Moors Dressed as Moors
Clothing, Social Distinction and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University of Toronto Press
Published:5th Apr '17
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
"Moors Dressed as Moors is a fascinating study that will resonate with students and scholars of Hispanic and Iberian studies. The author's exhaustive and detailed analysis of archival material, previously unknown to scholars, illuminates the economic and social dimensions of sartorial production and commerce in Moorish clothing as a desirable cultural artifact." -- Cory Reed, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Texas, Austin "The overall scope of research undertaken by Javier Irigoyen-Garc a is ambitious and the results impressive. Moors Dressed as Moors is an important and fundamental contribution to the field. Irigoyen-Garc a's work corrects several consolidated readings in Iberian scholarship and adds a new and important perspective to the reading of several literary texts. This book is an excellent example of the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach that manages a diversity of disciplinary methods such as philology, history, literary and cultural studies." -- Luis F. Avil s, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, University of California, Irvine
In Moors Dressed as Moors, Javier Irigoyen-Garcia draws on a wide range of sources to reveal the currency of Moorish clothing in early modern Iberian society.
In early modern Iberia, Moorish clothing was not merely a cultural remnant from the Islamic period, but an artefact that conditioned discourses of nobility and social preeminence.
In Moors Dressed as Moors, Javier Irigoyen-García draws on a wide range of sources: archival, legal, literary, and visual documents, as well as tailoring books, equestrian treatises, and festival books to reveal the currency of Moorish clothing in early modern Iberian society. Irigoyen-García’s insightful and nuanced analyses of Moorish clothing production and circulation shows that as well as being a sign of status and a marker of nobility, it also served to codify social tensions by deploying apparent Islamophobic discourses. Such luxurious value of clothing also sheds light on how sartorial legislation against the Moriscos was not only a form of cultural repression, but also a way to preclude their full integration into Iberian society. Moors Dressed as Moors challenges the traditional interpretations of the value of Moorish clothing in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain and how it articulated the relationships between Christians and Moriscos.
"Irigoyen-Garcia’s study amplifies with scholarly rigor our understanding of early modern Iberian cultural politics in ways that resonate with our own cultural locations as scholars at a time of heightened ethnic and national tensions."
-- Israel Burshatin, Haverford College * Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, Vol 43 no 1 *"This is an interesting and useful book for readers who are interested in the understanding of clothes beyond aesthetics."
-- Laura Pérez Hernández * The Journal of Dress History, vol 2 3, Autumn 2018 *"Irigoyen’Garcia’s book is a much-needed corrective to existing studies on early modern Spanish dress, which tend to undermine the diversity of Morisco cultures and their sartorial practices, which, in many cases, were not that distinguishable from others in their local context. This is a must read for any scholar interested in better appreciating the complex relationship between dress, social status, and ethnicity in early modern Iberian. I will certainly assign it in future graduate courses on early modern cultures, as it contributes not only to discussions on clothing, but also to the construction of Iberian identities more broadly speaking."
-- Christina H. Lee, Princeton University * Renaissance Quarterly, vol 71 4, Winter 2018 *"This book is well supported by a solid theoretical apparatus, primary sources, and a vast bibliography…this well-written book undoubtedly constitutes an essential work on clothing and identity."
-- Filomena Barros, University of Évora * Medieval Clothing and Textiles, vol 15 *"Moors Dressed as Moors will be of great value to scholars and students seeking to understand the complexity that underpins the history of the Morisco minority in Spain. Moreover, given the current controversies relating to the status and cultural assimilation of Muslim minorities in Europe (controversies that continue to involve debates about clothing), this is research that is still very relevant."
-- François Soyer, University of New England * The English Historical ReviewISBN: 9781487501600
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 25mm
Weight: 680g
360 pages