CAHSS Professor Connects Literature of Early Modern Spain, Medieval Iberia with Transcending Contemporary Divides

He is currently editing a collection of articles considering the uses and abuses of early modern Spanish culture. He also recently had a chapter accepted for publication in the volume “Cervantine Futures: Theorizing Cervantes After the Critical Turn” (eds. Paul Michael Johnson and Nicholas R. Jones, forthcoming from Vanderbilt University Press). In it Leahy addresses the ethical considerations to consider when engaging today with a lesser-known work by Cervantes that is about the Crusades.

“Today we have this set of far-right images and narratives that draw on the idea of the Crusades to justify hatred and violence against Muslims, immigrants and other groups,” he said. “We have a responsibility to ask where the work of 16th- and 17th-century studies in Spain can be in dialogue with the world we live in. What is the legacy of Cervantes? What is the legacy of the Crusades? How do these historical narratives get used to underwrite poisonous ideologies today?”

Leahy has hesitated to create a course directly addressing the subject “because it means researching social media and the nasty, dark recesses of the internet where I don’t want to send my students.” But he teaches a class on Iberian culture that examines the legacy of Francisco Franco, former dictator of Spain, “and the historical narratives that were basic to his far-right nationalist regime in the 20th century.”

In Leahy’s course “Sex, Bodies and Power in the Early Modern Empire,” he focuses on “how early modern people understood the body in terms of race, sexuality and gender during the period of the Spanish Inquisition.”

The class interrogates the experiences of figures such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Juan Rana, Eleno de Céspedes and the Lieutenant Nun who “defy traditional binaries of gender and sexuality and provide a broader spectrum of gender expression than we might expect from that very conservative era of Inquisitorial Counter-Reformation Spain.”

He also teaches a class on “Muslims, Christians and Jews in Iberia," a course that focuses “not just on the complex history of Iberia’s multi-confessional past but also on the meanings ascribed to that past today,” Leahy said.

“That past yields wildly divergent meanings depending on what you want to use it for,” he explained. “Was medieval Iberia a kind of Utopia and multicultural paradise, a hellscape where Muslims and Christians were slaughtering each other or something else? These are old conversations that remain vitally important even now in the 21st century. What different people do with this past connects today with how we imagine the present and future. These are relevant questions with real moral and ethical stakes for the moment we’re all living in.”

Meanwhile, he continues to dive ever deeper into the complicated world of “Don Quixote” in the honors seminar and enrichment courses he teaches on the novel.

In his role as department chair, Leahy relishes the opportunity to contribute to the broader communities of CAHSS and the university. His membership in the weekly CAHSS department chairs and directors’ meetings, for example, puts him “necessarily in dialogue with the consequential, often difficult things going on,” he said.

He especially enjoys championing and supporting colleagues and students “whether through helping them apply for a super cool grant or sabbatical or trying to prepare students to graduate on time. Anything we do that is helping students, that’s where our heart is. It’s lovely to be able to intervene in a positive, tangible way.”

Last year, for example, Leahy collaborated with faculty in the Media, Film & Journalism Studies Department (MFJS) to help shepherd through the approval process the proposal of fellow CAHSS faculty Lina Reznicek-Parrado (Spanish) and Carlos Jiménez (MFJS) for a new micro credential in Spanish language and media production.

His involvement with and current directorship of the CAHSS First-Generation College Program that provides first-gen students with mentoring and other forms of support enables Leahy to share his own experiences and encourage students to reach beyond self-doubt and dream big.

He’s grateful to CAHSS Dean Rhonda Gonzales for her advocacy for a program he considers “key to providing a sense of belonging and community for first-gen students,” he said.

“My main work for the program this year has been building more robust connections with the broader campus and the central DU first-gen program,” he added. “About half of all first-gen students who are undergraduates at DU are in the CAAHS first-gen program. We have dedicated, caring faculty and staff mentors who are also first-gen students and that strengthens what we do and provides a sense of identity and connection.”

The father of five children ranging in age from five to 22 who loves to hike with his family in his increasingly rare spare time, he’s proud to have had three articles this year accepted for publication despite his hectic schedule.

“Research is a core part of who we are professionally and it’s nice to be able to continue with that and engage with the world as well,” Leahy said. “It’s almost like a vacation when I sit down to read something for 10 minutes.”

He added that “I don’t feel exceptional that I am very busy and engaged in trying to support students and colleagues. I think that’s the way most of us in CAHSS are. We’re a fundamentally caring community. We worry about each other. We want to help our students, our faculty, our college and our university and we’re all doing our part in diverse ways.”