Associate Professor of Spanish and Judaic Studies
szpiech@umich.eduOffice Information:
phone: 734-489-3727
Education/Degree:
Ph.D. Yale University, 2006About
I study the cultures and literatures of medieval Iberia, focusing especially on cultural interaction, exchange, and conflict. My interests converge around the concept of translation (of languages, alphabets, styles, beliefs, identities, and ideas) as a tool for defining the relations between Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
I am particularly interested in conversion as a vehicle for exchange (real and imagined) between disparate groups. I have focused much of my research on the fourteenth-century convert Abner of Burgos (known as Alfonso of Valladolid after conversion). I have written a book on narratives of religious conversion and their function within polemical writing in the 12th to the 15th centuries, edited a number of books on exegesis, science, and polemical writing, and I am now working on a number of smaller projects on the Dagger of Faith of the Dominican polemicist Raymond Martini and the use of Islam as a hermeneutic device by Christians in fourteenth-century anti-Jewish polemic.
I have also participated in two team research projects in Europe studying the role of the Bible in late-medieval Sephardic culture: one led by Dr. Esperanza Alfonso at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, entitled, "The Intellectual and Material Legacies of Late-Medieval Sephardic Judaism: An Interdisciplinary Approach" (supported by a four-year Starting Grant from the European Research Council), and the other led by Dr. Javier del Barco, also at the Consejo Superior, entitled "Legacy of Sepharad: The Material and Intellectual Production of Late Medieval Sephardic Judaism" (supported by a Grant from Spain's 6th National Research, Development, and Technological Innovation Plan or “Plan National de I+D+i”). For more information, see http://www.lineas.cchs.csic.es/inteleg/content/presentación.
Selected Publications:
Books and Journal Issues
- (2013) Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic
- (2019) Astrolabes in Medieval Cultures. Co-edited with Charles Burnett, Silke Ackermann, and Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
- (2015) Medieval Exegesis and Religious Difference: Commentary, Conflict, and Community in the Premodern Mediterranean.
- (2014) “A Sea of Stories: Writings and Reflections in Honor of María Rosa Menocal.” Special issue co-edited by Ryan Szpiech and Lourdes Maria Alvarez. La Corónica 43.1 (2014): 93–255.
- (2011) “Between Gender and Genre in Later-Medieval Sepharad: Love, Sex, and Polemics in Hebrew Writing From Christian Iberia.” Special issue edited by Ryan Szpiech. Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 3.2 (2011): 119–217.
Selected Articles and Chapters
- “Prisons and Polemics: Captivity, Confinement, and Medieval Inter-religious Encounter.” In Polemical Encounters: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Iberia and Beyond, ed. Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, 271–303. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2019.
- “L’hérésie absente: karaïsme et karaïtes dans les œuvres polémiques d’Alfonso de Valladolid (m. v. 1347).” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 182 (2018): 191–207.
- “The Perennial Importance of Mary’s Virginity and Jesus’ Divinity: Qur’anic Quotations in Iberian Polemics after the Conquest of Granada (1492)”. Co- authored with Mercedes García-Arenal and Katarzyna Starczewska. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 20.3 (2018): 51–80.
- “Deleytaste del dulce sono y no pensaste en las palabras: Rendering Arabic in the antialcoranes.” Co-authored with Mercedes García-Arenal and Katarzyna Starczewska. Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 5.1 (2018): 99–132.
- “Conversion as a Historiographical Problem: The Case of Zoraya/Isabel de Solís.” In Contesting Inter-Religious Conversion in the Medieval World, ed. Yaniv Fox and Yosi Yisraeli. New York: Routledge, 2017. 24‒38.
- “From Convert to Convert: Two Opposed Trends in Late Medieval and Early Modern Anti-Jewish Polemic.” In Revealing the Secrets of the Jews: Johannes Pfefferkorn and Christian Writings about Jewish Life and Literature in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jonathan Adams and Cordelia Hess, 219‒244. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.
- “The Art of Amazement: Wonder and Fictionality in Ramon Llull’s Vita coaetanea (1311).” Butlletí de la Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona 55 (2015–2016): 223–254.
- “‘Testes sunt ipsi, testis et erroris ipsius magister’: El musulmán como testigo en la polémica cristiana medieval.” Medievalia 19.2 (2016): 133‒153.
- “Translating Between the Lines: Medieval Polemic and Romance Bibles.” Medieval Encounters 22.1‒3 (2016): 113–139.
- “Cracking the Code: Reflections on Manuscripts in the Age of Digital Books.” Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 3.1 (2014): 76–301.
- “The Aura of an Alphabet: Gospel Citations in Hebrew in the Pugio Fidei of Ramón Martí.” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions 61, no. 4 (2014): 334–63.
