Faculty Work-in-Progress – The Sacrifice of Ibrahim: Faith-Switching Rumors and Forced Conversion in Seventeenth-Century Marseille

February 4th, 2020

Location: Clark Hall Room 206, 11130 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, OH 44106

Drawn from a larger book project that uses a false rumor about a forced baptism to trace the faint edges of a Jewish woman’s otherwise forgotten life, this talk by Gillian Weiss, Associate Professor in the Department of History, considers the real case of two Muslim girls converted to Catholicism on direct orders from Louis XIV. Christened Marie-Magdeleine and Ursule Marseille at that city’s main cathedral, the daughters of an Algerian galley slave named Ibrahim and his wife Fatima became municipal trophies, conduits for social distinction, subjects of diplomatic dispute and emblems of royal orthodoxy.

Pre-lecture reception at 4:15 pm.