Overview
Manuel Olmedo Gobante writes and teaches on early modern Hispanic literature, martial arts, soldierly theater, and Afro-Spanish cultural history. He is the author of a critical edition of Andrés de Claramonte's play The Valiant Black Man in Flanders / El valiente negro en Flandes (Liverpool University Press, 2023) and co-editor of Iberia negra: textos para otra historia de la diáspora africana, an annotated reader of Afro-Iberian literary and archival sources from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Routledge, 2024).
Professor Olmedo Gobante’s first monograph, La razón ensangrentada: literatura y esgrima en el Siglo de Oro (Iberoeamericana / Veurvert, forthcoming) explores the material culture, ideologies, and aesthetic practices of fencing in the early modern Hispanic world. He is also working on a book provisionally titled Afro-Futurisms in the Early Modern Iberian World, which traces how Africa was envisioned in the Hispanic world at the intersections of race, technology, sovereignty, and the environment.
Olmedo Gobante earned his MA and PhD in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian studies from the University of Chicago and his Licenciatura (5-year degree) in Hispanic Philology from the University of Seville, Spain. Before joining Cornell in 2025, he was Assistant Professor of Spanish at University of Arkansas. He currently is a member of the research group The Making of Blackness and is part of the Editorial Board of the Bulletin of the Comediantes.
Research Focus
- Spanish Golden Age Literature
- Early Modern Fencing
- Soldierly Theater
- Black Studies
- Textual Criticism
Publications
Books
Afro-Futurisms in the Early Modern Iberian World. Forthcoming.
La razón ensangrentada: esgrima y literatura en el Siglo de Oro. [Bloodied Reason: Fencing and Literature in the Spanish Golden Age]. Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Pre-accepted for publication.
Critical Editions and Collective Volumes
Iberia negra: Textos para otra historia de la diáspora africana (siglos XVI y XVII), co-edited with Diana Berruezo-Sánchez and Cornesha Tweede. Routledge, 2024.
The Valiant Black Man in Flanders (El valiente negro en Flandes). By Andrés de Claramonte, ed. Manuel Olmedo Gobante, trans. Nelson López, coord. Baltasar Fra Molinero. Liverpool University Press, 2023. Reviewed in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 102.1 (2025): 93-108. Critique 929.9 (2024): 834-847. Bulletin of Spanish Studies 101.7 (2024): 1088-1089. Atalanta 12.2 (2024): 265-269.
Selected Articles and Chapters
“La imagen de los negros en el teatro del Siglo de Oro, de Baltasar Fra-Molinero: Una piedra de toque de los estudios teatrales cumple treinta años”. The Bulletin of the Comediantes, vol. 76, núm. 1, 2025, pp. 103-117.
“Soldados de Fortuna: hacia el género de la comedia de valientes militares.” Monographic Issue: Military Lives in the Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World, edited by Faith S. Harden, eHumanista 54, 2023, pp. 520-537.
“In Search of the Black Swordsman: Race and Martial Arts Discourse in Early Modern Iberia.” Trajectories of Empire: Transhispanic Reflections on the African Diaspora, edited by Jerome Branche. Vanderbilt University Press, 2022, pp. 46-78.
“‘Más locos que diestros’: el diestro loco y la locura de la destreza del Siglo de Oro”. Enfermedad y Literatura: entre inspiración y desequilibrio, edited by Cipriano López Lorenzo and Julie Botteron. Reichenberger, 2020, pp. 47-61.
“Del frente a la palestra: esgrima y ejército en la carrera autorial de Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza”. Vidas en armas. Biografías militares en la España del Siglo de Oro, edited by Abigaíl Castellano López y Adrián J. Sáez. Etiópicas. Revista de letras renacentistas, 2019, pp. 101-114.
Co-authored with Frederick A. de Armas. “De espadas y de cañas: esgrima y astrología en las jácaras de Quevedo”. La Perinola, no. 23, 2019, pp. 215-230.
“‘El mucho número que hay dellos’: El valiente negro en Flandes y los esgrimistas afrohispanos de Grandezas de la espada”. The Bulletin of the Comediantes, vol. 70, no 2, 2018, pp. 67-91.
