Maayan (Maaian) Aner

Research Topic: Queer Lives, Locality and Race in Counter-Reformation Spain

Supervisors: Giuseppe Marcocci and Lyndal Roper

My DPhil project aims to explore the social history of queer people in early modern Spain – individuals who transgressed contemporary gender and sexual norms. Using archival sources, I will examine instances of same-sex intercourse and ambiguous gender and explore the position of queer people within their communities, paying particular attention to how the reactions such individuals provoked intersected with other social identity markers, such as race and religion.

Existing scholarship on non-normative sexuality and gender-crossing in early modern Iberia has primarily focused on intellectual discourse and artistic representations. Little attention, however, has been paid to social dynamics, particularly networks and interactions in specific locales. This project, situated within the fields of social history and the history of gender and sexuality, aims to fill this gap by centring lived experiences and contextualising them within the culturally composite and diverse Spanish society of the period, incorporating into the analysis local circumstances as well as the impact of expanding empire and Mediterranean exchanges.

I hold a bachelors degree in History and General Humanities and a masters degree in Early Modern History, both from Tel Aviv University, both of which were awarded distinction.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2018-2020    Research Assistant, Curiel Institute for European Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel                                   

2014-2018       Research Assistant to Prof. Na’ama Cohen-HaNegbi, Medieval Spanish history, Tel Aviv University, Israel

AWARDS & HONORS

2022        De Osma Studentship 

2019        Prize for Outstanding M.A Student, The Pedagogica Foundation, Israel
2018        The Moran Zafrir Award for Outstanding Research on the Topic of Gender Identity Crossings and Transgenderism, Moran Tzafrir Fund, Tel Aviv University
2018         The Haim Levin Prize for Outstanding Graduate Student, Tel Aviv University

GRANTS & SCHOLARSHIPS

2018-2019    Academic Excellence Scholarship, the Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel

2017-2018       Scholarship from Prof. Tamar Herzig’s Israel Science Foundation funded project “Convents and Conversion in Early Modern Italy”, Prof. Tamar Herzig                
2018        Travel Grant for Intensive Spanish Language Training at the University of Barcelona, the Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies, Tel Aviv 
University, Israel

CONFERENCES & PUBLIC APPEARANCES

2022    Co-Organiser and Panelist, Lesbianism and Trans Identities in Pre-modern Societies, accepted for Queer History Conference, San Francisco State University, 12-15 June 
2021    Shifting Sexual and Religious Boundaries in Sixteenth-Century Spain: the Case of Eleno de Céspedes, the 43rd Annual Warren Susman Graduate Conference "Quarantined Histories: Narratives of Control and Controlled Narratives", Rutgers University, New Jersey, 26 March
2021     Shifting Sexual and Religious Boundaries in Sixteenth-Century Spain: the Case of Eleno de Céspedes, ‘Religious Transformation and Gender: Contestations in/and the Study of Religion, Gender and Sexuality’, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, 10-12 March
2021    Exploring Early Modern Queerness, Interview at Historia Gdola BaKtana podcast, 18 February                 
2019    Gender, Sex and Class Crossings in Sixteenth-Century Spain: The Trial of Eleno/a de Céspedes, ‘Sex Acher’: The Annual Conference for LGBT Studies and Queer Theory, Tel Aviv University, Israel, 2-3 June