Spotlight: Interview with Gabriel de Leon, winner of the 2025-20256 Denis Menjot Prize for Undergraduate Research in Iberian History 

Interviewer: Bradley Mollmann (Professor of History, SLU-Madrid) 

Aevum is delighted to congratulate SLU-Madrid student Gabriel de Leon, who has been awarded the Denis Menjot Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper on Iberian History for his essay Exile as Resistance: La Nueve and Spanish Republican Exile Fighters in the Second World War.

Founded in 2023, the CIHS bridges the Missouri and Madrid campuses to promote the study of Iberian History at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional level. Since its founding, the CIHS has hosted lectures, seminars, conferences, and served as a collaborative platform for innovative approaches to Iberian History. 

The prize was established by means of a generous endowment from Prof. Teofilio Ruiz (UCLA), in memory of the distinguished French historian Denis Menjot (1948-2024). An expert in the history of Muslim and Christian Spain and the Mediterranean, Menjot is known for his contributions to the history of languages, food cultures, and the practice of digital humanities. His career reflected a commitment to scholarly openness and interdisciplinary exchange that the CIHS honors with this prize. 

Here, in an exclusive interview, Gabriel reflects on his essay and the award: 

Brad Mollmann: First of all, congratulations on the award. It was well deserved

and a really compelling piece of scholarship. First, I'm curious how you got into this

topic. What drew you to the story of La Nueve?

Gabriel De León: Thank you. My first introduction to La Nueve was through

Professor Chris Ealham's Spanish Civil War class. They were only briefly

mentioned during one lecture, but I found myself wanting to learn much more about

them. By that point, I had already developed a broader research interest in

transnational fighters—people who fight beyond their own national borders.

I'd previously researched American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, so this felt

like a continuation of that research interest. It also allowed me to bring together

three subjects that have long fascinated me: the Spanish Civil War, the Second

World War, and the experiences of transnational fighters.

Brad Mollmann: One of your central arguments is that people in exile weren't just

suffering, but were also part of the resistance. How did this idea develop? What

was your research process, and how did you arrive at this argument?

Gabriel De León: I knew I wanted to write about La Nueve, but I wasn't sure what

argument I wanted to make until I began working through existing scholarship.

As I worked through it, I noticed that La Nueve was often reduced to a brief

reference or omitted entirely from broader studies of Spanish Republican exile, in

both English- and Spanish-language scholarship. That absence made me wonder

why their story had received so little attention, and my central argument developed

from that question.

Brad Mollmann: One thing I liked about your paper was that you balanced larger

arguments about exile and resistance with very human stories. Was there any

source, quotation, or individual story that really stood out to you or that you found

especially compelling?

Gabriel De León: Absolutely. This paper wouldn't have been possible without Evelyn Mesquida's La Nueve: Los españoles que liberaron París. It's a truly excellent source and one of the few that follows these men from the collapse of the Spanish Republic through the end of the Second World War.

The book combines a history of the unit with firsthand testimonies from nine

veterans of La Nueve. I've always been drawn to narrative storytelling, and those

testimonies allowed me to move beyond military events and better understand how

these men experienced and remembered the war, something that secondary

sources alone could not provide.

One story that especially stayed with me was that of Daniel Hernández, a 21-year-

old kid from Almería who had moved to French Algeria before the fall of the

Spanish Republic. Perhaps the climax of his story comes with the liberation of

Paris, when Hernández, together with others from La Nueve, became some of the

first Allied troops to arrive in the French capital. It was a momentous event in its

own right, but what made his account especially compelling was realizing that he

was practically the same age as I am now, taking part in the largest conflict in

human history, and helping liberate one of the world’s most storied cities from Nazi

occupation.

I was also struck by how little the veterans talked about the war itself. They would

often simply say hice la guerra —literally, "I did/made the war"—without discussing

their combat experiences in detail. These interviews were conducted decades later,

but you can still get a glimpse of what they wanted to remember and what they

preferred not to discuss. I found that incredibly fascinating.

