• Course begins March 29, 2025

  • Weekly live sessions with the instructor

  • Sessions from 11:00am - 12:30pm Eastern U.S. time

Week 1

Tariq Ibn Ziyad and “Conquest” Legends

Betrayal, vengeance, collaboration, and prophecy justify the Christian and Islamic narratives for the birth of al-Andalus or Muslim Spain in 711. This week we will set the scene by exploring the stories that shaped this new Islamicate reign as well as discuss important historical events and places. Specifically we will look at the Umayyad commander Tariq ibn Ziyad and the fall of the last Visigothic King, Roderic comparing the preservation of this history in Christian and Muslim sources.

Week 2

Maimonides and Jewish Thought

As one of the leading 12th-century Sephardi philosophers trained in theology, astronomy, and medicine, Moses ben Miamon, or Maimonides, functions as an exemplary figure for not only the interconnected exchange of thought in al-Andalus and the Mediterranean but also the significance of Jewish intellectual history and its influence on both Christian and Muslim scholars. We will explore some of his major contributions and the fascinating political backdrop of the shifting reign of the Almoravid empire to the stricter Almohads.

Week 3

Ibn ‘Arabī and Islamic Philosophy

Born some 30 years after Maimonides, Ibn ‘Arabī was a leading Andalusi polymath trained in philosophy, poetry, and mysticism. He is one of many impactful philosophers emerging from the Iberian Peninsula’s Sufi movement, a movement that had a lasting impact on both Iberian Islam and Iberian culture overall. We will explore his monist doctrine of “wahdat ul-wujud” (unity of being) alongside some other contributions from his contemporaries and their lasting influence then and now.

Week 4

Alfonso X and Toledean Translations

This week we will discuss the 13th-century Christian court of King Alfonso X. Often known as “el Sabio” (the Wise), he also earned the nickname of “el Astrólogo” (the Astrologer) for his interests and commissioning of various astrological and occult manuals continuing the earlier translation tradition of Toledo. He employed Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars to translate texts from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin and Castilian. We will explore some of these volumes like the famed Picatrix, a magical manual derived from the original 10th-century Andalusi Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm.

Week 5

Don Yllan and Fictional Learning

Fiction can tell us just as much about the past as chronicles and philosophical or scientific treatises can. This week we will take a closer look at one such 14th-century example from Don Juan Manuel’s Conde Lucanor, a text which contains, among other sections, 51 didactic exempla. We will discuss how magic is depicted and the ways in which the knowledge preserved in compendiums and disseminated by tutors mattered more than the religious origins of the practice, theory, or educators themselves.

Week 6

Núñez Muley and New Christians

We conclude the course by discussing the 16th-century Granadan Morisco Francisco Núñez Muley. He is most known for his petition in protest against the anti-Morisco edict of 1567. We will also outline the increasing restrictions non-Christians encountered after the fall of Granada in 1492 beginning with the expulsion of Jews who did not convert. Despite conversions, New Christians—both Conversos and Moriscos—faced many difficulties whether they were genuine converts or still clandestinely practiced Judaism or Islam respectively.

Meet Your Instructor

Veronica Menaldi

Veronica Menaldi is an independent scholar and vice president of the Societas Magica. She holds a PhD in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures from the University of Minnesota and is an expert in socioreligious cultural contact originating from the premodern Iberian Peninsula, addressing Andalusi influence or Morisco production on both sides of the Atlantic. A key aspect of her work is the exploration of how magic and food are represented and utilized in both fiction and surviving treatises. In addition to her monograph, Love Magic and Control in Premodern Iberian Literature (Routledge 2021), she has numerous publications and has presented at academic conferences worldwide. She has also taught university classes, remote workshops, and public lectures at institutions like the University of Colorado Boulder, St. Olaf College, the Mediterranean Seminar, and Art Muse—LA and Miami. Previously she also served as an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi. Beyond her scholarly contributions, she recently launched a public outreach social media endeavor @medievalmagicmodernmystic.

Begins March 29, 2025.

Access to course recordings and readings for 90 days after the first session.
Enroll now!