Academic work on professional wrestling to date has explored the way in which storylines are intrinsically and unavoidably developed by both the creative team behind a promotion as well as its fans, as Katz Rizzo points out: Live professional wrestling is a performance in which creative power lies in between the performers and the fans. […]
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From the Libro de ajedrez, dados tables – Alfonso X; Biblioteca de la Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid Yes, I’m going back down the well-trodden path. Apologies in advance. Convivencia is probably the most contentious word in medieval Iberian studies. While debate around it and its usage has died down in recent […]
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The art created for Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens’ legendary yet surreal “festival of friendship”: Monday Night RAW, 13th February 2017 Firstly, a quick disclaimer: while medieval and early modern Hispanic studies remain my primary academic interests, my heart has for many years been and will continue to be taken by the unique art form […]
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Engraving by Thierry de Bry, 1590 (British Library) An article was published in The Guardian earlier this year which reports on Spain’s newly-created Fundación Civilización Hispánica , an historical organisation founded by a select all-male group of businessmen, politicians, writers, journalists and academics. The organisation has simultaneously emerged alongside a new book by Borja Cardelús, once Spain’s […]
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From Hadith Bayad (MS Arab. 368, Vatican Library) I recently read a relatively new dissertation written on sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish literature that depicts the Muslim, Moorish inhabitants of al-Andalus in the Middle Ages. In their analysis of one particular play, the author – unprompted and not quoting the original text – refers […]
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Gracienne Taking Leave of Her Father the Sultan (detail), Lieven van Lathem, David Aubert, 1464. J. Paul Getty Museum When a student aspiring to a career in academia inevitably weighs up their life choices there is an abundance of opinions online attempting to help them make that decision (or, more often than not, to […]
Read MoreBefore properly embarking on this blog I’d like to outline what is at once a mission statement of sorts, and a disclaimer. In my very short years as an academic writer I’ve grown increasingly (and, at times, prohibitively) self-conscious. Self-conscious of how my own experiences, environment and personal relationships all in some way influence the […]
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