Burton Postdoctoral Fellow, Ph.D.

Department of History
St. Joseph's University

5600 City Avenue, B/L 112
Philadelphia, PA 19131-1395

Contact Me


@ The Archivo Histórico Nacional-Sección Nobleza (Toledo, España)
EARLY FALL 2008 NEWS

Vote November 4, 2008

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Conference Activities and Another Podcast (Oct. 2008)

  • In October, I will be presenting a paper titled, "Promoting Family Piety and Nobility: Creating Cardinal Juan de Carvajal of Plasencia, Spain," at the Sixteenth Century Studies Society Conference.
  • Check out my other course podcast --
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Some Scholarly Associations of Interest (August 31, 2008)
  • The American Numismatic Society - "The mission of The American Numismatic Society is to be the preeminent national institution advancing the study and appreciation of coins, medals and related objects of all cultures as historical and artistic documents, by maintaining the foremost numismatic collection and library, by supporting scholarly research and publications, and by sponsoring educational and interpretive programs for diverse audiences."
  • The Sixteenth Century Society - "is a scholarly society that is interested in the early modern era (ca. 1450-ca. 1660). Our geographical scope is as worldwide as our membership. The society welcomes scholars from all disciplines who have an interest in early modern studies."
  • The Society Crypto-Judaic Studies - "was founded in 1991 in order to foster research and networking of information into the historical and contemporary development of crypto Jews of Iberian origin."
  • The Middle East Studies Association - "is a non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom."
  • The Society for Spanish Portuguese Historical Studies - was "founded in 1969 to promote research in all aspects and epochs of Iberian history and related disciplines. SSPHS conducts annual meetings, provides a forum for scholars of Iberian Affairs, awards prizes for books, articles and dissertations, and publishes its Bulletin triannually."


Carvajal Genetic Genealogy Update (August 20, 2008)



Interested in the history of the Medieval Mediterranean World? (August 18, 2008)

  • As a part of my St. Joseph's University course, HIS 2591, From Baghdad to Burgos: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean World (600 to 1600 c.e.), I'll be podcasting class lectures and discussions using iTunes U. If you are interested in being a "listening participant" in our class, please subscribe to the podcast. Also, you can download the syllabus and read along with us. --Learn More--

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Listen to the Opening Panel from the 18th Annual Society for Crypto Judaic-Studies Conference (August 17, 2008)

  • In this panel, Dr. Seth Kunin (University of Durham) discusses the "Diversity in Crypto-Jewish Religious Choices." Following is a response by Dr. Stanley Hordes (University of New Mexico).
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SUMMER 2008 NEWS

Personal News and Upcoming Events (July 2008)

 SPRING 2008 NEWS

Conferences of Interest

 Websites of Interest

  • The United Nations' Alliance of Civilizations. An incredible project involving academics and policy makers focused on celebrating our cultural commonalities. Its mission: "The Alliance of Civilizations (AoC) aims to improve understanding and cooperative relations among nations and peoples across cultures and religions and, in the process, to help counter the forces that fuel polarization and extremism."
  • Cultura Monterrey, The new municipal web for the Dirección de Cultura de Monterrey, Mexico. I posted this link as early modern Monterrey was a "hotbed" of secrets Jews in the New World.

Online Articles and Exhibitions of Interest
  • "A Man of Two Worlds," Saudi Aramco World, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2008). An interesting article on the 16th century Granadan Humanist, Al Hassan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fassi (a.k.a. Leo Africanus).
  • The Treaty of Tordesillas. The 1494 agreement negotiated between Spain and Portugal that laid the foundation for their shared claims in the Americas. It is a difficult document to "appreciate" given the negative consequences of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the Americas, but nonetheless, very significant. Among the Spaniards responsible for concluding the agreement was the Placentino Garci Lopez de Carvajal, the brother of Cardinal Bernardino Lopez de Carvajal. More reading: A digitalized copy of the original agreement (5.7 mb download) at the Ministerio de Cultura, Yale University's translation, and Wikipedia's discussion of the agreement.
FALL 2007 NEWS

NOVEMBER 8, 2007

On Protecting Our Civil Liberties: Freedom of Movement/Association and Censorship
  • I wanted to share some of my increasing concerns about civil liberties, privacy, and government censorship with others that visit my website.
  • If you travel internationally, one way you can do that is by learning more about what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is tracking regarding your movements in and out of the country, who you associate with during those trips, and even the books that you carry. --more--
  • If you receive packages from overseas, you might be interested to know the US government is actively censorsing audio-visual materials being mailed into the country. --more--

NOVEMBER 1, 2007

The Sixteenth Century Studies Conference and Eight Great Books

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the annual Sixteenth Century Studies Conference held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The conference brings together U.S. and international scholars of the historical, literary, and cultural events of the early modern world. This year, a considerable number of academic papers focused on Spain and colonial Spanish America -- most of which provided fascinating perspectives on: the "making" of Spanish saints, the impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the Americas, Spanish foreign policy, Spanish and Indian identities, the Jesuits, the lives of women, slavery and race, and religious reform. I would encourage you to review the conference program to learn more about this new scholarship. If you would like to read some of the most recent and best scholarship on these topics, do look into these recent texts:

