Louise Mirrer

A scholarly examination of poetry and stories written in Spain during the period when the Christians were recapturing Castile from the Muslims -- roughly the 12th and 13th centuries.

Author Louise Mirrer states: "In this book I argue that a dominant -- "other" struggle, waged on the terrains of gender, religion, and war, is the most appropriate paradigm for discussing literary texts produced during the last centuries of reconquest. During this period, the presence of women, Muslims, and Jews within the dominant male Christian Castilian culture produced a fascinating, characteristic patterning of literary images. [...] women and "others" strained against the boundaries that delineated their participation in the dominant culture." Hmm....

Mirrer's text is actually surprisingly accessible given the academic nature of her book -- most of it is less dense than the passage I quote above. She certainly demonstrates that dehumanizing your enemy is nothing new, and that tensions between Muslims, Jews, and Christians have played out in song and story as well as in battle. You might well get more out of this volume than you expect, but it certainly is no summer beach read.… (meer)