Erica Feild-Marchello
About Erica
I am a scholar of early modern Spanish culture who is drawn to research questions regarding inclusion and exclusion, limpieza de sangre (blood purity) and race-making, conversion, language, and translation across the diverse territories claimed by the Spanish empire.
I am currently the Sir John Elliott Fellow of Early Modern Spanish Studies at Exeter College, University of Oxford, where I am developing my first monograph, Divine Word: Language, Religion, and Race in the Spanish Empire (c. 1550-1650). This research shows that in Spain and the Spanish empire activities that produced linguistic knowledge, such as translating, teaching, describing, and representing languages, shaped notions of race. It emphasizes that in the early modern period, many kinds of people, from prelates to playwrights, wrote about language. As these actors picked up their quills, they aimed to wield influence in the struggles of the wider world. Divine Word, shows that their ideas and decisions regarding language can help us understand how and why early moderns constructed, mobilized, and rebutted ideas about race.
Alongside my book project, I’ve developed a new article on how the distinct language learning methodologies advanced by the Jesuits Ignacio de las Casas and José de Acosta responded to their own visions for imperial expansion, “¿La biblioteca o la calle?: dos aproximaciones al aprendizaje de idiomas para fines misioneros en España y el Perú (c. 1560-1609) (under review).” I’m also at work on an article that analyzes a prayer that a Granadan woman recited in Arabic before the Mexico City Inquisition in the 1590s.
For me, one of the most exciting elements of the “Arabic in Spanish” project is the opportunity to develop city walking guides designed for study abroad students who find themselves in Granada or Madrid, and who are interested in learning and thinking about the historical role of Arabic in Spain and how the long history of Arabic in the region influences present-day perceptions of the language.
