I am currently in Barcelona participating in a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute on Networks and Knowledge: Synthesis and Innovation in the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Medieval Mediterranean.

This month-long faculty seminar provides an opportunity for university and college professors to engage in extended discussions of common readings and current issues around a major thread in humanities research. This seminar focuses on the medieval and early modern Mediterranean studies, a topic that relates to my own HIST 458 course on the Mediterranean World, 1450-1750, at Northern Illinois University.

The NEH Seminar in Barcelona is organized by Brian A. Catlos and Sharon Kinoshita and sponsored by the Mediterranean Seminar at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Funding and support for the seminar has been provided by the NEH, the Institució Milà i Fontanals of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and other organizations.