Brad Mollmann: That is really interesting.

Brad Mollmann: Moving from the particular to the broader, I wonder if you could

make some larger connections. In what ways is this a Spanish or Iberian story, and

in what ways does it address broader themes about the Second World War—or

even more universal themes?

Gabriel De León: For many of these men, it's a specifically Spanish story

because, as their testimonies make clear, they saw the Second World War as a

continuation of the Spanish Civil War. Nazi Germany had already fought against

them in Spain, so in many ways they felt they were still fighting the same enemy.

It's also a distinctly Spanish story because they continued to see themselves as

Republican fighters. Many wore Republican flags or insignia on their uniforms, and

they named their half-track trucks after important Civil War battles like Jarama and

Brunete.

But if we zoom out, I think it also speaks to something broader. We often learn

about the Second World War through competing national memories. In the United

States, for example, people often grow up with the idea that America practically

single-handedly defeated Nazi Germany. France, Britain, and Russia all have their

own national memories as well.

La Nueve illustrates how many people don't fit neatly into those national narratives.

These were Spanish exiles serving in the Free French Army, fighting for the

liberation of Western Europe. Their experiences crossed national borders, and I

think their story shows how much remains to be discovered beyond traditional

national histories—even in something as well studied as the Second World War.

Brad Mollmann: I'd also like to ask about your own trajectory as a history major at

SLU-Madrid. This essay was written during your final semester here. How does it

build on the work you've done in other courses?

Gabriel De León: In many ways, this paper was the culmination of all my studies

at SLU-Madrid.

When I first decided to study history, I was mainly interested in learning what

happened. But through writing papers and conducting historical research, I

gradually shifted toward asking why things happened and how historians interpret

the past.

The course Historian's Craft was also important because it introduced me to

historiography and public memory. I had encountered these ideas before, but the

course made me appreciate their significance and want to incorporate them into

this paper.

I think I was able to strike a good balance between the individual stories and

experiences of La Nueve and the larger questions of historiography and historical

memory—why these men were forgotten and how that memory was shaped.

In my opinion, this is my best paper. It's the one I'm most proud of.

Brad Mollmann: Do you see this as a springboard toward graduate school

someday?

Gabriel De León: I do.

This project has given me a much clearer idea of the kind of history I want to study

and why I think it's important.

Historical memory and historiography are relatively new to me, but they’ve quickly

become some of my top academic interests. I'm fascinated by how societies

remember their past, how historians shape those memories, and how those

interpretations continue to influence politics and national identity.

So yes, I'd love to continue developing these research interests in graduate school.

Brad Mollmann: Fantastic. Well, thanks for telling us more about your research,

and good luck with everything that's ahead.

Gabriel De León: Thank you!

October 6th, 2026

Spotlight: Interview with Lucas Borage, winner of the 2025-20256 Denis Menjot Prize for Undergraduate Research in Iberian History 

Interviewer: Claire Gilbert (Associate Professor of History and CIHS Faculty Affiliate)

Aevum is delighted to congratulate SLU-Missouri student Lucas Borage, who has been awarded the Denis Menjot Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper on Iberian History for his essay Limpieza de Sangre and the Limits of Genealogy: Tridentine Reform in the Spanish Atlantic. 

Founded in 2023, the CIHS bridges the Missouri and Madrid campuses to promote the study of Iberian History at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional level. Since its founding, the CIHS has hosted lectures, seminars, conferences, and served as a collaborative platform for innovative approaches to Iberian History. 

The prize was established by means of a generous endowment from Prof. Teofilio Ruiz (UCLA), in memory of the distinguished French historian Denis Menjot (1948-2024). An expert in the history of Muslim and Christian Spain and the Mediterranean, Menjot is known for his contributions to the history of languages, food cultures, and the practice of digital humanities. His career reflected a commitment to scholarly openness and interdisciplinary exchange that the CIHS honors with this prize. 

