Senior Researchers
Fernando Rodríguez Mediano is a Research Scientist (Investigador Científico) at the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council). His areas of expertise are: the Sociology of religious elites in Morocco (15th-17th centuries); Moroccan hagiographical and biographical literature; relations between Spain and Morocco (16th-17th centuries); Spanish Protectorate over Northern Morocco (1912-1956); and the origins of Spanish early modern Orientalism (17th century). His publications include: 'Familias de Fez' (ss. XV-XVII), Madrid, CSIC, 1995; 'The Orient in Spain. Converted Muslims', 'The Forged Lead Books of Granada, and the Rise of Orientalism', Leiden-Boston, Brill, Numen Book Series, 142, 2013 (with Mercedes García-Arenal); 'Justice, amour et crainte dans les recits hagiographiques marocains', Studia Islamica, 90 (2000), 85-104; 'Justice, crime et châtiment au Maroc au XVIe siècle', Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, mayo-junio 1996, 611-27; 'Fragmentos de orientalismo español del s. XVII', Hispania, 66, n1 222 (ene.-abr. 2006), 243-276; 'Sacred Calendars: Calculation of the Hegira as a Historiographical Problem in Early Modern Spain', Journal of Early Modern History, 20 (2016), 229-265.
Professor Ferenc Tóth (1967) is a senior research fellow of the Institute of History at the Research Centre for the Humanities (formerly RC of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). His research areas include the history of conflicts between Christianity and Islam (especially Turkish Wars in Hungary in 17th and 18th Centuries), the history of French-Hungarian Connections in the early modern Period (1664-1815), Hungarian orientalists during the 18th Century and the history of the activity of Hungarian agents in French service (for example François baron de Tott). He has published 25 books and over 200 studies including 'Ascension sociale et identité nationale. Intégration de l'immigration hongroise dans la société française au cours du XVIIIe siècle (1692-1815)', Budapest (Officina Hungarica IX), 2000, 'Saint-Gotthard 1664, Une bataille européenne', Panazol (Ed. Lavauzelle), 2007, 'Un diplomate militaire français en Europe orientale à la fin de l’ancien régime. François de Tott (1733-1793)', Istanbul (Editions Isis), 2011, he also published the memoirs of Baron de Tott in both French and Hungarian editions.
Gerard Wiegers (PhD Leiden University 1991, cum laude) is Full Professor of Comparative Religious Studies in the Department of History, European Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam, and a specialist in the History and Comparative Study of Religions and the history of Islam in Europe and the Muslim West. Previously he was full professor of Religious Studies, in particular Islam, at Radboud University Nijmegen and associate professor and Research Fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and Arts (KNAW) at Leiden University. His research concentrates on the relations between Islam and other religions in Europe and the Muslim West and the history of Islamic and Jewish minorities in Europe and the Middle East. He is supervisor of eight PhD students. Gerard Wiegers holds visiting research fellowships at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid and the Center for Religious Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. He is a member of the editorial board of a number of books series in the field and has directed research projects funded by private and public funding organisations, most recently as PI in the HERA funded project Encounters with the Orient in Early Modern European Scholarship and as Project Leader of the NWO funded project Delicate Relations. Muslims and Jews in London and Amsterdam (2014-present). His projects have led to publications in major peer-reviewed journals and book series.
Professor Ferrero Hernández joined The Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in 2000 and in 2016 received the Advanced Research Accreditation (Full Professor) from AQU-Cataluña. She has been the Principal Investigator of five grant funded projects including: AGAUR (Generalitat de Catalunya). 'Islamolatina. Texts, translations and controversies in the medieval and modern Mediterranean' (2017-2020) [2017 SGR 01787 (GRC)] and Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. 'Medieval and Modern Sources for the Study of Transcultural Relations in the Mediterranean: Writing and Transmission II'. (2019-2022) [PGC2018-093472-B-C31]. Since 2000 Professor Ferrero Hernández has been a member (currently Principal Investigator) of Islamolatina, a group dedicated to the study of the cultural and religious relations between the Latin world and Islam, paying particular attention to Latin translations of Arabic texts on Islamic doctrine. As part of this group, and through publications and conferences, she has played a key role in opening up the study of the polemical literature through the study of chronicles and Christian doctrinal texts, in relation both to Islam and to Judaism. Professor Hernández has also contributed to the prominence and continuity of Islamolatina through her teaching, developing the interests of undergraduates in the field, and supervising six theses and fifteen master projects on related themes. Professor Ferrero Hernández is currently working on an edition and study of the Confutación del Alcorán y Secta Mahometana, by Lope de Obregón (16th c.), in collaboration with Ryan Szpiech (University of Michigan) and Jorge Ledo (Universidade da Coruña), and is planning a work on the Improbatio Alcorani- Reprobación del Alcorán, by the Dominican Riccoldo da Montecroce (ss. XIII-XIV), based on the early-16th-century version from Spain, in Latin and Castilian. She is also preparing an edition of the Disputa de Marrakech, between a Franciscan and a Morisco in collaboration with Xavier Casassas, and leading a collaborative project with Fernando González Muñoz 'BICORE' which is creating a database of Iberian Christian texts of religious controversy from the period spanning the 4th–18th centuries.
