February 5, 2007
Brian Catlos receives honor from American Historical Association
By Scott Rappaport
The American Historical Association (AHA) has awarded associate
professor of history Brian Catlos the 2006 Premio del Rey--a biennial
prize for the best book on Iberian history of the pre-1516 period.
This marks the second prize Catlos's book The Victors and the
Vanquished: Christians and Muslims of Catalonia and Aragon, 1050-1300
(Cambridge University Press, 2004) has received from the AHA. Last year
it was co-winner of the association’s John Edwin Fagg Prize for
the best publication on Spanish, Portuguese, or Latin American history in 2005.
Brian Catlos
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Catlos's book is a study of a Muslim minority living under Christian
rule in the age of the Crusades and Spanish “Reconquest.” It calls
into question many presuppositions concerning the role of religious identity
in medieval society and the idea of civilizational conflict in general
(see Currents article).
A paperback edition is scheduled to be published this spring, and the prestigious
University of Valencia Press has just purchased the rights for a Castilian
translation.
Catlos joined the UCSC faculty in 2002 after spending six years in
Barcelona, where he was a research fellow at the Spanish National Research
Council. He teaches courses on medieval Spain, the Crusades, and world history,
and his research focuses on ethno-religious identity--specifically relations
among Christians, Muslims, and Jews across the pre-modern Mediterranean.
Beginning next year, he will also teach undergraduate and graduate courses on
early Islamic history.
Catlos is additionally codirector of UCSC's Mediterranean Studies
Research Group and is actively involved in developing the interdisciplinary
field of Mediterranean studies. He is currently working on two books: a volume
on the history of Muslim societies in the medieval West, and a book on the
everyday lives of Muslims and Jews living in 14th-century Christian Spain.