Amanda Valdés Sánchez

Biography

I started my education as a historian at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where I received my Art History degree (2011-2015) and was awarded the Bachelor's Degree Extraordinary Award (2015). I continue it at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where I obtain a first-class honours Masters's degree in World History (2015-2016). Since 2017, I have formed part of the Spanish Program of "La Caixa" Foundation doctoral fellowship, which allowed me to undertake doctoral studies at Pompeu Fabra University. There I developed my doctoral research (2017-2021), under the guidance of professor Linda G. Jones, about the role of Marian devotion in the Castilian colonisation of the former Islamic territory of Al-Andalus and the religious assimilation of the local communities of Mudejars and Moriscos between the 13th century and the 16th century. My research also enquired about the political significance of the evolution of Marian devotion and its role in the articulation of divergent conceptions of Castilian colonial society and the place of religious minorities within it. To complement my doctoral research, I took several courses that allowed me to familiarise myself with the techniques for working with primary sources derived from multicultural and multiconfessional historical contexts and analysing multiconfessional societies and religious conversions. These courses also allowed me to acquire the theoretical basis for studying religious traditions and their textual foundations. During my PhD research, I worked as a research staff of the Humanities Department and integrated the research group Ethnographies Cultural Encounters and Religious Missions (ECERM). During this time, I initiated as well my training as a teacher. As such, I design, teach and evaluate the seminars of the Medieval History class (20013) and impart a lecture about the concept of "Mudejarism" in Spanish historiography, as part of the Peninsular Kingdoms in the Middle Ages (20073) class, in both cases directed by professor Linda G. Jones. In April of 2022, I presented my PhD dissertation, "The persuasive power of Maryam: religious proselytism, accommodation and Marian devotion in the Castilian "spiritual conquest" of the south of the Peninsula (13th-16th centuries)" and received my PhD in History from Pompeu Fabra University. Since 2021, I have been a member of the international research team working on the project, "Writing Religious, Transcultural, Gendered Identities and Alterities in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean" (Ref. no.: PGC2018-093472-B-C32), funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Spanish State Agency of Investigation (AEI). As a result of my work, I have been invited to participate in several international congresses, such as the ASPHS 50th Anniversary Conference (Jully, 2019), the 22nd Biennial Symposium of the International Medieval Sermon Studies Society (Jully, 2021) and the International Workshop "Intersections of Genre and Gender in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" (September 2022). I also have published the results of my research about the role of the Virgin in the Castilian colonial dominion over the Andalusian territory during the reign of Alphonso the Wise (2019), the Hieronymite appropriation of Sufi devotional topoi in the miracle collection of the Virgin of Guadalupe (2019), and the importance of Marian devotional literature and images in the missional policy of Fray Hernando de Talavera among the Moriscos of Granada (2020). My most recent work analyses the impact of Marian devotion in the evolution of the social perception of Mudejar and Morisco women from their image as agents of the spiritual renovation of the Islamic population to their conception as "breeders" of crypto-Islamic "heresy" (2022).