A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the ... more A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the brilliant idea of a wagon with spoked wheels from mind to mind.-Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea As citizens of a world increasingly dominated by web-based social media, many of us are familiar with the Internet meme: an image or video that, for seemingly inexplicable reasons, rapidly captures the attention of web-users, who generate an unending series of quickly-spreading imitations and copies. Most of us have been exposed, one way or another, to such images and videos; they permeate our social media, and they are often picked up by more traditional forms of media. We regularly rely on our most conventional form of cultural transmission when we speak of them to our friends and family members or, for example, "invite" them to do the "Ice Bucket Challenge." 1 Sometimes such digital content is replicated exactly and "goes viral"; other times it is slightly, sometimes deliberately, modified, as a way to playfully participate in the memespreading game. In Memes and Digital Culture, Limor Shifman describes the Internet meme as digital content that spreads quickly around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience, "a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which were created with awareness of each other, and were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users" (41). What, however, could any Internet meme possibly have to do with a minority group living in 16 th-century Spain and their writing? No one speaks of this or that crypto-Muslim blogger from Aragón, after all. Although the Internet is a relatively new phenomenon, the activity and behavior that lie at the heart of what Shifman describes are not native to it-simply remove the words "digital" and "quickly," replace the terms "web" and "Internet" with any other medium, and we will likely observe the same (or very similar) phenomenon in communities across history. While my purpose here is not to address Internet phenomena, I do wish to examine a few things about memes and how the concept may serve when we wish to speak about the ways in which ideas, practices, culture, were transmitted-textually or otherwise-among Morisco communities of 16 th-and early-17 th century Spain. Today we use the term Morisco to refer to those Muslims who converted-willingly or by force-to Christianity after the fall of Granada in 1492. Conversion was not always complete or sincere, as shown by writings that circulated in secret among some Morisco communities prior to their expulsion from Spain in the early 17 th century. Written in Aljamiado-a heavily Arabized and "Islamified" Spanish expressed in Arabic characters-these writings are dominated by themes, topics and substance that enshrine a distinctly Hispano-Arab and Islamic heritage at a time in which those who identified with them were under extreme duress. 2
A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the ... more A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the brilliant idea of a wagon with spoked wheels from mind to mind.-Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea
espanolEn este articulo se examina la viabilidad de memetics para aproximarse a la escritura y lo... more espanolEn este articulo se examina la viabilidad de memetics para aproximarse a la escritura y los escritos Aljamiado - Moriscos, y a su vez el uso posible de memetics para conceptualizar la transmision de ideas y cultura a traves de las comunidades hispano-musulmanes que producian y consumian los textos Aljamiados. Memetics, cuyos proponentes lo describen como un modo de explicar y comprender la transmision de informacion cultural mediante el modelo del proceso evolutivo (segun el cual el meme es analogo al gen), proporciona un marco teorico interesante para acercarse al discurso de estas comunidades, singularmente preocupadas con su sobrevivencia y la preservacion de una herencia cultural y una identidad religiosa. El articulo examina primero el concepto del meme y su potencial para tratar el contenido y la forma del fenomeno Aljamiado. Luego se identifican algunos de los posibles memes que circulaban dentro del discurso Morisco, y se examinan su representacion en una seleccion de...
This paper examines the viability of memetics for approaching Aljamiado-Morisco writing, as well ... more This paper examines the viability of memetics for approaching Aljamiado-Morisco writing, as well as its potential for conceptualizing the transmission of ideas and culture across the Hispano-Muslim communities that produced and consumed Aljamiado texts. Memetics, whose proponents describe it as a means to explain and understand the transmission of cultural information using evolutionary models (thus the meme is analogous to the gene), provides an appealing theoretical framework for approaching the discourse of these communities, singularly concerned with survival and the preservation of cultural heritage and religious identity. The paper first examines the concept of the meme and its potential for discussing the substance and form of Aljamiado writing. This is followed by the identification and examination of possible memes that circulated broadly within Morisco discourse, and their representation in a selection of pseudo-prophetic texts and other writings prominent among Morisco communities.
The object of study in this dissertation is the story of Muḥammad’s night journey and ascension t... more The object of study in this dissertation is the story of Muḥammad’s night journey and ascension to heaven, commonly known as the mi'rāj, as it circulated in Aljamiado (Spanish in Arabic script) among the Moriscos of sixteenth-century Spain. The origins and development of the mi'rāj are considered, focusing on the development of the strand that appears to have reached the Moriscos, the long standing popular tradition known as the pseudo-Ibn 'Abbās ascension narrative. Particular attention is paid to a thirteenth-century version of that tradition attributed to Abū al-Ḥasan Bakrī, and it is argued that the Aljamiado accounts are heavily influenced by this version. The Aljamiado accounts are compared to the well-known thirteenth-century Liber scale, a composite version of the narrative translated into Latin and commissioned by Alfonso X; it is argued that, while no direct relationship exists between the Liber scale and the Aljamiado manuscripts, they do share a common reliance upon Bakrī. In discussing the relationships between the six Aljamiado manuscript versions, it is determined that they should be divided into two distinct groups, one of which may be further divided into two subgroups. The significance of the mi'rāj in the Morisco context is explored, as is how Morisco usage of the narrative is related to the factors contributing to the original development of the tradition. Finally, an edition of four of the six Aljamiado manuscripts is included, along with explanatory notes, a glossary and an onomastic index.