- “‘Petrus Alfonsi…Erred Greatly’: Alfonso of Valladolid's (d. ca. 1347) Imitation and Critique of Petrus Alfonsi's Dialogus.” In Petrus Alfonsi and his Dialogus: Background, Context, Reception, edited by Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann and Philipp Roelli, 321–48. Micrologus’ Library 66. Florence: Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2014.
- “La disputa de Barcelona como punto de inflexión.” Studia Lulliana 54 (2014): 3–32.
- “Rhetorical Muslims: Islam as Witness in Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic.” Al-Qantara: Revista de Estudios Árabes 34.1 (2013): 153–185.
- “The Convivencia Wars: Decoding Historiography’s Polemic with Philology.” In A Sea of Languages: Literature and Culture in the Pre-modern Mediterranean. Ed. Susan Akbari and Karla Malette. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.
- “Preaching Paul to the Moriscos in the Confusión o confutación de la secta Mahomética y del Alcorán (1515) by Juan Andrés.” La Corónica 41.1 (2012).
- “Latin as a Language of Authoritative Tradition.” Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature.Ed. Ralph Hexter and David Townsend. Oxford University Press. 63–85.
- “Citas árabes en caracteres hebreos en el Pugio fidei del dominico Ramón Martí: entre la autenticidad y la autoridad.” [Includes study and critical edition of the Arabic and Latin texts followed by a Castilian translation of both.] Al-Qantara: Revista de Estudios Árabes 32.1 (2011): 71–107. http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es/index.php/al-qantara/article/view/250/244
- “In Search of Ibn Sina’s ‘Oriental Philosophy’ in Medieval Castile.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 20 (2010): 185-206.
Recent graduate courses taught:
Translation and Anxiety
Narrating Conversion in the Medieval Mediterranean
This Text which is not One: Five Ways of Reading the Libro de buen amor
Recent undergraduate courses taught:
The cultural world of Alfonso X
From the Cid to Cide Hamete: Representations of Muslims in Medieval and Early-Modern Iberian Literatures
Introduction to Aljamiado writing
Medieval Frame-Tale Narratives
Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Iberia
Conversion and Conversos in Fifteenth-Century Iberian Literature
Castilian Chivalry and the Libro del Caballero Zifar
The Literatures of Iberia 900-1700
Originals, Copies, and Translations
Research Areas(s)
- Medieval Iberian Literatures, Converso Studies, Medieval Islam, Religious Polemics
About
I study the cultures and literatures of medieval Iberia, focusing especially on cultural interaction, exchange, and conflict. My interests converge around the concept of translation (of languages, alphabets, styles, beliefs, identities, and ideas) as a tool for defining the relations between Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
I am particularly interested in conversion as a vehicle for exchange (real and imagined) between disparate groups. I have focused much of my research on the fourteenth-century convert Abner of Burgos (known as Alfonso of Valladolid after conversion). I have written a book on narratives of religious conversion and their function within polemical writing in the 12th to the 15th centuries, edited a number of books on exegesis, science, and polemical writing, and I am now working on a number of smaller projects on the Dagger of Faith of the Dominican polemicist Raymond Martini and the use of Islam as a hermeneutic device by Christians in fourteenth-century anti-Jewish polemic.
I have also participated in two team research projects in Europe studying the role of the Bible in late-medieval Sephardic culture: one led by Dr. Esperanza Alfonso at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, entitled, "The Intellectual and Material Legacies of Late-Medieval Sephardic Judaism: An Interdisciplinary Approach" (supported by a four-year Starting Grant from the European Research Council), and the other led by Dr. Javier del Barco, also at the Consejo Superior, entitled "Legacy of Sepharad: The Material and Intellectual Production of Late Medieval Sephardic Judaism" (supported by a Grant from Spain's 6th National Research, Development, and Technological Innovation Plan or “Plan National de I+D+i”). For more information, see http://www.lineas.cchs.csic.es/inteleg/content/presentación.
Selected Publications:
Books and Journal Issues
- (2013) Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic
- (2019) Astrolabes in Medieval Cultures. Co-edited with Charles Burnett, Silke Ackermann, and Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
- (2015) Medieval Exegesis and Religious Difference: Commentary, Conflict, and Community in the Premodern Mediterranean.
- (2014) “A Sea of Stories: Writings and Reflections in Honor of María Rosa Menocal.” Special issue co-edited by Ryan Szpiech and Lourdes Maria Alvarez. La Corónica 43.1 (2014): 93–255.
- (2011) “Between Gender and Genre in Later-Medieval Sepharad: Love, Sex, and Polemics in Hebrew Writing From Christian Iberia.” Special issue edited by Ryan Szpiech. Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 3.2 (2011): 119–217.