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  • Jodi Bilinkoff's Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750. "In early modern Catholic Europe and its colonies priests frequently developed close relationships with pious women, serving as their spiritual directors during their lives, and their biographers after their deaths. In this richly illustrated book, Jodi Bilinkoff explores the ways in which clerics related to those female penitents whom they determined were spiritually gifted, and how they conveyed the live stories of these women to readers." -more-
  • A. Katie Harris' From Muslim to Christian Granada: Inventing a City's Past in Early Modern Spain. "In 1492, Granada, the last independent Muslim city on the Iberian Peninsula, fell to the Catholic forces of Ferdinand and Isabella. A century later, in 1595, treasure hunters unearthed some curious lead tablets inscribed in Arabic. The tablets documented the evangelization of Granada in the first century A.D. by St. Cecilio, the city’s first bishop. Granadinos greeted these curious documents, known as the plomos, and the human remains accompanying them as proof that their city—best known as the last outpost of Spanish Islam—was in truth Iberia’s most ancient Christian settlement." -more-
  • Gretchen D. Starr-LeBeau's In the Shadow of the Virgin: Inquisitors, Friars, and Conversos in Guadalupe, Spain. "On June 11, 1485, in the pilgrimage town of Guadalupe, the Holy Office of the Inquisition executed Alonso de Paredes--a converted Jew who posed an economic and political threat to the town's powerful friars--as a heretic. Wedding engrossing narratives of Paredes and other figures with astute historical analysis, this finely wrought study reconsiders the relationship between religious identity and political authority in late-Medieval and early-modern Spain. Gretchen Starr-LeBeau concentrates on the Inquisition's handling of conversos (converted Jews and their descendants) in Guadalupe, taking religious identity to be a complex phenomenon that was constantly re-imagined and reconstructed in light of changing personal circumstances and larger events." -more-
  • Carla Rahn Phillips' The Treasure of the San José: Death at Sea in the War of the Spanish Succession. "Sunk in a British ambush in 1708, the Spanish galleon San José was rumored to have one of the richest cargos ever lost at sea. Though treasure hunters have searched for the wreck's legendary bounty, no one knows exactly how much went down with the ship or exactly where it sank. Here, Carla Rahn Phillips confronts the legend of lost treasure with documentary records of the San José's final voyage and suggests that the loss of silver and gold en route to Spain paled in comparison to the loss of the six hundred men who went down with the ship." -more-
  • Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt's Religious Women in Golden Age Spain: The Permeable Cloister. "Through an examination of the role of nuns and the place of convents in both the spiritual and social landscape, this book analyzes the interaction of gender, religion and society in late medieval and early modern Spain. Author Elizabeth Lehfeldt here examines the tension between religious reform, which demanded that all nuns observe strict enclosure, and the traditional identity of Spanish nuns and their institutions, in which they were spiritually and temporally powerful women. Lehfeldt's work is based on the archival records of twenty-three convents in the city of Valladolid, and peninsula-wide documents that include visitation records, the constitutions of religious orders, and spiritual biographies." -more-
  • Martin Nesvig's Local Religion in Colonial Mexico. "The ten essays in Local Religion in Colonial Mexico provide information about the religious culture in colonial Mexico. Carlos Eire's essay begins the study with the meaning of "popular religion" in colonial Mexico. Antonio Rubial García looks at the use of icons. Martin Austin Nesvig's essay discusses Tlatelolco, a city near Tenochtitlan and the site of Mexico's college for Indian education where the Indians studied classical Latin, Spanish grammar, and Catholic theology in preparation for the priesthood." -more-
  • Mary Elizabeth Perry's The Handless Maiden: Moriscos and the Politics of Religion in Early Modern Spain. "In 1502, a decade of increasing tension between Muslims and Christians in Spain culminated in a royal decree that Muslims in Castile wanting to remain had to convert to Christianity. Mary Elizabeth Perry uses this event as the starting point for a remarkable exploration of how Moriscos, converted Muslims and their descendants, responded to their increasing disempowerment in sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century Spain. Stepping beyond traditional histories that have emphasized armed conflict from the view of victors, The Handless Maiden focuses on Morisco women. Perry argues that these women's lives offer vital new insights on the experiences of Moriscos in general, and on how the politics of religion both empowers and oppresses." -more-
  • Jonathan P. Decter's Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe. "This stimulating and graceful book explores Iberian Jewish attitudes toward cultural transition during the 12th and 13th centuries, when growing intolerance toward Jews in Islamic al-Andalus and the southward expansion of the Christian Reconquista led to the relocation of Jews from Islamic to Christian domains. By engaging literary topics such as imagery, structure, voice, landscape, and geography, Jonathan P. Decter traces attitudes toward transition that range from tenacious longing for the Islamic past to comfort in the Christian environment." -more-
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