Here, in an exclusive interview, Lucas reflects on his essay and the award: 

Claire Gilbert (Associate Professor of History and CIHS Faculty Affiliate): Congratulations on being awarded the Denis Menjot Prize for Undergraduate Research in Iberian History. Your project explores a complex and evocative topic: genealogical thinking and the history of limpieza de sangre in Spain’s American colonies. What first drew you to these questions?

Lucas Borage: The first thing that drew me to the topic was a primary source we looked at in my History of the Atlantic World class with Professor Nathanial Millett (CIHS Faculty Affiliate): a fourteenth-century Castilian law directed largely toward Jews and Muslims. I had never really considered the ways in which different religious communities lived together in medieval Spain, so that source really caught my attention.

From there, I read Jonathan Ray’s work on convivencia and then some of the books you recommended, including a chapter on limpieza de sangre in James Amelang’s Parallel Histories. That really grabbed me because it made me think about ideas of race and racialization much earlier than I had encountered them in my previous history classes. I started wondering when and how these kinds of ideas developed.

My ideas really began to come together when I read Max Deardorff’s A Tale of Two Granadas, which was recommended to me by Br. Brent Gordon (SLU History Graduate Student and CIHS affiliate). That was when I started thinking about expanding the project into the Americas and considering the role that religious reforms played in the development and application of these ideas.

Claire Gilbert: One of the strengths of your paper is the way you move from broad questions about genealogy and religious identity to individual case studies, including figures such as Diego de Vargas and the García Zorro brothers. What was it like to encounter these individuals in your research?

Lucas Borage: I was really excited when I found these case studies. They weren't all from the same book or source, but as I brought them together, I started to see how they could provide evidence for the larger ideas I was investigating.

It was especially satisfying because I could have argued that reforms associated with the Council of Trent created certain possibilities, but the case studies allowed me to see that these things actually happened in people's lives. These individuals were affected by laws and ideas about genealogy, citizenship, and religious identity. The case studies helped me think about how those larger political and religious ideas were actually experienced.

I also became interested in how I could interpret these cases somewhat differently from the historians who had originally studied them. For example, Deardorff emphasizes questions of citizenship, or vecindad, whereas I wanted to emphasize the continuity of ideas about genealogy and subjecthood and the influence of religious reform.

Claire Gilbert: That raises an important question about what it means to make a historical argument. You aren't necessarily arguing that another historian is wrong; you're asking a somewhat different question.

Lucas Borage: Exactly. I had a really good AP Language teacher who described an argument as the search for truth rather than simply persuasion. I liked that way of thinking about it. When people ask what I was arguing against, I don't necessarily have an answer. I was asking a different question.

For me, that meant looking at how broad laws and political or religious ideas were actually experienced by individuals. A historian might focus primarily on the laws themselves, while another historian might want to understand their effects in practice. Both approaches can be valuable. I was interested in bringing those perspectives together.

Claire Gilbert: Your original project focused more directly on Spain, but your History of the Atlantic World course pushed you to think more broadly. How did that shape the paper?

Lucas Borage: I wrote the paper for Professor Millett's History of the Atlantic World class, and that had a major impact on it. Originally, I was interested in limpieza de sangre in Spain. When I talked to Professor Millett about my ideas, he encouraged me to make the project more explicitly Atlantic. That became the question I brought to Brother Gordon, and from there the project developed into its current form.

Professor Hester's Historian's Craft class also influenced the project. The class focused on citizenship, so I was able to think more carefully about Spanish subjecthood and local citizenship, especially the concept of vecindad. The class also encouraged me to look closely at how historians themselves construct arguments: the questions they ask, the sources they choose, and even the formats they use.

So I wasn't just thinking about my own argument. I was also analyzing the arguments of historians who had worked on similar subjects.

Claire Gilbert: How do you see this project contributing to Iberian Historical Studies, especially since so much of your research ultimately takes place in the Americas?