Selected Articles and Chapters
- “Prisons and Polemics: Captivity, Confinement, and Medieval Inter-religious Encounter.” In Polemical Encounters: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Iberia and Beyond, ed. Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, 271–303. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2019.
- “L’hérésie absente: karaïsme et karaïtes dans les œuvres polémiques d’Alfonso de Valladolid (m. v. 1347).” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 182 (2018): 191–207.
- “The Perennial Importance of Mary’s Virginity and Jesus’ Divinity: Qur’anic Quotations in Iberian Polemics after the Conquest of Granada (1492)”. Co- authored with Mercedes García-Arenal and Katarzyna Starczewska. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 20.3 (2018): 51–80.
- “Deleytaste del dulce sono y no pensaste en las palabras: Rendering Arabic in the antialcoranes.” Co-authored with Mercedes García-Arenal and Katarzyna Starczewska. Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 5.1 (2018): 99–132.
- “Conversion as a Historiographical Problem: The Case of Zoraya/Isabel de Solís.” In Contesting Inter-Religious Conversion in the Medieval World, ed. Yaniv Fox and Yosi Yisraeli. New York: Routledge, 2017. 24‒38.
- “From Convert to Convert: Two Opposed Trends in Late Medieval and Early Modern Anti-Jewish Polemic.” In Revealing the Secrets of the Jews: Johannes Pfefferkorn and Christian Writings about Jewish Life and Literature in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jonathan Adams and Cordelia Hess, 219‒244. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.
- “The Art of Amazement: Wonder and Fictionality in Ramon Llull’s Vita coaetanea (1311).” Butlletí de la Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona 55 (2015–2016): 223–254.
- “‘Testes sunt ipsi, testis et erroris ipsius magister’: El musulmán como testigo en la polémica cristiana medieval.” Medievalia 19.2 (2016): 133‒153.
- “Translating Between the Lines: Medieval Polemic and Romance Bibles.” Medieval Encounters 22.1‒3 (2016): 113–139.
- “Cracking the Code: Reflections on Manuscripts in the Age of Digital Books.” Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 3.1 (2014): 76–301.
- “The Aura of an Alphabet: Gospel Citations in Hebrew in the Pugio Fidei of Ramón Martí.” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions 61, no. 4 (2014): 334–63.
- “‘Petrus Alfonsi…Erred Greatly’: Alfonso of Valladolid's (d. ca. 1347) Imitation and Critique of Petrus Alfonsi's Dialogus.” In Petrus Alfonsi and his Dialogus: Background, Context, Reception, edited by Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann and Philipp Roelli, 321–48. Micrologus’ Library 66. Florence: Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2014.
- “La disputa de Barcelona como punto de inflexión.” Studia Lulliana 54 (2014): 3–32.
- “Rhetorical Muslims: Islam as Witness in Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic.” Al-Qantara: Revista de Estudios Árabes 34.1 (2013): 153–185.
- “The Convivencia Wars: Decoding Historiography’s Polemic with Philology.” In A Sea of Languages: Literature and Culture in the Pre-modern Mediterranean. Ed. Susan Akbari and Karla Malette. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.
- “Preaching Paul to the Moriscos in the Confusión o confutación de la secta Mahomética y del Alcorán (1515) by Juan Andrés.” La Corónica 41.1 (2012).
- “Latin as a Language of Authoritative Tradition.” Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature.Ed. Ralph Hexter and David Townsend. Oxford University Press. 63–85.
- “Citas árabes en caracteres hebreos en el Pugio fidei del dominico Ramón Martí: entre la autenticidad y la autoridad.” [Includes study and critical edition of the Arabic and Latin texts followed by a Castilian translation of both.] Al-Qantara: Revista de Estudios Árabes 32.1 (2011): 71–107. http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es/index.php/al-qantara/article/view/250/244
- “In Search of Ibn Sina’s ‘Oriental Philosophy’ in Medieval Castile.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 20 (2010): 185-206.
Recent graduate courses taught:
Translation and Anxiety
Narrating Conversion in the Medieval Mediterranean
This Text which is not One: Five Ways of Reading the Libro de buen amor
Recent undergraduate courses taught:
The cultural world of Alfonso X
From the Cid to Cide Hamete: Representations of Muslims in Medieval and Early-Modern Iberian Literatures
Introduction to Aljamiado writing
Medieval Frame-Tale Narratives
Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Iberia
Conversion and Conversos in Fifteenth-Century Iberian Literature
Castilian Chivalry and the Libro del Caballero Zifar
The Literatures of Iberia 900-1700
Originals, Copies, and Translations
Research Areas(s)
- Medieval Iberian Literatures, Converso Studies, Medieval Islam, Religious Polemics
