“The popular myth of convivencia —the idyllic coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Spain from the Muslim invasion of a.d. 711 to the expulsions of 1492—appeals to the multicultural temper of the times,” writes artist and critic Maureen Mullarkey in The Popular Myth of Conviviencia , and finds an example in a recent exhibition at the Museum of Biblical Art and the catalogue produced for it. Today’s “On the Square” article examines with an expert eye the ways such myths are promoted and the reasons for thinking them myths.
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