How does Al-Andalus return in the present? Why do literary and cultural memories of the medieval past continue to travel across borders and generations?

In this episode,Cristina Moreno-Almeida speaks with Eric Calderwood about the afterlives of Al-Andalus in modern literature, culture, and politics. Together they explore how Al-Andalus has become a recurring reference point and literary trope, how memories of Al-Andalus have travelled across the Mediterranean, and why the past continues to be reimagined in contemporary cultural and political contexts.

In this Episode

0:00 Intro

0:47 Trailer

1:40 What does Al-Andalus mean today?

04:18 Al-Andalus as myth,

10:09 The complexities of studying Al-Andalus

11:43 Colonial Al-Andalus

21:54 How is Al-Andalus studied and remembered in the Middle East andNorth Africa nowadays?

36:02 Al-Andalus as contradiction

37:41 Book and film recommendations

41:39 Lightning round

About the Guest

Eric Calderwood is Professor of Comparative and World Literature at the University of Illinois, specialising in North African literature and film, Al-Andalus (Medieval MuslimIberia), modern Spanish literature and film, Arabic literature, Mediterranean studies, postcolonial studies, and travel writing. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2011 and his B.A. from Brown University in 2003. His recent publications include On Earth or in Poems: The Many Lives of al-Andalus (Harvard University Press, 2023), and scholarlyarticles in journals such as PMLA, Journal of Arabic Literature,and Journal of North African Studies. Calderwood’s work continues to shape contemporary understandings of cultural translation, colonial imaginaries, and literary histories across the Mediterranean and beyond.

Latest book https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674980365

Learn more: https://spanport.illinois.edu/directory/profile/ecalderw

About the Project

'Digital Al Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through Al Andalus’ (2023-2028) is an ERC selected, UKRI funded project exploring the uses, abuses, and afterlives of medieval history in contemporary culture and politics.

The series brings together historians, media scholars, and cultural critics to examine how the past is remembered, mythologized, and mobilised today, from medieval Iberia todigital culture and online misinformation.

Learn more: https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Credits Producer,editing and sound: The Lens Box (email: studio@thelensbox.com; Instagram@thelensbox)

Artwork: Kate NunnFelip Docolomansky

Follow the Podcast

YouTube: @digitalal-andalus

Instagram:@digitalalandalus

Website: https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Support the ProjectIf you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing, sharing the podcast, or leaving a review. It helps others discover the series and supports independent public history projects.

What happens when the past becomes a political weapon? Why are some versions of the past more powerful than others?In this episode, Cristina Moreno-Almeida speaks with historian Louie Dean Valencia about the political uses of history, the rise of far-right revisionism, and the responsibilities of historians in an age of digital misinformation. Together, they explore why the past remains such a powerful resource for shaping identities and political narratives, how nostalgia can be mobilised to exclude and divide, and why understanding history matters more than ever.In this Episode0:00 Introduction0:47 Trailer1:50 How do far-right groups manipulate memory?7:50 Alternative histories17:55 Nostalgia & far-right messaging22:03 How can we counter the instrumentalisation of history?28:50 Lightning RoundAbout the GuestLouie Dean Valencia is the NEH Distinguished Professor in the Humanities (2024–2027) at Texas State University, where he also serves as Director of the Texas Center for Public History and Associate Professor of Digital History. Dr. Valencia’s research interests span Europe, Spain, youth movements, digital history, music, film, visual culture, and historical memory. He earned his Ph.D. in Early and Late Modern European History from Fordham University and has taught at Harvard University. His work has been supported by prestigious institutions including the U.S. Library of Congress, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of Education, and the American Council of Learned Societies. His books include Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History (2020) and Antiauthoritarian Youth Culture in Francoist Spain (2018). He is editor of a forthcoming series on counterculture and serves on editorial boards for Popular Culture Review, Modern History of Politics and Violence, and Revista Internacional de Estudios sobre Terrorismo. He is also a member of the Emotions in European Politics network. An internationally recognised scholar and speaker, Dr. Valencia’s work explores how youth engage in social change through technology, art, counterculture, celebrity, and public spaces. Latest book Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History (2020) Learn more: https://www.txst.edu/history/people/faculty-staff/valencia.htmlAbout the Project'Digital Al Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through Al Andalus (2023-2038)' is an ERC selected, UKRI funded project (https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP/X042251/1) exploring the uses, abuses, and afterlives of medieval history in contemporary culture and politics.The series brings together historians, media scholars, and cultural critics to examine how the past is remembered, mythologized, and mobilised today, from medieval Iberia to digital culture and online misinformation.Learn more:https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/ CreditsProducer, editing and sound:The Lens Box (email: studio@thelensbox.com; Instagram @thelensbox)Artwork:Kate NunnFelip Docolomansky Follow the PodcastYouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalAl-AndalusInstagram:@digitalalandalus Website:https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/Support the ProjectIf you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing, sharing the podcast, or leaving a review. It helps others discover the series and supports independent public history projects.

How do historians find people and ideas that barely appearin the historical record? And what can those silences tell us about themedieval past?

In this episode, Cristina Moreno-Almeida speaks withmedieval historian Delfi Nieto-Isabel about who gets remembered, who getserased, and how historians recover hidden histories, and the digital toolshelping scholars uncover overlooked histories. Together they explore how ideastravelled across the medieval Mediterranean, why rumours and misinformation are older than we might think, and how historians can recover voices that rarelymade it into official records.

In This Episode

0:00 Introduction

0:47 Trailer

2:00 What makes Al-Andalus inspiring for a historian today?

