Amalya Feldman

My dissertation studies networks of small urban and vernacular architectural spaces used by the Jewish and converso communities in Mallorca to bolster their forms of communal identity. My dissertation covers the period from 1350–1750 in order to study the changes that occurred over time to the small space networks of the Jewish and converso communities surrounding moments of urban violence. It is a major goal of my project to shed light on the intricacies of daily life in less studied periods and to expose the continued presence of Sephardic culture in a period when there were no outwardly visible Jews in Mallorca. My dissertation strives to answer the following questions: what features make urban and domestic spaces distinctly Jewish or distinctly converso? How were these spaces connected to one another historically? How can new theoretical models of urban space, such as porosity and portability, shape our study and understanding of historical urban spaces, especially those that co-exist with other dominant groups? And, in what ways did regulations on urban movement differ from the actual use of urban spaces in Mallorca, and how could this complicate the traditional narrative of domestic urban segregation for marginalized social groups in the early modern Mediterranean world? In answering these questions my dissertation will demonstrate that the Jewish small space urban networks were maintained from 1350–1750 despite morphing to accommodate various new social groups and geographic regions in response to urban violence.