All posts by Maya Soifer Irish

About Maya Soifer Irish

Dr. Maya Soifer Irish an Associate Professor of History at Rice University, whose research focuses on religious violence and toleration, and explores the legal, social, and economic situation of religious minorities in Iberian Christian societies. She is the author of many articles, including “Beyond convivencia: Critical Reflections on the Historiography of Interfaith Relations in Christian Spain.” Her first book, Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile: Tradition, Coexistence, and Change, explores the changes in Jewish-Christian relations in the kingdom of Castile between the 11th and 14th centuries. She is currently working on a new book, The Politics of Persecution in Medieval Spain: Toward the Anti-Jewish Riots of 1391. Between 2018 and 2021 she served as President of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS).

Job: Assistant Professor of Medieval History, History Department, UT-Austin

Jobs


The Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor to begin in Fall 2027. We seek a scholar to teach medieval Europe, excluding Spain, with additional expertise in premodern global interconnections, especially the contacts between cultures and societies along the overland or maritime Silk Road(s) that encompass Eurasia, 500-1500 CE, including China. We also encourage applications from specialists in diasporic medieval populations, including global Jewish communities beyond the Mediterranean. The successful candidate must be willing and able to teach in the core curriculum (particularly in the “Western Civilization” core area). Duties will include undergraduate and graduate teaching, research, and service to the department, college, and university.

Applications must be received no later than November 13, 2026.

More info and to apply




Book Prize: The David Blumenthal Prize in Medieval Jewish Studies.

Call for Applications

The David Blumenthal Prize in Medieval Jewish Studies selection committee is soliciting book-length manuscripts in Jewish Studies that utilize historical, literary, and philological methods for the study of Jewish life in the Islamic world as well as medieval Jewish Studies generally.

To be considered for the prize, submit your complete manuscripts to Katerina Sofianou (katerina.sofianou@degruytebrill.com).

 Deadline: November 1, 2026.

CFP: Turning the Image Around: Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, Satire, and Cultural Resistance across the Ages (International Research Workshop) 

Call for Papers

Department of the Arts and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 14 December 2026.

Deadline: Submission deadline: 11 October 2026

The Department of the Arts and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) invite proposals for an international workshop examining anti-Judaism and antisemitism, their representations and transformations, and the diverse strategies developed to challenge, reappropriate, and resist them from antiquity to the present. We therefore welcome contributions that examine not only the differences between anti-Judaism and antisemitism but also their continuities, ruptures, transformations, and conceptual boundaries. How do medieval religious stereotypes and myths relate to modern antisemitic imagery? When does tracing continuity illuminate the history of anti-Jewish hostility, and when does it obscure historically specific phenomena? How have older motifs been reformulated in response to changing media, audiences, ideologies, and political circumstances?

Full CFP