Beth Blakemore (MScR, MA Hons)

Hispanic Studies

Year of study: 3

  • School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures
  • Department of European Languages and Cultures
  • Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies

Contact details

PhD supervisors:

Address

Street

50 George Square (LLC)

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9JU

Biography

Background

Beth is a current PhD student in Hispanic Studies and tutor within the SPLAS department. She completed both her undergraduate and master's degrees here at the University of Edinburgh, spending her year abroad at the Universidad de Granada.  Prior to starting her PhD studies, she worked as an editor for DK Books (Penguin Random House), working primarily on the English for Everyone series - a growing collection of home-study course and work books for adults and children learning English as a foreign language. Beth was also a contributing author for Banned Books and Great Loves. Outwith her studies, she continues to work as a freelance editor, author, and critic.

 

Qualifications

PhD student in Hispanic Studies, The University of Edinburgh (2020-present)

Research topic: The changing representation of Spanish moros and moriscos in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spanish literature

MScR in Hispanic Studies, The University of Edinburgh - awarded distinction (2017-18)

Dissertation title:  "La nación africana: The representation of the moriscos in Calderón's El Tuzaní de la Alpujarra / Amar después de la muerte."

MA Hons in Spanish and English Literature, The University of Edinburgh - awarded first class degree with distinction in spoken Spanish (2013-17)

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • Co-founder & Co-coordinator of Women's Voices in Hispanic and Lusophone fiction  
  • Programme Representative for PhD students within the Department of European Languages and Cultures (DELC) (September 2022 - present)
  • Assistant Editor for FORUM (January 2023 - present)
  • Events Coordinator for the Northern Early Modern Network (July 2023 - present)

Undergraduate teaching

2023/24

  • Literatures and Cultures of the Spanish-Speaking World
  • Spanish 1A - Literature (semester 2)

2022/23

  • Literatures and Cultures of the Spanish Speaking World
  • Spanish 1A - Literature

2021/22

  • Literatures and Cultures of the Spanish Speaking World
  • Spanish 1A - Literature

2017/18

  • Spanish 1B - Literature
  • Spanish 1A - Literature 

Research summary

Beth's current research focuses on the changing representation of Spanish Muslims (moros) and moriscos in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spanish literature, focusing on the characterisation of moros/moriscos through language and cultural practices. Previous research has also looked at Calderón's depiction of Islam in opposition to Christianity in his dramas.

She has an interest in the representation of women in early modern Spanish literature, and has previously explored gendered violence in the works of Cervantes and María de Zayas. She is keen to pursue this topic again in the future. 

Current research interests

Orientalism in Spanish literature; representations of "the Other"; the novela morisca; religion in early modern Spain; the moriscos; history of Islam in Spain; War of the Alpujarras; representations of women; domestic and gendered violence in literature; early modern depictions of sex work; Cervantes; María de Zayas; Lope de Vega; Calderón de la Barca; LGBTQ+ representation in early modern literature; contemporary women's writing in Latin America

Project activity

Co-founder & Co-coordinator of Women's Voices in Hispanic and Lusophone fiction, an LLC reading group discussing contemporary Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American literature in translation.

Invited speaker

(UPCOMING) Renaissance Society of America's Annual Conference - invited to participate in the SRS panel titled "Christianity and the Making of Race" (21-23 March 2024)

Paper being presented: “Born of that race, unhappy and unwise”: morisco Otherness in early modern Spanish literature. 

 

Universität Wien - invited to present a paper at a taller literario titled "Urdimbre y tram(p)as. Fraudes, enredos y artimañas en el tejido literario del Siglo de Oro" (6-7 October 2022)

Paper presented: "Ser y parecer cristiano: La disimulación de la identidad morisca en la literatura del Siglo de Oro."

Participant

Collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Università degli Studi di Firenze - “A Fluctuating Sea: People and Things in the Early Modern Mediterranean” (8 April 2022) 

Participated in roundtable discussion on research into the War of the Alpujarras chronicles.

Papers delivered

(UPCOMING) University of St Andrews - St Andrews Early Modern Workshop (4 December 2023)

Paper being presented: No de las fingidas ni aparentes, sino de las verdaderas y católicas”: Cervantes and the question of genuine morisco conversion

 

(UPCOMING) University College Cork - UCC Spanish Golden Age Symposium (24-26 November 2023)

Paper being presented: “'Declarándose por moros': the blurring of morisco identity in the War of the Alpujarras chronicles”

 

(UPCOMING) - Northern Early Modern Network - NEMN Seminar Series (25 October 2023)

Paper being presented: "Mateo Alemán's "Ozmín and Daraja" and the subversion of the novel morisca genre"

 

SRS Biennial Conference, Liverpool - "Difficult Pasts" (19-22 July 2023)

Paper presented: "'I am a morisco, señores, though I wish I could deny it': Cervantes and the expulsion of the moriscos"

 

University of Oxford - Oxford Graduate Symposium in Spanish Golden Age Studies (17 May 2023)

Paper presented: "“No morisca sino cristianamente”: morisco conversion and assimilation in Cervantes’ prose works."

 

University of Edinburgh - DELC Research Seminar Series (24 March 2023) 

Paper presented: "Coercion and subversion: Challenging the concept of maurofilia in Mateo Alemán's Ozmín y Daraja."

 

University College Cork - Golden Age Research Symposium (26-28 November 2021)

Paper presented: "An air of equality: Challenging the concept of maurophilia in the novela morisca."

 

LAHP & King's College London - Iberian (In)tolerance Symposium (8-9 November 2018)

Paper presented: “Christian constancy vs. the inferior infidel: Religious conflict within Calderón’s El príncipe constante."

In the press

Edinburgh International Festival (24 Aug 2023)

Invited to chair an event with Cheek by Jowl co-Artistic Directors, Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, to discuss their production of "La vida es sueño" by Calderón de la Barca

Book reviews:

Elizabeth Blakemore, CASTELLVÍ LAUKAMP, LUIS. Hispanic Baroque Ekphrasis: Góngora, Camargo, Sor Juana, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 58, Issue 3, July 2022, Page 406, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqac042

Elizabeth Blakemore, ANDREWS, JEAN. Painting and Devotion in Golden Age Iberia: Luis de Morales, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 58, Issue 2, April 2022, Page 272, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqac028

Elizabeth Blakemore, WELLS, CARAGH. The Novels of Carmen Laforet: An Aesthetics of Relief, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 57, Issue 1, January 2021, Page 143, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqaa044

Elizabeth Blakemore, From Doubt to Unbelief: Forms of Scepticism in the Iberian World. Ed. by Mercedes García-Arenal and Stefania Pastore, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 56, Issue 4, October 2020, Page 484, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqaa035

Elizabeth Blakemore, BERG, SANDER. The Marvellous and the Miraculous in María de Zayas, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 56, Issue 4, October 2020, Pages 482–483, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqaa042

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