Board Members

Professor Rosa Vidal Doval 

Rosa Vidal Doval is Associate Professor of Medieval Iberian Literature at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow in Spanish at Magdalen College. Professor Vidal Doval’s research centres on the culture and history of late medieval and Renaissance Iberia, with a particular focus on religious conversion and the role of texts in promoting intolerance—especially toward Jewish converts to Christianity (conversos). Her academic journey began in Pontevedra, Spain, and Mbabane, Eswatini, before she pursued a BA in Medieval Studies at the University of Manchester. She continued at Manchester to complete an MA in Medieval History and a PhD focused on religious persecution in fifteenth-century Spain.  Her current projects include a monograph titled Purity of Blood in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Genealogy, Discrimination, and Race, supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (2024–25), and a modern edition and English translation of Alonso de Espina’s Fortalitium fidei (1464), co-edited with Anthony J. Lappin. Her recent publications include “Conversion as Education: Persuading the Jews in Juan Luis Vives’s De veritate fidei christianae” (Medieval Encounters, 2025); “St Paul, the Apostolic Age, and the Status of Conversos” (forthcoming in Converso Paulinisms); and other contributions to volumes such as Gender and Exemplarity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain and Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Professor Vidal Doval’s work continues to shape scholarly discourse on religious identity, intolerance, and cultural transformation in medieval Spain. 

Professor Eduardo Manzano Moreno

Eduardo Manzano Moreno is a Research Professor at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), where he served as director from 2006 to 2012. He specialises in al-Andalus and medieval Spanish history. He holds a Ph.D. in Medieval History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master of Arts in Near Eastern Studies from the University of London (SOAS). His international academic presence includes roles as a visiting scholar at St. John's College, University of Oxford, and as a guest professor at the University of Chicago.  Among his notable publications are Conquistadores, emires y califas. Los Omeyas y la formación de al-Andalus (2006), and La corte del califa. Cuatro años en la Córdoba de los califas omeyas (2019), both published by Editorial Crítica. Beyond medieval Islamic history, Manzano has explored the political uses of historical narratives. His co-authored book La gestión de la memoria. La historia de España al servicio del poder (2000) critically examines how history is employed to shape national identity. He also contributed to the multi-volume Historia de España project, publishing Épocas medievales in 2010. In 2024, he released España diversa. Claves de una historia plural, offering insights into Spain’s multifaceted historical identity. His work continues to influence both scholarly discourse and public understanding of Spain’s complex past. 

Professor Shakuntala Banaji

Shakuntala Banaji is Professor of Media, Culture and Social Change in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her expertise includes Bollywood, South Asian media, youth civic participation, media education, and the intersection of media with social justice and identity. Professor Banaji holds degrees from the University of Warwick, Goldsmiths College, and a PhD from the Institute of Education, University of London. Before academia, she taught English and Media Studies in London schools and worked at the English and Media Centre.  Her recent edited volume with Eviane Leidig explores global far-right discourses and strategies, focusing on how digital hate reshapes public spheres. Her books include Youth Active Citizenship in Europe: Ethnographies of Participation (2020, with Sam Mejias) and Social Media and Hate (2022, with Ram Bhat). Professor Banaji’s research spans media literacy, disinformation, youth and children’s media, creativity, race and gender representation, and the political uses of media. Her work critically examines fascism, authoritarianism, orientalism, and technologized hate, including the use of AI in spreading disinformation and undermining democracy. 

Dr Eric Calderwood

Eric Calderwood is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, specialising in North African literature and film, Al-Andalus (Medieval Muslim Iberia), modern Spanish literature and film, Arabic literature, Mediterranean studies, postcolonial studies, and travel writing. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2011 and his B.A. from Brown University in 2003.  His recent publications include On Earth or in Poems: The Many Lives of al-Andalus (Harvard University Press, 2023), and scholarly articles in journals such as PMLA, Journal of Arabic Literature, and Journal of North African Studies. Calderwood’s work continues to shape contemporary understandings of cultural translation, colonial imaginaries, and literary histories across the Mediterranean and beyond. 

Dr Louie Dean Valencia 

Louie Dean Valencia is the NEH Distinguished Professor in the Humanities (2024–2027) at Texas State University, where he also serves as Director of the Texas Center for Public History and Associate Professor of Digital History. Dr. Valencia’s research interests span Europe, Spain, youth movements, digital history, music, film, visual culture, and historical memory. He earned his Ph.D. in Early and Late Modern European History from Fordham University and has taught at Harvard University. His work has been supported by prestigious institutions including the U.S. Library of Congress, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of Education, and the American Council of Learned Societies.  His books include Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History (2020) and Antiauthoritarian Youth Culture in Francoist Spain (2018). He is editor of a forthcoming series on counterculture and serves on editorial boards for Popular Culture Review, Modern History of Politics and Violence, and Revista Internacional de Estudios sobre Terrorismo. He is also a member of the Emotions in European Politics network. An internationally recognized scholar and speaker, Dr. Valencia’s work explores how youth engage in social change through technology, art, counterculture, celebrity, and public spaces.