In The Light Of Medieval Spain

If the idea of the medieval has been widely deployed in the colonial and neocolonial West as a marker of cultural backwardness, the Anglo-American perspective has often regarded Spain as part of a historically underdeveloped world and as a late-comer to Protestant/Enlightenment traditions of democracy, tolerance, and progress. Yet the many cultural dimensions of medieval Iberia make it pressingly relevant to current critiques of western modernity. This volume, which brings into dialogue historians and literary scholars in medieval and modern Iberian cultures, interrogates the contemporary significance of the distant Spanish past, particularly in regard to tensions in the relationship between the West and Islam. Rejecting an illusory space of neutrality, the search for relevance is envisioned as an ethically and politically necessary form of inquiry.

If the idea of the medieval has been widely deployed in the colonial and neocolonial West as a marker of cultural backwardness, the Anglo-American perspective has often regarded Spain as part of a historically underdeveloped world and as a late-comer to Protestant/Enlightenment traditions of democracy, tolerance, and progress. Yet the many cultural dimensions of medieval Iberia make it pressingly relevant to current critiques of western modernity. This volume, which brings into dialogue historians and literary scholars in medieval and modern Iberian cultures, interrogates the contemporary significance of the distant Spanish past, particularly in regard to tensions in the relationship between the West and Islam. Rejecting an illusory space of neutrality, the search for relevance is envisioned as an ethically and politically necessary form of inquiry.

Simon R. Doubleday is Associate Professor of History, Hofstra University and Executive Editor of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies. He is the author of The Lara Family: Crown and Nobility in Medieval Spain and co-editor of Border Interrogations: Crossing and Questioning the Spanish Frontier.

David Coleman is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History, Eastern Kentucky University and author of Creating Christian Granada: Society and Religious Culture in an Old-World Frontier City, 1492–1600, which won the 2004 Best First Book award from the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies.