The seminar will include participation by the work’s author, Mehdi Ghouirgate, a professor at the Université Bourdeaux-Montaigne; Luz Gómez García, a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Javier Albarrán, a professor of Medieval History at the same university.

Mehdi Ghouirgate will compare the medieval and modern Arab sources on the Berber empires (eleventh-thirteenth centuries) with the way in which European studies have captured this reality within the context of the advent of Orientalism and the expansion of France in the Maghreb. Basically, the invocation and then study of the Berber empires served to characterize a great Other in the nearby vicinity: the Maghreb, at once so close yet so different. Within the context of the colonized and then newly independent Maghreb, this still distant past never ceased to act as a point of reference and framework for a national narrative intended to give these states a solid foundation.

Organized as part of the ongoing seminar “Majlis - Al-Andalus and Medieval Islam” forming part of the “The Medieval Iberian World: Hispania, Al-Andalus and Sepharad” Master’s degree program at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

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