“The Spanish Empire and the Mediterranean: New Directions”
A Kayden Book Prize Symposium
Thursday, 21 April 2021, 12:30-6:00pm
Program

Presented by:
The CU Mediterranean Studies Group & the Mediterranean Seminar
With the special support of:
The Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization
The CU President’s Fund for the Humanities
Eugene M. Kayden Awards
The Center for Humanities & the Arts

This Kayden Book Award symposium, in honor of Céline Dauverd’s Church and State in Spanish Italy: Rituals and Legitimacy in the Kingdom of Naples (Cambridge: 2020) explores approaches to the study of the premodern Spanish Empire in the Mediterranean and beyond. Scholars from across the Humanities will discuss topics including New World representations of power, minority relations through gender, Iberian expansion into Jerusalem, the creation of myths, and Spanish imperial thalassology. Focusing on gender, race, imperialism, language, religion, and policy, this event seeks to examine the multiple ways Spanish rulers established a Euro-Mediterranean imperium that became the first truly global empire.     

To be held on Thursday, 21 April 2021, 12:30-6:00pm at the Flatirons room at CU Boulder’s Center for Community (C4C)
This is an in-person event, but will be streamed via zoom to registered audience members who request remote access (zooms://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96560819126). Download the poster.

Register here by 5pm 18 April

Program

12:45 – 1:15pm Registration (coffee and light refreshments)

1:15-30 Opening remarks
• Brian A. Catlos (Religious Studies, CU Boulder)
• Céline Dauverd (History, CU Boulder)

1:30-2:20 “Sacred Monarchs and the Science of Myth: Spain in European Context”
• Luis Corteguera  (History, University of Kansas)
• Moderator: Céline Dauverd

2:30-3:20 “Empire in the Oikumene: Situating Spain’s Mediterranean Interests in its Early Modern Global Empire”
• Andrew Devereux (History, University of California San Diego)
• Moderator: Céline Dauverd

3:30: 4:30 Round Table: How does a Mediterranean-centered analysis assist in understanding the Spanish Empire? In what way does a study of Spanish history outside of the peninsula itself invigorate our understanding of premodern empires?  
• Moderator: Brian A. Catlos
1.     Núria Silleras-Fernández (Spanish and Portuguese, CU Boulder) “Reframing the Golden Age: A Mediterranean-Centered Analysis and Cultural Exchange”
2.     Gerardo Gutiérrez (Anthropology, CU Boulder) “Colonial Nahua Heraldry in San Miguel Chiepetlan, Guerrero, during the War of Spanish Succession: Old and New allegiances“
3.     Chad Leahy (Spanish Language, Literary & Cultural Studies, University of Denver) “Re-Orientations: Spain and Jerusalem in the longue durée"

4:30-4:45 coffee break

4:45- 5:45 Round Table: To what extent does a history from below constitute a crucial aspect of the relation between center and periphery? What was the relationship between minority communities and the notion of a homogenous, universal, and Christian empire? 
• Moderator: Bob Ferry (History, CU Boulder)
1.     James Córdova (Art & Art History, CU Boulder) “Center and periphery in the canon of art history”
2.     Rebecca Wartell (Jewish Studies, CU Boulder) “The Exiled Bride: Early Modern Jewish and Conversa Widows”
3.     Roger Martínez Dávila (History, CU Colorado Springs) “I have only done as you have commanded”
4.     Diane Sieber (Engineering, Ethics and Society, CU Boulder) “Morisca Narratives of Absence, Loss and Displacement”

5:45–6:00 Closing remarks
• Brian Catlos & Céline Dauverd

Thank you to graduate student asssitants:
• Kate Foster (History, CU Boulder)
• Matthew Greenlee (History, CU Boulder)
• Ian Hogg (History, CU Boulder)

For administrative assistance, thanks to:
• Allie Besant (Religious Studies)
• Barbara Middlebrook (Religious Studies)

This event is made possible by the support of the following units: Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, Humanities, Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization, Classics, History, French & Italian, Asian Languages and Civilizations, Spanish and Portuguese, Philosophy, and Art and Art History. Administrative support provided by Religious Studies.