Convivencia: Representations, Knowledge and Identities, 500 - 1600 a.d.
Madrid, 27 - 30 May 2009

Organized by
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V. (MPG)

Convivencia is traditionally the term for designing the cooperative and
conflictual coexistence of Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities in
the medieval Iberian Peninsula. The conference will study this
phenomenon with regard to the interacting dimensions of representations,
knowledge and identities. Representation stands for all forms of
cultural production in art, religion, literature, science and law.
Knowledge includes not only science but also forms of practical, social
as well as other forms of knowledge. The concept of identity refers to
the individual and collective imaging of the self and the other.

The aim of the conference is to address a formative period of Europe
with its cultural and religious heterogeneity from a multidisciplinary
perspective. The encounters and exchanges between Jewish, Christian and
Islamic communities and elites constitute a historical laboratory of
great significance for understanding interaction and transformation
processes of cultures in the millennium between the decline of the Roman
Empire and the beginning of the early modern period. Aspects of these
processes have been studied by single disciplines in an isolated manner.
The challenge of the conference is to overcome such division and focus
instead on overarching questions which create an intense dialogue and
collaboration between the disciplines themselves.

Wednesday, 27 May

This session will be held in the CSIC Main Building. Serrano 117 - 28006
Madrid.

12.00 - 13.00 Press conference
16.00 - 17.00 Arrival and inscription
17.00 - 18.00 Opening ceremony
18.00 - 19.30 Public event

Abdellah Hammoudi (Princeton University)
Public lecture: Giving and Reciving Yeast: How to Keep Differing
Identities Together

David Nirenberg (The University of Chicago)
Public lecture: Convivencia y conflicto en Iberia

19.30 - 20.30 Vino Español

The following sessions will be held at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y
Sociales (CSIC). Albasanz 26-28 - 28037 Madrid.

Thursday, 28 May

Morning: 9.15 - 13.30

Session: The Appropiation of the Past Forms of Art and Science in New
Contexts

Chair: Eduardo Manzano (CSIC)

9.15 - 9.30 Opening remarks

9.30 - 10.00 Angelika Neuwirth (Freie Universität Berlin)
The Qur'an - A Text of Late Antiquity

10.00 - 10.30 Andreina Contessa (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Israel)
The Visualization of the Heavens in Medieval Manuscripts: From Ancient
Astronomical Imagery to Christian Scientific Illustration.

10.30 - 11.00 Regula Forster (Freie Universität Berlin)
Transmission of Knowledge through Literature: The Literary Frames of the
Pseudo - Aristotelian Sirr al-Asrar and Kitab al-Tuffaha

Break: 11.00 - 11.30

Chair: Karl Rudolf (Österreichisches Historisches Institut, Madrid)

11.30 - 12.00 Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute London)
Gates of Paradise. Getting into Medieval Spain

12.00 - 12.30 Cynthia Robinson (Cornell University)
Purposeful Polyvalence: Christ, the Virgin, Polemic and Devotions in a
Multi-Confessional Castile (15th c.)

12.30 - 13.00 Beatrice Gruendler (Yale University)
Books, Notes, and Words: Communicative Choices on the Eve of
Arabic-Islamic Book Culture (3rd Century AH/9th Century CE)

13.00 - 13.30 Felipe Pereda (Universidad Complutense Madrid)
Sacred Images and Conversions in Early Modern Spain

General discussion

13.30 - 15.00 Internal lunch break

Afternoon: 15.00 - 19.00

Session: Representation of Contact and Conflict in Texts and Images

Chair: Nikolas Jaspert (Bochum University)

15.00 - 15.30 Maria Rosa Menocal (Yale University)
On Convivencia

15.30 - 16.00 Esperanza Alfonso (CSIC Madrid)
The Forgotten Sheaf: Exegesis and Poetry from Granada to Tlemcen

16.00 - 16.30 José Martinez Gázquez (Universidad Autònoma Barcelona)
The Representation of Islam in Medieval Texts of the "Corpus
Islamolatinum"

Break: 16.30 - 17.00

17.00 - 17.30 Rosa María Rodriguez Porto (Universidade de Santiago de
Compostela)
Anatopic Visions, Displaced Conflicts. Translations of Romans Antiques
in Medieval Castile

17.30 - 18.00 Claudia Rückert (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Islamophobic Tendencies in the Romanesque Sculpture of Northern Spain
and France?

