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School of History

Dr Delfi Nieto-Isabel

Delfi

Marie Skłodowska–Curie and IHSS Fellow and Lecturer in History

Email: d.nieto-isabel@qmul.ac.uk

Profile

I'm a Marie SkÅ‚odowska–Curie Fellow, Lecturer in History and a Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. I'm currently working on my EU-funded project, ILLITTERATAE, which aims to research women’s role in the transmission of alternative religious ideas, focusing on communities of beguines across the medieval Mediterranean. I co-lead the Time & Temporalities Research Cluster at the School of History and the international Blurred Boundaries of Religious Dissent Research Initiative, and I'm a member of the organizing committee of The Other Sister Project (https://othersisters.hypotheses.org/) based at the University of Toronto.
I completed my PhD at the University of Barcelona in 2018, focusing on the application of Social Network Analysis to the study of dissident religious movements in the Late Middle Ages, and was a Research Associate and Visiting Lecturer in the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School in 2021-22.

Research

Research Interests:

Women's history
Medieval Church history
History of religious dissent
History of religious persecution Inquisition & heresy
Historical Network Analysis
History of medieval science
History of magic and witchcraft
Digital History and Digital Humanities
Time and temporalities

Publications

ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS

“Beguines, Free Spirits, and the Inquisitorial Network Conundrum,” Oliviana 7 (2023). URL: https://journals.openedition.org/oliviana/1596.

“Following the Heart: Relics, Martyrdom and the Relational Space among the Beguins of Languedoc.” In Poverty, Eschatology and the Medieval Church. Studies in Honor of David Burr, edited by Michael F. Cusato and Dabney Park, 392–420. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2023.

"Introduction: All but Marginal: The Co-Constructions of Otherness in the Middle Ages." In Living on the Edge: Transgression, Exclusion, and Persecution in the Middle Ages, edited by Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel and Laura Miquel Milian, 3-19. Berlin – Boston: Medieval Institute Publications – De Gruyter, 2022.

Taylor, Claire and Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel. "Cathars in Occitania: A Case Study in Religious Dissent." In Debating Medieval Europe. The Late Middle Ages, edited by Stephen Mossman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming.

Nieto-Isabel, Delfi I. and Carlos López-Arenillas. “From Inquisition to Inquiry: Inquisitorial Records as a Source for Social Network Analysis.” In Digital Humanities and Christianity. An Introduction, edited by Tim Hutchings and Claire Clivaz, 195–212. Introductions to Digital Humanities – Religion 4. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.

Nieto-Isabel, Delfi I. “Beliefs in Progress: The Beguins of Languedoc and the Construction of a New Heretical Identity.” SVMMA. Revista de Cultures Medievals 15, no.1 (2020): 95–117.

Nieto-Isabel, Delfi I. “Dissidència en femení: Les dones al moviment beguí del Llenguadoc.” In Creences a l’época medieval: ortodòxia i heretgia, edited by Karen Stöber, 101–124. Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2018.

Nieto-Isabel, Delfi I. “Overlapping Networks. Beguins, Franciscans, and Poor Clares at the Crossroads of a Shared Spirituality.” In Clarisas y dominicas. Modelos de implantación, filiación, promoción y devoción en la Península Ibérica, Cerdeña, Nápoles y Sicilia, edited by Blanca Garí, Núria Jornet-Benito, and Gemma Colesanti, 429–448. Florence: Reti Medievali - Firenze University Press, 2017.

EDITED VOLUMES

Nieto-Isabel, Delfi I., and Laura Miquel Milian, eds. Living on the Edge: Transgression, Exclusion, and Persecution in the Middle Ages. Berlin – Boston: Medieval Institute Publications – De Gruyter, 2022.

Carrillo Rangel, David, Delfi I. Nieto-Isabel, and Pablo Acosta-García, eds. Touching, Devotional Practices and Visionary Experience in the Late Middle Ages. London (UK): Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

BOOK REVIEWS

Review of Biget, Jean-Louis, Sylvie Caucanas, Michelle Fournié, and Daniel le Blévec, eds. Le "catharisme" en questions. Cahiers de Fanjeaux 55. Fanjeaux: Centre d’études historiques de Fanjeaux, 2020. The Catholic Historical Review 109, no. 2 (Spring 2023): 397–400.

PUBLIC HISTORY

"Franciscanos en la Edad Media: entre la ortodoxia y la herejía," Desperta Ferro. Arqueología e Historia 46 (2022): 44-50. ISSN 2387-1237.

"Santas y herejes: las mujeres y las vicisitudes de la historia," Desperta Ferro. Arqueología e Historia 46 (2022): 50-53. ISSN 2387-1237.

Public Engagement

I've coordinated two Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs):

Magic in the Middle Ages https://www.coursera.org/course/magicmiddleages

A Voice of their Own. Women’s Spirituality in the Middle Ages.” https://es.coursera.org/learn/womens-spirituality

I'm currently developing ILLITTERATAE's website and public engagement plan. Meanwhile, I post about my work on Twiter as @delfinietois

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