The Mediterranean Seminar/University of California Multi-Campus Research Project (MRP) in Mediterranean Studies announces its Spring 2015 Colloquium and Workshop, to be held at UC San Diego on Saturday, 18 April, to be held in conjunction with UC San Diego’s Literature Department Binder Lecture.
Space is limited. Please register now for the Friday and Saturday program. Lunch on Saturday will be provided to attendees; limited travel support is available (see below).
Thursday, 16 April, 6pm
The Atkinson Pavilion at the Faculty Club, UC San Diego
The James K. Binder Lectureship in Literature
“Is Arabic a Spanish Language? The Uses of Arabic in Early Modern Spain” featuring
Dr. Mercedes García-Arenal (Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid). One of Spain’s premier medieval and early modernists, an expert in Muslims, Islam, and inter-communal relations in Spain.
(see below for details).
Friday, 17 April: 1:30—4:30pm
Michel de Certeau Room (Literature Department, room 155)
Colloquium: “Mediterranean in History and Culture”
Reception to follow.
Saturday, 18 April: 9:30—5:30pm
Michel de Certeau Room (Literature Department, room 155)
The Spring 2015 UC MRP Workshop
The program consists of three pre-circulated papers and a talk by our featured scholar.
Claire Gilbert (History, Saint Louis University)
“The King, the Coin, and the Word: Imagining and Enacting Castilian Frontiers in the Early Modern Mediterranean”
• Comment by Fariba Zarinebaf (History, UC Riverside), followed by General Discussion
Aaron Stamper (History/Religious Studies, CU Boulder)
“The Córdoba y Válor: A Legacy of Dissidence in Morisco Granada”
• Comment by Baki Tezcan (History and Religious Studies, UC Davis), followed by General Discussion
John Dagenais (Spanish & Portuguese, UCLA)
“All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men: Putting Anselm-Abdullah Together Again”
• Comment by Sergio La Porta (Armenian Studies, CSU Fresno), followed by General Discussion
Featured Speaker: Mercedes García-Arenal (CSIC)
“Comparing Minorities of Converso Origin in Early Modern Spain: Uses of Language, Writing and Translatio”
A reception will follow at the UCSD Faculty Club
To register and to receive the workshop papers, and for further information, please contact Courtney Mahaney (cmahaney@ucsc.edu) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. UC-affiliated faculty and graduate students will be eligible for up to $350 for travel expenses (this will be granted as available).
The Mediterranean Seminar/University of California Multi-Campus Research Project (MRP) in Mediterranean Studies announces its Spring 2015 Colloquium and Workshop, to be held at UC San Diego on Saturday, 18 Aprl, to be held in conjunction with UC San Diego’s Binder Lecture.
Space is limited, please register now for the Friday and Saturday program. Lunch on Saturday will be provided to attendees; limited travel support is available (see below).
Mercedes Garcia-Arenal: Is Arabic a Spanish Language? The Uses of Arabic in Early Modern Spain
The James K. Binder Lecture
The Atkinson Pavilion at the Faculty Club, UC San Diego
Thursday, April 16, 2015 at 6:00pm
Starting in the 16th century, a new interest in Oriental languages arose in Europe, and in particular an interest in Arabic. This interest in Arabic stemmed from the textual study of the Bible which so absorbed European scholars in the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. This is, then, an early “Orientalism” that has little to do with colonial enterprises, and follows different paths than those outlined by Edward Said in his famous book Orientalism.
It has traditionally been argued that Spain played no part in forming this Orientalist knowledge. In fact, from its European contemporaries of the 16th century down to the historiography of the 20th century, Spain was essentially held to be an Oriental country itself, and therefore more of an object of “Orientalism” than an actual producer of Orientalist learning. This paper focuses on these two assumptions by examining the situation of the study of Arabic in Spain, and showing how in Spain Arabic scholars were immersed in a very specific context and in an ideological debate in which the role of the Arabic language was a crucial one. Throughout the 16th century there were significant populations of Arabic speakers living in Spanish territory. Spain’s relationship with these minorities, known as Moriscos or converted Muslims, was highly conflictive, and eventually lead to an identification of Arabic with Islam. The central aim of this paper is to examine the complexity of the relationship between early modern Spain and the Arabic language, including the language’s ambiguous standing, the need to de-Islamize it, and the different purposes for which it was employed. In particular, this talk will highlight the tension between impure origins (those of the converts from Judaism and Islam) versus sacred origins, and the efforts that were made to write an account of the sacred origins of Spain that would allow Jews and Muslims to be incorporated into the nation’s past.
Prof. Mercedes García-Arenal: Research Professor at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, CSIC, Madrid. (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spanish Council for Scientific Research).
She is a cultural historian of the Early Modern Muslim West (Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb), she has published extensively on religious minorities: mudejars and moriscos in Christian Spain, and Jews in Islamic lands, and dedicated much attention to processes of conversion, of messianism and millenarianism, to the study of saints and mysticism. She focuses on interreligious relations, cultural transmission, forced conversion and its consequences both for minorities and for mainstream society in Iberia.
Her best known book is the one written with Gerard Wiegers, A Man of Three Worlds. Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew between Catholic and Protestant Europe, first published in Spanish (Johns Hopkins University Press in 2003), and also translated into Arabic, Italian and Dutch.
The James K. Binder Lectureship in Literature is made possible by Mr. Binder’s generous bequest and honors his wishes that we bring leading European intellectuals to UC San Diego to provide a forum for rigorous discussions of literary topics.