2026/04/03 by Ivana Arsić · 2 voices
Arts and Humanities · #Early Modern Spanish Literature #Sephardic Jews and Inquisition Studies #Medieval and Early Modern Iberia
paper · doi:10.1080/14636204.2026.2664848
openalex publication_date 2026/04/03 · openalex created_date 2026/05/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
This study explores how music and dance functioned as embodied forms of resistance and identity formation among Converso and Morisco communities in the early modern Crown of Aragon. It argues that expressive practices such as singing, ritual dancing and festive celebration were not marginal cultural remnants but pivotal strategies for affirming communal memory, negotiating socioreligious identity and challenging hegemonic Christian norms. Focusing on rites of passage and major religious festivals, the study adopts a comparative and cross-cultural approach to demonstrate how these acts operated as counter-performances that subverted imposed religious uniformity and fostered transcultural practices. Drawing on a range of sources, including municipal decrees, royal edicts, theological treatises and inquisitorial records, the research highlights the everyday, gendered and ephemeral nature of cultural resistance. Women and musicians, in particular, emerge as key agents of ritual transmission and subaltern agency, sustaining ethnomusical performances that official discourse sought to erase. These expressive acts, often enacted in domestic or communal settings, transformed music and movement into powerful media of cultural continuity. Framing music as a cultural text embedded with dissent, the study shows how Aragonese crypto-Jewish and crypto-Muslim communities transformed embodied tradition into an instrument of resilience and defiance within a hostile religious landscape.