18.00 - 18.30 Ryan Szpiech (University of Michigan)
Hermeneutical Muslims? Islam as Witness in Christian anti-Jewish Polemic

18.30 - 19.00 Avinoam Shalem (LMU München)
Face to Face: Cordoba and Baghdad

General discussion

Friday 29 May

Session: Transmission and Transformation of Institutional and Legal
Models

Chair: Klaus Herbers (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)

Morning: 9.00 - 13.30

9.00 - 9.30 Benjamin Jokisch (Universität Freiburg)
The Interwitness of Islamic and Roman Law

9.30 - 10.00 David Sánchez Cano (Madrid)
Dancing for the Corpus. Muslim and Jewish Participation in Courtly and
Religious Festivals

10.00 - 10.30 Hussein Fancy Anwar (University of Michigan)
The Mercenary Mediterranean, or The Microecology of Law

10.30 - 11.00 Sonja Brentjes (Universidad Sevilla)
The Shift from Faith-Neutral to Faith-Based Scholarly Communities in
Islamic Societies

Break: 11.00 - 11.30

Chair: Reinhard Zimmermann (Max-Planck-Institut für Ausländisches und
Internationales Privatrecht)

11.30 - 12.00 Ana Echevarría (UNED, Madrid)
Representation and Knowledge of Islam among Castilian Muslims: Burials
and Rites

12.00 - 12.30 Stefania Pastore (Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa)
From Popular to Intellectual Averroism: the "Marrano" Diego Hurtado de
Mendoza

12.30 - 13.00 Sabine Schmidtke (Freie Universität Berlin)
David b. Joshua Maimonides' (fl. ca. 1335 - 1410) Commentary on Najm
al-Din al-Katibi's (d. 657/1276) al-Risala al-Shamsiyya

13.00 - 13.30 Günther Schlee (Max Planck Institute for Social
Anthropology)
Ethnic and Religious Differences in the Study of Conflict and Social
Integration: Exploration of a Comparative Perspective with a Focus on
Convivencia Elsewhere and the other Way Round

General discussion

13.30 - 15.00 Internal lunch break

Afternoon 15.00 - 17.30

Session: Spaces of Convivencia (Learning Places, Sacred and Profane
Spaces, etc.)

Chair: Mariano Gómez Aranda (CSIC)

15.00 - 15.30 Eleazar Gutwirth (Tel Aviv University)
Belatedness, History and Authorship: Medieval Spain

15.30 - 16.00 Mercè Comes, Mónica Herrera (University of Barcelona)
Nautical Cartography as a Means of Intercultural Exchange: Some
Mediterranean Chartmakers as Intermediaries between East and West

16.00 - 16.30 Henrik Karge (TU Dresden)
Image and Space in Christian Andalusia. Ecclesiastical Buildings and
Holy Images in the Neighbourhood of Islam

16.30 - 17.00 Marina Rustow (Emory University)
Language, Power, and Cultural Transmission: Sicilian Jews and the
Polyglot Phenomenon

17.00 - 17.30 Matthias Tischler (Dresden University)
Spaces of 'Convivencia' or Spaces of 'Polemics'? Tracking Manuscripts of
Christian Anti-Muslim Traditions in the Intellectual Landscape of the
Iberian Peninsula, 9th to 13th Centuries

18.30 - 20.00 Guided visit to the Prado Museum

20.30 - 22.30 Dinner

Saturday 30 May

General discussion
Chair: Maribel Fierro (CSIC)

11:30 - 12:00 Richard Bulliet (Columbia University New York)
Some Reflections on the Conference

12.00 - 13.00 Round table with session chairs (Eduardo Manzano, Karl
Rudolf, Nikolas Jaspert, Klaus Herbers, Reinhard Zimmermann, Mariano
Gómez Aranda, and Maribel Fierro)

13.00 - 14.00 Concluding remarks
Rivka Feldhay (Tel-Aviv University)
Gerhard Wolf (Max Planck Institute Kunsthistorisches Institut Florence)
Jürgen Renn (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin)
Mercedes García Arenal (CSIC Madrid)

Contact:
http://www.proyectos.cchs.csic.es/convivencia/node/1
e-mail: convivencia2009cchs.csic.es

Telephone:
+34 91 602 26 67 (Secretary of CCHS)

Address:
Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales
CSIC
Albasanz, 26-28. Madrid 28037 (SPAIN).
Telephone: +34 91 602 23 00 - Fax: +34 91 602 29 71