Lucas Borage: The project isn't primarily about the Iberian Peninsula, but it is about ideas that originated there and then traveled. I spend part of the paper looking at Jews and Muslims in Spain and at ideas such as genealogy and inherited religious identity. Then I look at how those ideas affected people in a different place and time in the Spanish Americas.

That's why I still see it as Iberian history. The ideas originated in medieval Spain, but their consequences extended far beyond Spain. The Council of Trent also makes the story much more global because its reforms affected societies in many different places. A council meeting in Italy could influence lawmakers in Spain, who in turn influenced the lives of people in the Americas.

So the project became both a global story and a story that crosses temporal boundaries. There is a lot of change during this period—the Reformation, expansion into the Americas, and new categories of subjecthood such as mestizo. But underneath that change is also a story of continuity: ideas that developed in the later Middle Ages continued to shape political and social life much later.

Claire Gilbert: What originally drew you to history as a field of study?

Lucas Borage: Before college, I always enjoyed research and the idea of developing my own perspective on something and sharing it with other people. I wasn't necessarily someone who had always been a huge history nerd, but I liked the idea that I could investigate something and potentially develop a perspective that nobody else had expressed in quite the same way.

That's what ultimately drew me toward history: the research and the possibility of creating something new from evidence.

Claire Gilbert: If you were to continue this project, where would you take it?

Lucas Borage: I'd really like to work directly in an archive and find more case studies of people who were affected by these reforms and laws. I'd want to know whether their experiences were consistent with the cases I've already studied or whether there were contradictory experiences. More evidence could allow me to make a stronger claim about what religious reforms actually meant for people at this time.

Working with sources in Spanish was also an important part of the experience. Even after studying Spanish for five years, reading historical Spanish was difficult, and it slowed the research process down. I often had to corroborate what I was reading with other sources to make sure I was interpreting it correctly. It was a good reminder that historical research requires patience and verification.

Claire Gilbert: What's next for you as a young historian?

Lucas Borage: I'm really excited to go to Madrid and study more Iberian history and develop a better understanding of the field. I'm also hoping to have opportunities to work with archival materials, possibly in the Jesuit archives.

I'm looking forward to my upcoming history classes as well, especially medieval England and Africa since 1884. I haven't studied much medieval history since I was in seventh grade, so I'm excited to really get into it. I think both courses will give me new questions and perspectives that I can bring to my work as a historian.

October 6th, 2026

Spotlight: Interview with Adela Corral, winner of the 2024-2025 Denis Menjot Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper on Iberian History.

Interviewer: Bradley Mollmann (Assistant Professor of History, SLU-Madrid) 

Aevum is delighted to congratulate SLU-Madrid History Major Adela Corral, who has been awarded the inaugural Denis Menjot Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper on Iberian History for her essay Sofonisba Anguissola: Reinforcing the Feminine, Breaking Barriers, and Showing History Through Art. 

This marks the first annual award of the prize, which is presented by the Saint Louis University Center for Iberian Historical Studies (CIHS). Founded in 2023, the CIHS bridges the Missouri and Madrid campuses to promote the study of Iberian History at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional level. Since its founding, the CIHS has hosted lectures, seminars, conferences, and served as a collaborative platform for innovative approaches to Iberian History. 

The prize was established by means of a generous endowment from Prof. Teofilio Ruiz (UCLA), in memory of the distinguished French historian Denis Menjot (1948-2024). An expert in the history of Muslim and Christian Spain and the Mediterranean, Menjot is known for his contributions to the history of languages, food cultures, and the practice of digital humanities. His career reflected a commitment to scholarly openness and interdisciplinary exchange that the CIHS honors with this prize. 

