Around the table, from bottom left going clockwise, are: Professor Justin Sterns, NYU AD, Professor Sarah Pearce, NYU NY, Professor Ross Brann, Cornell University, Professor María López, NYU Madrid, Professor Almudena Ariza, NYU Madrid, Professor Mariano Gómez, NYU Madrid and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Professor Ana Echevarría, Universidad Nacional de Educacción a Distancia, Professor Marianeles Gallego, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and Professor Robert Lubar, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and Director, NYU Madrid.
On February 20-21, 2017, NYU Madrid convened a symposium in Abu Dhabi hosted by the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute. The symposium, Islam and Spain, featured talks and panels with four scholars from NYU Madrid as well as scholars from NYU, NYU Abu Dhabi, Cornell, and other institutions.
Islamic Spain is characterized as a uniquely productive cultural cooperation between the three Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Marking the 70th anniversary of the publication of Americo Castro’s España en su historia, the historiography that laid the groundwork for the understanding of medieval Islamic Spain, the symposium revisited key thematic issues from Castro’s work and reassessed them in light of the decades of scholarship that has evolved since. The goal was to explore the culture of Islamic Spain by focusing on specific intellectual, cultural, literary, and artistic developments, and moving away from the arguments surrounding the nature of medieval Spanish convivencia — the “living-togetherness” that Castro brought to light. NYU Madrid Site Director Robert Lubar organized the symposium, working closely with his faculty and the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute to hold the event.