The Arts of Encounter

The Arts of Encounter uncovers the significant role of religious images in literature, offering a new approach to understanding Christian-Muslim relations in early modern Spain.

Catherine Infante is an assistant professor of Spanish at Amherst College.

"Infante's masterly book shows the complexities of the relations between Muslims and Christians in early modern Spain. Her interdisciplinary, clear-sighted analysis of the ‘arts of encounter’ of believers around religious images proves both the blurring of religious identities and the influence of the cultural environment on the perception of religion. With an astounding erudition, this book is highly valuable reading for those interested in Spain’s Golden Age."

Laura R. Bass, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and History of Art and Architecture, Brown University:

"One of the great strengths of Catherine Infante’s book is her use of textual and visual sources from both Catholic and Islamic perspectives, within Iberia and beyond. The result is a highly nuanced account of the ways authors, authorities, and even ordinary people deployed images to justify or contest forced conversion and expulsion, to shape historical memory and local belonging, and to proclaim or repudiate religious faith."

Javier Irigoyen-García, Professor of Spanish, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:

"Catherine Infante’s book is a fascinating study of the role that devotional images had in the interactions between Muslims and Christians in both early modern Spain and the Mediterranean. Drawing from a wide range of sources – from visual culture to historiographical, theological, and literary texts – Infante analyses how devotional images circulated across religious boundaries and how Islamic alleged iconoclasm was perceived and negotiated within the context of the Morisco population in Spain, thus providing a refreshing perspective on Muslim-Christian relations."