Adela´s essay was chosen from a competitive field of submissions from both campuses for this prestigious prize. Centered on the Italian-born female Renaissance Painter Sofonisba Anguissola who rose to prominence in Madrid at the court of Philip II, Adela’s research explores how Anguissola navigated gender and power dynamics to overcome odds and establish herself as one of the most successful painters of her generation. She wrote the essay as part of her HIST 3090 Age of Renaissance course at SLU Madrid, and it has been published in Aevum in its entirety. (See "Articles" tab above for access to the published essay)

Here, in an exclusive interview, Adela reflects on her essay and the award: 

Bradley Mollmann: Adela, congrats on the much-deserved award! Can you describe what drew you to Sofonisba Anguissola and what you found to be most interesting about her life and career? 

Adela Corral: Thank you so much, Dr. Mollmann! I am honored to receive this award. I discovered Sofonisba Anguissola in the Prado Museum. I saw her portrait of Spanish King Philip II and noticed that it was not only painted by a woman, which was extremely rare at the time, but that her name was not Spanish.

As I investigated further, I realized that her life and some of her other art was proto-feminist. She depicted men in private spaces and women in intellectual endeavors, something quite unique for that time period! I was impressed by her repertoire and wanted to see how she ended up working in King Phillip II’s court. The essay centered around the timeline of her career and life story. 

What fascinated me most about Sofonisba Anguissola was the duality she embodied. While she challenged artistic conventions and pushed boundaries for women, she also upheld the traditional Renaissance values of supporting monarchies, being a devout Catholic, and taking pride in social status. This complex balance between breaking barriers and upholding norms made her life and career compelling to study. 

It was not surprising that her contributions to art were attributed to other Spanish artists like Francisco de Zurbarán. It was only in the twentieth century that art historians realized that these pieces were actually done by Sofonisba Anguissola. Her legacy and history were forgotten. I wanted to revive her legacy as a phenomenal artist and a woman who managed to contribute to Italian and Spanish society in a plethora of ways. 

BM: This award focuses on Iberian History. How do you see your research as contributing to Iberian History? 

AC: Understanding the distinction between Spanish/Portugese history and Iberian history is crucial. Iberian history offers a broader, more global perspective. The significance of the region’s deep history lies in how its legacy impacts all of Europe, it transcends borders. 

Approaching art from a denationalized perspective is key to appreciate the entirety of its significance. Labelling artworks as purely Spanish or Portuguese limits their broader context and importance by confining them to a single nation’s narrative. 

The life and work of Sofonisba Anguissola exemplify the cultural exchange at the heart of Iberian history. Her Italian background, intersecting with Spanish nationalism and Habsburg ideals, produced art that defines perceptions of political ideology, religion, and gender in the period. 

Iberian history is a pivotal part of European History, and in this essay, King Philip II was a crucial part of cultural patronage, development of the arts, and transnational relations in Europe. Let’s not forget he was also a patron of other artists like El Greco, who was not even born in Spain, although people see him as a national emblem…he was actually born in Greece! 

BM: Can you talk a bit more about your academic trajectory as a History major? How does this essay build upon work that you have done in other courses? 

AC: I have been a history major since my second semester of university. I decided to major in this discipline because I actually find it really fun! The readings and research in my history courses are intellectually stimulating and make me think critically. I never thought that by doing something I find fun, I could win an award and have two papers published in AEVUM. 

Having the opportunity to take a diverse range of courses at SLU-Madrid has been pivotal in my academic trajectory. I have been in constant learning and finding new points of interest for my research. Sometimes we like to stay in our comfort zone, and mine personally is Latin American history. However, there are courses like The Age of the Renaissance, that pushed me to discover more about the world of European history 

In these classes, you are challenged to explore new subjects with unfamiliar sources, names, and dates. You have to build up knowledge faster to conduct your own research. This time I needed to do extensive research because I lacked prior understanding of the artist. 

In addition, my background in political science and women & gender studies helped me grasp Sofonisba Anguissola’s historical context in Italian and Spanish society. This interdisciplinary approach, that I get from studying other majors, lets me create a well-rounded analysis. 

Septmeber 18th, 2025