Short Resource List for Toledo: Multicultural Challenges of Medieval Spain

If you would like to do some additional reading or research related to the Humanities West program on Toledo (Feb. 4 and 5, 2011), the following short list of recommended resources is a good starting point.

Chris Lowney’s A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain (2006, 320pp) focuses on the messy reality of a multicultural society in which the pragmatic need to coexist goes hand-in-hand with factionalism, political fragmentation, and ever-shifting alliances that often crossed cultural boundaries.  Maria Rosa Menocal gives a somewhat more idealized and romanticized view of “convivencia” in The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (2003, 352pp, available in Kindle format).  Menocal also co-authored (with Jerrilynn D. Dodds and Abigail Krasner Balbale) an award-winning study of cross-cultural influences in Castillian art, architecture, and literature: The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castillian Culture (2009, 416pp).  The book, which focuses on Toledo, is lavishly illustrated and includes a 64-page bibliographic essay and a detailed chronology.  Teofilo Ruiz, a featured speaker at the program, has created a Teaching Company video course, The Other 1492: Ferdinand, Isabella, and the Making of an Empire (12 half-hour lectures) which provides excellent historical background and context, although its emphasis is on the transition from medieval Iberia to modern Spain, rather than on the long period of Muslim/Christian/Jewish coexistence.