Mayte Green-Mercado

Mayte Green-Mercado received her BA in European History from the University of Puerto Rico, and her PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at The University of Chicago, specializing in Islamic Studies. She teaches courses on Islamic history and culture in the medieval and early modern Western Mediterranean. She also teaches courses on migration in the Mediterranean. Her courses deal with questions of religion, politics, identity, and race and ethnicity in the medieval and early modern periods.

Her current book project is concerned with histories of displacement, migration, and refugees in the early modern Mediterranean. 

Publications:

• Visions of Deliverance. Moriscos and the Politics of Prophecy in the Early Modern
  Mediterranean (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019)

• "The Forced Conversion and the Moriscos,” in The Handbook of Muslim Iberia, Routledge

• “Ethnic Groups in Early Modern Spain,” in A Companion to the Spanish Renaissance, Brill 2018

Media Appearances/Speaking Engagements:

• Genealogies of Race. Racialization of Religion in Early Modern Iberia,” Conference: Racialization. A Plurality of Paradigms, European Union Center at University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, Pavia, Italy

• “Migration and Diaspora,” Decolonizing Iberian Studies Series, Amherst College, MA

• “Premodern Race and Religion,” Critical Race Conversations, Folger Shakespeare

Previous Organizations: 

• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• University of Tennessee, Knoxville

• The University of Chicago 

Accomplishments:

• Council for American Research Centers Abroad (CAORC) Research Fellowship for Tunisia and Algeria

• Warren I Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching, Rutgers University

Upcoming Projects:

• Genealogies of Race Podcast

• (Dis)locations: Forced Migration, Displacement, and Racial Justice Project

• Arabic Language Initiative

This seminar, led by ISGRJ-Newark Campus Director Mayte Green-Mercado and co-organized by Lauren Shallish (Urban Education), sponsored by the Mellon Foundation and hosted at Rutgers-Newark in the fall of 2024 spring of 2025, explored themes of social justice centering on four critical areas of inquiry: systemic racism, environmental crisis and climate change, disability, human displacement and post-conflict resolution, to illuminate common histories and methodological frameworks that can inform generative responses to past and present social harms. 

Learn more here: https://sawyerseminar.newark.rutgers.edu.

The goal of the Race and Religion Series, the first of its kind out of ISGRJ-Newark, is to investigate the intersection of race, religion, and immigration. The series featured talks by leading experts on the racialization of Muslims in the United States by exploring issues of diversity, discrimination, inclusion and exclusion, and religious freedom. 

Learn more here: https://globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/news/race-and-religion-series-article