David Nirenberg

Dr. David Nirenberg

Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Distinguished Service Professor of Social Thought, Medieval History, Fundamentals, Middle East Studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago.

Dean, Divinity School, University of Chicago. 

e-mail: nirenberg@uchicago.edu

Some recent publications

  • Nirenberg, D. (2016).

Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton University Press.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2015).

Aesthetic Theology and Its Enemies: Judaism in Christian Painting, Poetry, and Politics. University Press of New England.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2014).

Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today. University of Chicago.

Texts to download

  • Nirenberg, D. (2018).

“Which Past for which Present? A Reply to Carlo Ginzburg’s ‘Postface’ on Anti-Judaism”, in J. Adams & C. Heß, eds. The Medieval Roots of Antisemitism: Continuities and Discontinuities from the Middle Ages to the Present Day. Routledge, pp. 438-55.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2017).

“Medieval Media and Minorities: Jews and Muslims in the Cantigas de Santa María”, in Y.-G. Liang & H. Rodriguez, eds. Authority and Spectacle in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Routledge, pp. 147-170.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2016).

“What is Islam? (What is Christianity? What is Judaism?)”. Raritan, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 1-14.

  • Nirenberg, D. & L. Capezzone (2015).

“Religions of Love: Judaism, Christianity, Islam”, in Stroumsa & Silverstein, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions. Oxford University Press, pp. 518-535.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2014).

“Sibling Rivalries, Scriptural Communities: what Medieval History can and cannot teach us about relations between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”, in N. Caputo & A. Sterk, eds. Faithful Narratives. Cornell University Press, pp. 63-79.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2014).

“‘Judaism’, ‘Islam’, and the Dangers of Knowledge in Christian Culture, with special attention to the case of King Alfonso X, ‘the Wise’, of Castile”, in C. Burnett & P. Mantas-España, eds. Mapping Knowledge: Cross-Pollination in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Oriens Academica, pp. 253-76.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2010).

“Islam and the West: Two Dialectical Fantasies”. Journal of Religion in Europe, No. 1, 2008, pp. 1-33. [Reprinted in D. Westerlund & I. Svanberg, eds. Islam and the West: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies, 4 vols. Routledge, 2010, vol. 4, pp. 249-275.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2010).

“L’Indécision Souverain: Génocide et Justice en Valencia, 1391”, in J. Claustre et al., eds., Un Moyen Âge pour aujourd’hui: mélanges offerts à Claude Gauvard. Presses universitaire de France, pp. 496-508.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2010).

“Shakespeare’s Jewish Questions”. Renaissance Drama, No. 38, pp. 77-113.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2009).

“Christendom and Islam”, in M. Rubin & W. Simons, eds. The Cambridge History of Christianity: Christianity in Western Europe c. 1100-c. 1500. Cambridge University Press, pp. 149-169.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2009).

“Was there Race before Modernity? The Example of ‘Jewish’ Blood in Late Medieval Spain”, in M. Eliav-Feldon, et al., eds. The Origins of Racism in the West. Cambridge University Press, pp. 232-264.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2008).

“A Brief History of Jewish Enmity”, in M. Kupfer, ed. The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama. Penn State University Press, pp. 217-234, 259-263.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2007).

“Deviant Politics and Jewish Love: Alfonso VIII and the Jewess of Toledo”. Jewish History, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 15-41.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2007).

“The Politics of Love and its Enemies”. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 573-605.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2007).

“Race and the Middle Ages: The Case of Spain and its Jews”, in M. R. Greer, et al., eds. Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires. The University of Chicago Press, pp. 71-87, 335-345.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2006).

“Figures of Thought and Figures of Flesh: ‘Jews’ and ‘Judaism’ in Late Medieval Spanish Poetry and Politics”. Speculum, Vol. 81, No. 2, pp. 398-426.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2006).

“What Benedict Really Said: Paleologus and Us”. The New Republic, 10 October 2006, pp. 21-24.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2004).

“Love Between Muslim and Jew in Medieval Spain: A Triangular Affair”, in H. J. Hames, ed. Jews, Muslims, and Christians in and Around the Crown of Aragon: Essays in Honour of Professor Elena Lourie. Brill, pp. 127-155.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2003).

“The Birth of the Pariah: Jews, Christian Dualism, and Social Science”. Social Research, Vol. 70, No. 1, pp. 201-236.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2002).

“Conversion, Sex, and Segregation: Jews and Christians in Medieval Spain”. American Historical Review, Vol. 107, No. 4, pp. 1065-1093.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2002).

“Mass Conversion and Genealogical Mentalities: Jews and Christians in Fifteenth-Century Spain”. Past and Present, Vol. 174. No. 1, pp. 3-41.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2001).

“Muslims in Christian Iberia, 1000-1526: Varieties of Mudejar Experience”, in P. Linehan & J. L. Nelson, eds. The Medieval World. Routledge, pp. 60-76.

  • Nirenberg, D. (2000).

“El concepto de la raza en la España medieval”. Edad Media: Revista de Historia, No. 3, pp. 39-60.

  • Nirenberg, D. (1999).

“Violencia, memoria y convivencia: los judíos en la Iberia Medieval”. Memoria y Civilización, No. 2, pp. 31-53.

  • Nirenberg, D. (1998).

“The State of Mudejar Studies”. Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 381-389.

  • Nirenberg, D. (1997).

“The Historical Body of Christ”, in J. Clifton, ed. The Body of Christ in the Art of Europe and New Spain, 1150-1800. Prestel Verlag, pp. 16-25.

  • Nirenberg, D. (1997.

“The Visigothic Conversion to Catholicism: Third Council of Toledo”, in O. Remie Constable, ed. Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources. University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 12-20.

  • Nirenberg, D. (1995).

“Les juifs, la violence, et le sacré”. Annales: HSS, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 109-131.

  • Nirenberg, D. (1993).

“Muslim-Jewish Relations in the Fourteenth-Century Crown of Aragon”. Viator, No. 24, pp. 249-268.

  • Nirenberg, D. (1991).

“A Female Rabbi in Fourteenth Century Zaragoza?”. Sefarad, Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 179-182.