A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the ... more A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the brilliant idea of a wagon with spoked wheels from mind to mind.-Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea As citizens of a world increasingly dominated by web-based social media, many of us are familiar with the Internet meme: an image or video that, for seemingly inexplicable reasons, rapidly captures the attention of web-users, who generate an unending series of quickly-spreading imitations and copies. Most of us have been exposed, one way or another, to such images and videos; they permeate our social media, and they are often picked up by more traditional forms of media. We regularly rely on our most conventional form of cultural transmission when we speak of them to our friends and family members or, for example, "invite" them to do the "Ice Bucket Challenge." 1 Sometimes such digital content is replicated exactly and "goes viral"; other times it is slightly, sometimes deliberately, modified, as a way to playfully participate in the memespreading game. In Memes and Digital Culture, Limor Shifman describes the Internet meme as digital content that spreads quickly around the web in various iterations and becomes a shared cultural experience, "a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which were created with awareness of each other, and were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the Internet by many users" (41). What, however, could any Internet meme possibly have to do with a minority group living in 16 th-century Spain and their writing? No one speaks of this or that crypto-Muslim blogger from Aragón, after all. Although the Internet is a relatively new phenomenon, the activity and behavior that lie at the heart of what Shifman describes are not native to it-simply remove the words "digital" and "quickly," replace the terms "web" and "Internet" with any other medium, and we will likely observe the same (or very similar) phenomenon in communities across history. While my purpose here is not to address Internet phenomena, I do wish to examine a few things about memes and how the concept may serve when we wish to speak about the ways in which ideas, practices, culture, were transmitted-textually or otherwise-among Morisco communities of 16 th-and early-17 th century Spain. Today we use the term Morisco to refer to those Muslims who converted-willingly or by force-to Christianity after the fall of Granada in 1492. Conversion was not always complete or sincere, as shown by writings that circulated in secret among some Morisco communities prior to their expulsion from Spain in the early 17 th century. Written in Aljamiado-a heavily Arabized and "Islamified" Spanish expressed in Arabic characters-these writings are dominated by themes, topics and substance that enshrine a distinctly Hispano-Arab and Islamic heritage at a time in which those who identified with them were under extreme duress. 2
A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the ... more A wagon with spoked wheels carries not only grain or freight from place to place; it carries the brilliant idea of a wagon with spoked wheels from mind to mind.-Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea
espanolEn este articulo se examina la viabilidad de memetics para aproximarse a la escritura y lo... more espanolEn este articulo se examina la viabilidad de memetics para aproximarse a la escritura y los escritos Aljamiado - Moriscos, y a su vez el uso posible de memetics para conceptualizar la transmision de ideas y cultura a traves de las comunidades hispano-musulmanes que producian y consumian los textos Aljamiados. Memetics, cuyos proponentes lo describen como un modo de explicar y comprender la transmision de informacion cultural mediante el modelo del proceso evolutivo (segun el cual el meme es analogo al gen), proporciona un marco teorico interesante para acercarse al discurso de estas comunidades, singularmente preocupadas con su sobrevivencia y la preservacion de una herencia cultural y una identidad religiosa. El articulo examina primero el concepto del meme y su potencial para tratar el contenido y la forma del fenomeno Aljamiado. Luego se identifican algunos de los posibles memes que circulaban dentro del discurso Morisco, y se examinan su representacion en una seleccion de...
This paper examines the viability of memetics for approaching Aljamiado-Morisco writing, as well ... more This paper examines the viability of memetics for approaching Aljamiado-Morisco writing, as well as its potential for conceptualizing the transmission of ideas and culture across the Hispano-Muslim communities that produced and consumed Aljamiado texts. Memetics, whose proponents describe it as a means to explain and understand the transmission of cultural information using evolutionary models (thus the meme is analogous to the gene), provides an appealing theoretical framework for approaching the discourse of these communities, singularly concerned with survival and the preservation of cultural heritage and religious identity. The paper first examines the concept of the meme and its potential for discussing the substance and form of Aljamiado writing. This is followed by the identification and examination of possible memes that circulated broadly within Morisco discourse, and their representation in a selection of pseudo-prophetic texts and other writings prominent among Morisco communities.
The object of study in this dissertation is the story of Muḥammad’s night journey and ascension t... more The object of study in this dissertation is the story of Muḥammad’s night journey and ascension to heaven, commonly known as the mi'rāj, as it circulated in Aljamiado (Spanish in Arabic script) among the Moriscos of sixteenth-century Spain. The origins and development of the mi'rāj are considered, focusing on the development of the strand that appears to have reached the Moriscos, the long standing popular tradition known as the pseudo-Ibn 'Abbās ascension narrative. Particular attention is paid to a thirteenth-century version of that tradition attributed to Abū al-Ḥasan Bakrī, and it is argued that the Aljamiado accounts are heavily influenced by this version. The Aljamiado accounts are compared to the well-known thirteenth-century Liber scale, a composite version of the narrative translated into Latin and commissioned by Alfonso X; it is argued that, while no direct relationship exists between the Liber scale and the Aljamiado manuscripts, they do share a common reliance upon Bakrī. In discussing the relationships between the six Aljamiado manuscript versions, it is determined that they should be divided into two distinct groups, one of which may be further divided into two subgroups. The significance of the mi'rāj in the Morisco context is explored, as is how Morisco usage of the narrative is related to the factors contributing to the original development of the tradition. Finally, an edition of four of the six Aljamiado manuscripts is included, along with explanatory notes, a glossary and an onomastic index.
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