On September 12, at 4:15 pm, will take place the Seminar in Medieval Studies: “Remembering Jimena(s): One Woman’s Journey through Different Media (11th-21st centuries)”, by Dr. Marija Blašković, in mixed modality (presencial and via Zoom).

The presencial session will take place at Colégio Almada Negreiros, Sala SD (floor 0).

 

At a societal level, the construction of memory is never arbitrary: “Only the significant past is remembered, only the remembered past is significant” (Assmann, 1992:97). In this context, it would be difficult to find a non-royal from the eleventh-century Castile who is more famous than Rodrigo Díaz. Better known as the Cid, this nobleman conquered Valencia after being banished from Castile by King Alfonso VI. Ever since, his deeds have been praised in different media, drawing the attention of both scholars and general public. This talk, however, focuses on his wife Jimena Díaz, and the different elements, from the eleventh-century documents to modern artistic expressions, that were chosen to form her image. Via this diachronic journey, it is possible to observe how these elements interact with each other and see what the shifts tell us not only about medieval women like Jimena, but also about our own culture.

Biographical note
Marija Blašković holds a Doctorate in Spanish Philology from the University of Vienna (2018). Her monograph Potenciales polifónicos: la nobleza cortesana del Cantar de Mio Cid was published by Iberoamericana in 2020.

Much of her work is linked by an interest in cultural memory, identity construction, and the history of mentalities, as well as notions of power, knowledge, violence, and gender. 

She held a postdoctoral position at the Department for Romance Studies at the University of Vienna 2019-2022) and a Beatriu de Pinós fellowship at the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) (2022-2023). Since March 2023 she is a Marie Curie Fellow at the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) where she is developing the project “FEMIber: Digitizing Women of Medieval Iberian Historiography”, which aims to explore representations of women in late medieval chronicles with Digital Humanities tools from multiple perspectives.