Ryan Szpiech

Current research interests:

I study the cultures and literatures of medieval Iberia, focusing especially on cultural interaction, exchange, and conflict. My interests converge around the concepts of conversion and of translation (of languages, alphabets, styles, beliefs, identities, and ideas) as tools 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, as well as in modern scholarly debates about how to frame the history and criticism of Medieval Iberia and its cultures (One, two, or three cultures? Conquest or reconquest? Tolerance or persecution?). I focus much of my research on polemics (disputes and arguments) between different religious groups, and I have published studies on figures as King Alfonso X "the Wise," Ramon Llull, Ramon Martí, Abner of Burgos (Alfonso of Valladolid), Anselm Turmeda ('Abdallah al-Tarjuman), Solomon Halevi (Pablo de Santa María), and Juan Andrés, among others. 

I am the author of a book on narratives of religious conversion and their function within polemical writing in the 12th to the 15th centuries, the editor of a book on medieval exegesis and cross-cultural contact and polemics, and co-editor of books on medieval polemics in Iberia and medieval astrolabes. I am now working on a biography of Muhammad XI (“Boabdil”), the last ruler of Muslim Granada, a project on the polemics against Islam in sixteenth-century Spain, and a monograph on the intersection of translation and discourse of genealogy in Arabic-to-Castilian translation during the reign of Alfonso X and the subsequent four kings (1252–1369). I have recently completed a documentary film about Alfonso X and his impact (https://birth-of-spanish.rll.lsa.umich.edu).

I am currently participating in two group projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy: “Fuentes medievales y modernas para el estudio de las relaciones transculturales en el Mediterráneo: redacción y transmisión.” (FFI2015-63659-C2-1-P MINECO/FEDER) ; and “Controversia religiosa renacentista: Los catecismos para la conversión de musulmanes en la España del siglo XVI.” (GC2018-093472-A-C33 (MINECO). I am also currently a member of the research group "Islamolatina" based at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/islamolatina/) and a collaborating member of IEMYRhd (Instituto de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas y de Humanidades Digitales) at the University of Salamanca.

I am currently co-editor of the book series The Iberian Religious World and editor of the journal Medieval Encounters.

Teaching interests: 

The representation of Muslims and Jews in medieval and early modern Romance literature; polemical debates between Jews, Christians, and Muslims; Aljamiado (Romance written in Arabic letters) and Ladino; medieval translation movements; Race and religion in the Middle Ages; Mediterranean Studies.