Converging Approaches to the Study of the Iberian Reconquista – Call for Papers

The Woolf Institute, University of Cambridge, is looking for papers for the workshop, “Converging Approaches to the Study of the Iberian Reconquista” to be held on 12-14 February 2018.

A fundamental aim of the proposed workshop is to go beyond the dominant narrative of conquest, that has framed the Christian military advance in terms of change versus continuity: whether the Christian takeover amounted to a military, feudal conquest breaking with the Islamic past; or whether Latin rule was mitigated by surrender treaties, hybrid ethno-cultural institutions and pragmatic tolerance or coexistence, known as ‘convivencia’ among scholarly circles and in popular culture.

The 20-minute papers may address the following suggested themes, but not exclusively:

• The relationship between space, local communities and political allegiance
• Changes in urban and rural structures
• The evolution of institutions and socio-economic systems
• Contrasting pre- / and post-conquest pools of evidence (written and archaeological)
• Non-Christian perspectives on the Latin conquest
• Representations of conquest and transition: for instance, narratology (particularly narratives of crusade/jihād), biology and demography (from anthroponymy to isotope analyses), or iconography (images of power, both secular and religious).
• Different theoretical approaches in framing the Christian takeover (‘postcolonial studies’, ‘emotions’, frontier studies, feudalism…)

There is no registration fee for this conference. Interested participants are encouraged to submit a 200-300 word abstract to Rodrigo García-Velasco (rig25@cam.ac.uk). The deadline for submissions is October 30th, 2017.