“Queen Esther in the Tapestries of Early Modern Spain”
Thursday, October 6, 2016
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Munroe Room, McKillop Library
Dr. Emily Colbert Cairns, assistant professor of modern and classical languages and women, gender, and sexuality studies, will present a lecture and discussion on the role of Queen Esther in the manuscripts of Isabel de Carvajal and in Lope de Vega’s “La Hermosa Ester.”
Dr. Colbert Cairns highlights the central role that the biblical figure of Queen Esther had in shaping the culture and the national identity of 16th century Spain. Queen Esther is a Jewish Queen and a heroine yet she holds a lot of meaning for post-expulsion, Iberian Catholic society. The story of the Book of Esther featured in a series of three Flemish tapestries that were donated to the Cathedral de la Seo in Zaragoza, Spain in 1520. They were hung as part of Holy Week celebrations on the Cathedral walls for the next five hundred years and became part of the religious lives of all Zaragozan citizens. These tapestries reflect the contradictory ways that Esther could be both heroine and member of a persecuted minority.
Emily Colbert Cairns, a graduate of Hamilton College, received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on conversos and crypto-Jews in the early modern period in the Spanish speaking world.
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