tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post3595902064508066734..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Putting Iberia in the MiddleCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-41515732786786094492018-03-18T14:07:10.199-04:002018-03-18T14:07:10.199-04:00Thank you for all of this. It resonates especially...Thank you for all of this. It resonates especially for me because it shows the disconnects that have plagued this conversation much better than I have been able to. One thing that struck me in both, but especially the second, of Chad’s posts is the absence of he early Middle Ages. Chad refers to the scholarship of C10-11, but shows no indication that he’s conversant with work done on pre-11th C Iberia. In fact, much of that work is along the lines of what you say has been happening in “Iberianist” scholarship, i.e., regularly challenging the nationalist traditions and institutions that sought to portray a particular sort of “Spanish” history. For me, one of the real problems with the way this conversation has gone is that the way so much of it has been framed seems not ‘for the sake of heaven.’ Because I know many of the people involved personally, I have to believe that they are. But honestly, arguments that start with the assumption that medievalists (and early medievalists have been called out especially here and elsewhere, as have the Iberianists — nobody seems to worry about the Byzantinists...) are doing nothing, or not enough, or don’t care about racism in the field make it very hard to believe that everyone is acting in good faith. That’s true in any dialogue where one side initiates the dialogue with accusations, rather than “what are you doing now, and are there ways we can all do better?” I see Chad’s posts as carrying on in the same vein, especially in that the ‘accusatory’ questions reflect little familiarity with what is being, or has been done to address issues of race, etc. The examples for Iberian history that you’ve given yourself and in citing Velasco are very similar to ones that can be found in my own field of continental Europe from Late Antiquity through the Carolingian period, The risk factor for non-Iberianists is obviously different — none operated under the very real threat of the Franco regime, after all. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-40071383817928612402018-03-18T09:03:02.342-04:002018-03-18T09:03:02.342-04:00Let me also add, as the one who was making the sha...Let me also add, as the one who was making the sharp distinction, that I'm not wedded to the terminology in any way; I was working with what we got in the initial post and going from there. What I was really trying to get at was that there are two constituencies in the field; but I'm not particularly invested in what we call them. One thing that labels can do is serve as a quick shorthand to outsiders and tbh, when I'm talking to someone outside my field I'm more likely to say I'm a Hispanist, on geographic grounds, because Iberianist doesn't mean anything to most people. And inside/adjascent to the field I describe what I work on rather that saying that I am a this or a that in large part because modern field distinctions really don't serve medieval work well. In fact, part of my critique of Dangler is that "non-modern Iberia" is, in a way, the perfect name for our object of study but also totally unhelpful as a label because it encodes internal debates without having a legible external face. —SJPS.J. Pearcehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13768230178276229294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-67612064309086572492018-03-18T01:21:45.965-04:002018-03-18T01:21:45.965-04:00Hi Juan,
I completely agree with all of this. I th...Hi Juan,<br />I completely agree with all of this. I think the terminology is confusing. My introduction to medieval Spain in university was via James Monroe and for him Hebrew and Arabic were an integral part of Spain- and this came from the battles fought by those who went before them. If using Iberia vs. Spain feels like betraying their vision- then I’m with you, we should rethink using this term. ShammaUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07525381069277590875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-57716533404016776562018-03-17T16:55:35.078-04:002018-03-17T16:55:35.078-04:00I agree with everything, but I have my doubts with...I agree with everything, but I have my doubts with the division between Hispanists and Iberianists. I like it to emphasize the gap between pre and post 1714 Spain, thus making more difficult racist and nationalistic appropriations in Spain. However, Hispanists have worked from multicultural perspectives in several linguistic traditions for a long time - see, for example, Mabel Moraña's "Ideologies of Hispanism" (2005). For Emilio García Gómez, Juan Vernet or Américo Castro, it was crucial to defend that non-Catholic traditions were a consubstantial part of Hispanism and the "Spanish" - lo español. Not so much for Eugenio Asensio. To separate Iberia from Hispania or Spain is useful from the point of view of the U.S.A. as an intervention in contemporary culture wars - counteracting alt-right triumphalist views based on race, religion and the Reconquista narrative; but it does a disfavor to those that were persecuted and exiled after the Civil War for maintaining that non-Catholic traditions were an integral part of Spanish culture, identity and history. Although I always write about "medieval Iberia" instead of medieval Spain - besides Dangler's wonderful arguments in "Why Iberia?, the "hispaniae" in De rebus hispaniae, the "Espanna" in the Estoria de Espanna, Sefarad and Al-Andalus designate the Eurasian peninsula south of the Pyrenees - I will never do the favor to Asensio-like scholars to leave Hispanism for them. It is battle that has been fought and is being won; I believe that to abandon it would be a mistake. Juan Escouridonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-53043363458069649312018-03-17T14:30:21.205-04:002018-03-17T14:30:21.205-04:00I absolutely love this response, Shamma. Your poin...I absolutely love this response, Shamma. Your points are both fair and accurate, and I thank you for articulating them. In particular, I think you've hit the nail on the head by pointing out my problematically fuzzy --or rather non-existent-- distinction between Iberianists and Hispanists. As someone trained in this latter tradition, I think my anxieties have much much more to do with the place of Medieval Iberia within Hispanism, rather than the place of broader Iberian Studies within Medieval Studies. My third post was written to reflect on some addition problems I see as related to our field --especially relating to the history/theory divide, hiring practices, intimidation, and silencing-- but having read your piece now, I really feel that these are in large measure quite specifically Hispanic Studies problems, and it is unfair to paint with such a broad brush. I'll be sure to acknowledge your essential points here in a revised version of this last post. And I'm sincerely looking forward to more dialogue. The positive and balanced tone of your rebuttal here is a beautiful thing that I can't thank you enough for. <br /><br />--CLAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com