After an introductory survey of the development of women's studies in the context of Spain, twenty-one chronologically ordered essays by scholars from Britain, the United States, Spain and Mexico explore women's roles in the cultural production of their time from the Middle Ages to the present. The essays of the first half examine the work of the earliest women writers and artists - memoirs and meditations, novellas and plays - and the representation or self-representation of women in a broad sweep of texts including medieval folksong, hagiography, and painting of the Baroque era. The modern...

After the Islamic conquest on Spain in 711, an array of literary works emerged during the medieval period in response to the historical event. Narratives of the Islamic Conquest from Medieval Spain explores these understudied materials from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, including epic and clerical poetry, chronicles, and an historical novel, arguing for a more open approach to a phase in Spain's cultural history that has traditionally been interpreted in polarized and generalized terms. The literary works in question reflect a wide range of responses including the political...