico. Sudamericana, 1956.
Scarborough, Connie, editor. Revisiting Convivencia in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. Juan de la Cuesta, 2014.
Schorsch, Jonathan. Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World. Cambridge UP, 2004.
Silleras-Fernandez, Nu;ria. “Nigra Sum Sed Formosa: Black Slaves and Exotica in the Court of a Fourteenth-Century Aragonese Queen.” Medieval Encounters, vol. 13, 2007, pp. 546-65.
Soifer, Maya. Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile: Tradition, Coexistence, and Change. The Catholic U of America P, 2016.
–. “Beyond Convivencia: Critical Reflections on the Historiography of Interfaith Relations in Christian Spain.” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies vol. 1, no. 1, January 2009, pp. 19-35.
Sweet, James. “The Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought.” William and Mary Quarterly vol. 54, no. 1, January 1997, pp. 143-66.
Tolan, John. Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. Columbia UP, 2002.
Torres, Max, Maria Martinez and David Nirenberg, editors. Race and Blood in The Iberian World. Verlag, 2012.
Wacks, David. Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature: Jewish Cultural Production Before and After 1492. Indiana UP, 2015.
–. Framing Iberia: MaqÄmÄt and Frametale Narratives in Medieval Spain. Brill, 2007.
–. “Sepharadim/Conversos and Premodern Global Hispanism.” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, May 2019, pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.1080/14636204.2019.1609243
Watt, W. Montgomery. A History of Islamic Spain. Edinburgh UP, 1996.
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. “Christian Views of Islam in Early Medieval Spain.” Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Book of Essays. Edited by John Victor Tolan. Garland, 1996, pp. 85-108.
–. “Convivencia in Medieval Spain: A Brief History of an Idea.” Religion Compass vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, pp. 72-85.
Public Scholarship
Boyarin, Shamma. “Putting Iberia in the Middle.” In the Middle, 18 March 2018. Reposted on La corónica Commons. http://lcc.ku.edu/articles/repost-of-putting-iberia-in-the-middle-by-shamma-boyarin/
–. “Whose Middle Ages?” “Of the Making of Books There is No End” (Ecc 12:12): On Hebrew Book Codicology and Paleography, 24 July 2019. https://sboyarin.wordpress.com/
Global Middle Ages Project. N. D. Directed by Geraldine Heng, Co-directed by Susan Noakes and Lynn Ramey, http://globalmiddleages.org/
Heng, Geraldine. “The Best Books on Race Before the Modern Era.” Shepherd, 2021. https://shepherd.com/best-books/race-before-the-modern-era
–. “Race and Racism in the European Middle Ages.” Scholars Respond to an Exhibition about Medieval Prejudice. The Iris, J. Paul Getty Trust, 6 March 2019. http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/outcasts/downloads/heng_race_racism.pdf
–. “Who Speaks for Us? Race, Medievalists, and the Middle Ages.” Medievalists of Color, 3 April 2018. http://medievalistsofcolor.com/uncategorized/who-speaks-for-us-race-medievalists-and-the-middle-ages/
–.”Why the Hate? The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, and Race, Racism, and Premodern Critical Race Studies Today.” In the Middle. 21 Dec. 2020. https://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2020/
Jones, Nicholas R. “The Legacy and Representation of Blacks in Spain.” Black Perspectives, 18 Jul. 2018. https://www.aaihs.org/the-legacy-and-representation-of-blacks-in-spain/
Leahy, Chad. “Dear Fellow Iberianists: Where Are We?” In the Middle,25 February 2018. http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2018/02/dear-fellow-iberianists-where-are-we.html
–. “Dear Fellow Iberianists: Where Are We? – Part Two.” In the Middle,15 March 2018. http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2018/03/dear-fellow-iberianists-where-are-we.html
Otano Gracia, Nahir. “A Critical Subjective Analysis of Objectivity.” Feeding the Elephant: A Forum for Scholarly Communications, 1 June 2022. https://networks.h-net.org/node/1883/discussions/10333626/critical-subjective-analysis-objectivity
Pearce, S.J. “Paradise Lost.” SJ Pearce,17 March 2017. https://wp.nyu.edu/sjpearce/2017/03/17/paradise-lost/
–. “Translating in the Land of Liberty.” La corónica Commons, 5 November 2017. http://lcc.ku.edu/articles/translating-in-the-land-of-liberty/
Robinson, Carol L. “Race, Racism and the Middle Ages.” TEAMS, 30 March 2018. https://teams-medieval.org/?page_id=76
Wacks, David. “The Curse of Ham in Medieval Iberia and the Enslavement of Black Africans.” David A. Wacks: Research and Teaching on Medieval Iberian and Sephardic Culture,30 December 2020. https://davidwacks.uoregon.edu/2020/12/30/ham/
–. “Medieval Iberian Literary Studies in the US: Challenges Past and Present.” David A. Wacks: Research and Teaching on Medieval Iberian and Sephardic Culture,2 May 2014. https://davidwacks.uoregon.edu/2014/05/02/lestreilles/
Updated 18 May 2023