Informal Talk: Elsa Cardoso

Gendered Affects and Visuality in Bayād wa Riyāḍ

Elsa Cardoso (School of Arabic Studies, Spanish National Research Council – CSIC)

This talk presents preliminary, work-in-progress results from my one-month research stay (April 2026) at the Center for the Study of Manuscripts’ Culture at the University of Hamburg. The project undertakes a focused study of Bayād wa Riyāḍ (Vatican Library, Codex Vat. Arabo 368), one of the most exceptional literary and artistic witnesses of medieval al-Andalus and among the very few surviving illustrated Andalusi manuscripts. While the text has been edited and translated in several languages, its potential for interdisciplinary gender analysis remains largely unexplored.

The talk develops two interconnected lines of inquiry. First, it examines the manuscript’s literary construction of romantic relationships between men and women within an elite courtly milieu. Through close reading informed by gender-studies approaches, it explores how desire, emotional exchange, and gendered agency are articulated, as well as how normative expectations and permissible transgressions are negotiated. Second, the paper turns to the manuscript’s codicological and visual features, analyzing how its program of illustrations mediates and shapes gendered interaction. Particular attention is paid to gesture, spatial arrangement, attire, and the relationship between image and text.

By combining these perspectives, the talk highlights Bayād wa Riyāḍ as a key source for understanding affect, embodiment, and courtly sociability in medieval al-Andalus.