Indelible Footprints in Spain and Beyond

This colloquium seeks to explore the enduring effects of Muslim-ruled Iberia and its nearly 800-year impact—from 711 AD to the expulsion of Moriscos from Spain. Moros and moriscos in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia experienced both coexistence and violent intolerance in a predominantly Christian society. During this 1-day colloquium, we will examine themes of cultural pluralism, religious hegemonies, and enduring ideological boundaries across the Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds. We are looking to gather a wide range of professors and graduate students to reflect on and explore the enduring effects of Muslim-ruled Iberia in material culture, religion, language, literature, legal writings—from libraries to food to clothing to art in the Early Modern period and beyond. We are interested in discussing these traces across a variety of media, time periods, and geographies, with questions such as (though not limited to) the following: How do we read the imperial Spanish impulse to eliminate but at the same time rewrite and reclaim its Islamic roots? Where are the morisca voices in colonial Latin America and in the Philippines? How can we teach these traces—of enduring ideological boundaries across the Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds—in the context of literary and cultural studies?