“Pre-Modern Iberia, the Mediterranean & the Atlantic:
New Directions”
Thursday, 11 April 2024 • 9:30am—5pm
University of Colorado Boulder
A Kayden Book Prize Symposium
The Politics of Emotion
Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia
by Nuria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese)
The Mediterranean Seminar CU Mediterranean Studies Group together with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese of CU Boulder present a symposium for the 2023 Eugene M. Kayden Book Prize winner, The Politics of Emotion. Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Nuria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese).
The Politics of Emotion explores the intersection of powerful emotional states—love, melancholy, grief, and madness—with gender and political power on the Iberian Peninsula from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. Using an array of sources—literary texts, medical treatises, and archival documents—Nuria Silleras-Fernandez focuses on three royal women: Isabel of Portugal (1428–1496), queen-consort of Castile; Isabel of Aragon (1470–1498), queen-consort of Portugal; and Juana of Castile (1479–1555), queen of Castile and its empire. Each of these women was perceived by their contemporaries as having gone "mad" as a result of excessive grief, and all three were related to Isabel the Catholic (1451–1504), queen of Castile and a woman lauded in her time as a paragon of reason.
Through the lives and experiences of these royal women and the observations, judgments, and machinations of their families, entourages, and circles of writers, chronicles, courtiers, moralists, and physicians in their orbits, Silleras-Fernandez addresses critical questions about how royal women in Iberia were expected to behave, the affective standards to which they were held, and how perceptions about their emotional states influenced the way they were able to exercise power. More broadly, The Politics of Emotion details how the court cultures in medieval and early modern Castile and Portugal contributed to the development of new notions of emotional excess and mental illness.
This symposium brings together scholars in a range of fields using The Politics of Emotion as an inspiration to discuss new themes and perspectives relating to the history of the Iberian Peninsula, its place in the Mediterranean, and in relation to an Iberianized Atlantic colonial world.
Program & Papers
All papers [click on the title to download] are copyright the author and are not to be copied, distributed or cited without express written permission by same.
Only keynote speakers will be introduced. Click on the participant name to see their bio.
All attendees should read the position papers prior to the symposium. Round-table speakers will speak for 4 minutes.
All presenters have access to a projector for PowerPoint; presenters must bring their presentation on a USB drive. In case of compatibility issues, please also bring your own laptop and an HDMI or VGA dongle/adapter.
This is an in-person only event open only to registered attendees.
Registration closes on 6 April.
Thursday 11 April 2024
Location: Flatirons Room, C4C (CU Boulder)
9:30 Coffee and Registration
10:00 Opening Remarks
• Esther Brown (Chair, Spanish & Portuguese) Brian A. Catlos (Religious Studies)
10:15 Keynote Presentation #1
“Complexity and its Expression in Medieval Iberian Scholarship”
• Michelle Hamilton (Spanish: University of Minnesota Twin Cities)
Introduced by Brian A. Catlos (Religious Studies: CU Boulder),
11:30 Coffee
11:45 Round Table #1 – Comparative Perspectives
How can new comparative frameworks, whether regional or thematic, enrich the study of the Peninsula and the larger pre-Modern Iberian world?
Moderator: Brian A. Catlos (Religious Studies)
Peter Elmore (Spanish & Portuguese) “Santiago Matamoros and Santiago Mataindios: The boundaries”
Suzanne Magnanini (French & Italian) “Circulatory Systems: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying About National Literature Paradigms And Love The Iberian World”
Charlie Samuelson (French & Italian) “For a Renewed Emphasis on Medieval Gender Politics”
Gerardo Gutierrez (Anthropology) “Heraldry of the Two Viceroys and the Consolidation of the Spanish Fleets in the New World”
Nuria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese: CU Boulder) “Intercontinental Synergies: Iberian and Mediterranean Studies”
1:00 Lunch (for speakers and registered participants)
2:00 Keynote Presentation #2
“Enslaved Women, Race, and Criminality in the Late Medieval Mediterranean”
• Michelle Armstrong-Partida (History: Emory University)
Introduced by Nuria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese)
3:15 Coffee
3:30 Round Table #2 – Methodologies and Disciplines
How can new methodological approaches and disciplinary perspectives push us to reassess long-standing assumptions and revise our understanding or our narratives of the culture and history of the Peninsula and the larger pre-Modern Iberian world?
Moderator:Nuria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese)
John Slater (Spanish: CSU Fort Collins) “Early Modernism as Historical Reenactment”
Andrés Prieto (Spanish and Portuguese) “Native Slavery and the Spanish Colonial Project”
Rebecca Wartell (Jewish Studies) “Coimbra Considerations: A Jewish Perspective”
Brian A. Catlos (Religious Studies) “Marooned: Cast Away in the Land of the Three Religions”
Veronica Menaldi (Spanish: University of Mississippi) “Magic and the Margins: How Innovative Intersections can Reach Wider Audiences”
4:45 Closing Remarks
Nuria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese)
6:30–9:30 Dinner/ Reception (see below)
Participants:
• Emmy Herland (Spanish & Portuguese: CU Boulder)
• Chad Leahy (Spanish Language, Literary & Cultural Studies: CU Denver)
• Augusto Rocha (History: CU Boulder)
Staff, Volunteers, and Administration
• Antonio Berbel (Spanish & Portuguese: CU Boulder)
• Madison Elson (Spanish & Portuguese: CU Boulder)
• Juan Manuel Garcia Fernandez (Spanish & Portuguese: CU Boulder)
• Rocio Gavira Dominguez (Spanish & Portuguese: CU Boulder)
• Alex Hartburg
Practica
Parking:
Metered public parking is available at Lot 308, across Regents Ave. from C4C
Meeting location:
The Flatirons Room is on the third floor of CU's Center for Community (C4C). Please note that when you enter the building through the (main) west entrance (the mountain side), you are already on the second floor. To get to the Flatirons Room, take the stairs or elevator one level up to the third floor and walk due west (if taking the elevator) or slightly to the right and then west (if taking the stairs).
Wifi:
There is wireless access throughout the Center for Community. You can use either eduroam or the UCB Guest Wireless network. Both will require you to authenticate from a web page that will pop up when you select the relevant network.
Lunch:
Lunch is provided free to registered attendees.
Dinner:
Participants and attendees who have received and invitation and RSVP’d will be welcome to a dinner/reception at 6:30pm. Kindly bring the beverage of your choice.
Help
If you have any specific questions regarding practica and logistics, contact Alex Hartburg
Sponsors, Organization & Support:
This symposium is organized by Brian A. Catlos (Religious Studies) and Nuria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese). It is sponsored by the Eugene M. Kayden Book Prize, together with the Mediterranean Seminar, the CU Mediterranean Studies Group, and the Departments of Religious Studies and Spanish and Portuguese. The CU Mediterranean Studies Group is sponsored by Religious Studies, Humanities, Jewish Studies, Asian Languages and Civilizatioans, History, Art History, French & Italian, Spanish & Portuguese, Philosophy and the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at CU Boulder. Administrative support is provided by the Department of Religious Studies.