6:28 Questioning historical narratives

13:25 Confrontational politics & othering

19:17 Myth making in the past & today

24:24 How can historical research reach the people?

33:41 Lightning Round

About the Guest

Delfi Nieto-Isabel is a Lecturer in Medieval and DigitalHistory and Associate Fellow of the Institute for the Humanities and SocialSciences of Queen Mary University of London. She started out as a physicist andthen became a medievalist. She got her PhD at the University of Barcelona in2018, was a Research Associate and Visiting Lecturer in the Women’s Studies inReligion Program at Harvard Divinity School in 2021-22, and a MarieSkłodowska–Curie Fellow at Queen Mary. Currently, she's an Academic Fellow ofQueen Mary's Digital Environment Research Institute, a Fellow of the RoyalHistorical Society, and the Co-Director of the Digital Lives Programme at QueenMary's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her research and teachingrevolve around religious dissent, persecution and women's history.

Forthcoming book: Networks of Defiance. Women and Heretical Conversion in Late Medieval Languedoc (Cornell University Press)

Learn more:https://www.qmul.ac.uk/history/people/academic-staff/profiles/nieto-isabel-dr-delfi-i-.html

About the Project

'Digital Al Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through AlAndalus (2023-2038)' is an ERC selected, UKRI funded project(https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP/X042251/1) exploring the uses, abuses,and afterlives of medieval history in contemporary culture and politics.

The series brings together historians, media scholars, andcultural critics to examine how the past is remembered, mythologized, andmobilised today, from medieval Iberia to digital culture and onlinemisinformation.

Learn more: https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Credits

Producer, editing and sound: The Lens Box (email: studio@thelensbox.com; Instagram @thelensbox)

Artwork: Kate Nunn, Felip Docolomansky

Follow the Podcast

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalAl-Andalus

Instagram:@digitalalandalus

Website: https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Support the Project

If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing, sharingthe podcast, or leaving a review. It helps others discover the series andsupports independent public history projects.

What do people really mean when they talk about Al-Andalus? Was medieval Iberia a model of coexistence, a lost paradise, or something far more complex?

In this episode, Cristina Moreno-Almeida speaks with historian Eduardo Manzano Moreno about the historical realities of Al-Andalus and the many ways it has been remembered, romanticised, and politically mobilised over time. Together they explore coexistence and conflict in medieval Iberia, the limits of the idea of 'convivencia', and why simplified versions of the past continue to resonate today.

In this episode

0:00 Introduction

0:47 Trailer

1:46 The legacy of Al-Andalus

12:27 The myth and reality of convivencia

24:42 Romanticisation & its political pitfalls

36:28 What we can learn from Al-Andalus today

40:28 Lightning Round

About the Guest

Eduardo Manzano Moreno is a Research Professor at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), where he served as director from 2006 to 2012. He specialises in Al-Andalus and medieval Spanish history. He holds a Ph.D. in Medieval History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master of Arts in Near Eastern Studies from the University of London (SOAS). His international academic presence includes roles as a visiting scholar at St. John's College, University of Oxford, and as a guest professor at the University of Chicago. Among his notable publications are Conquistadores, emires y califas. Los Omeyas y la formación de al-Andalus (2006), and La corte del califa. Cuatro años en la Córdoba de los califas omeyas (2019), both published by Editorial Crítica. Beyond medieval Islamic history, Manzano has explored the political uses of historical narratives. His co-authored book La gestión de la memoria. La historia de España al servicio del poder (2000) critically examines how history is employed to shape national identity. He also contributed to the multi-volume Historia de España project, publishing Épocas medievales in 2010. In 2024, he released España diversa. Claves de una historia plural, offering insights into Spain’s multifaceted historical identity. His work continues to influence both scholarly discourse and public understanding of Spain’s complex past.

Learn more:

https://cchs.csic.es/en/personal/eduardo-manzano-moreno

About the Project

'Digital Al Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through Al Andalus (2023-2038)' is an ERC selected, UKRI funded project (https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP/X042251/1) exploring the uses, abuses, and afterlives of medieval history in contemporary culture and politics.The series brings together historians, media scholars, and cultural critics to examine how the past is remembered, mythologized, and mobilised today, from medieval Iberia to digital culture and online misinformation.

Learn more: https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Credits

Producer, editing and sound: The Lens Box (email: studio@thelensbox.com Instagram @thelensbox)

Artwork:Kate NunnFelip Docolomansky

Follow the Podcast

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalAl-Andalus

Instagram:@digitalalandalus

Website:https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Support the Project

If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing, sharing the podcast, or leaving a review. It helps others discover the series and supports independent public history projects.

Digital Al Andalus: On the Record is a series which brings together historians, media scholars, and cultural critics to examine how the past is remembered, mythologized, and mobilised today, from medieval Iberia to digital culture and online misinformation.

About the Project'Digital Al Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through Al Andalus (2023-2038)' is an ERC selected, UKRI funded project (https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP/X042251/1) exploring the uses, abuses, and afterlives of medieval history in contemporary culture and politics.

Learn more:https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Credits

Producer, editing and sound:The Lens Box (email: studio@thelensbox.com Instagram @thelensbox)

Artwork:Kate Nunn, Felip Docolomansky

Follow the Podcast

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalAl-Andalus

Instagram:@digitalalandalus

Website:https://digitalalandalus.qmul.ac.uk/

Support the Project

If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing, sharing the podcast, or leaving a review. It helps others discover the series and supports independent public history projects.