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).

“Sephardic Culture: An Introduction” – Summer Skills Seminar (8-11 July: remote)

The Mediterranean Seminar Summer Skills Seminars are intensive, interactive four-day workshops that provide students, scholars, and professionals with the foundational training in technical skills related to Mediterranean Studies. The Seminars, run by leading scholars, emphasize hands-on reading complemented by supplementary and contextual topics. This Summer Skills Seminar provides participants with and introduction to and overview of Sephardic thought from the 11th to 17th centuries, with representative readings in rabbinics, polemic, poetry, historiography, travel narrative, mysticism, and philosophy.

Application deadline: April 15, 2024