SSWR: Yasmine Hachimi, "Undressing Catherine of Aragon on the Page and Screen"

Catherine of Aragon, who was married to Henry VIII for twenty-four years before he divorced her for another woman, is known as a paragon of queenship. Catherine’s reputation as a pious and devoted queen remains intact today, despite the ongoing debate over the status of her virginity when she wed Henry. This controversy is central to Catherine’s life and story and the way she is represented in historical dramas. This talk explores popular representations of Catherine, including Showtime’s The Tudors (2007-2010) and Starz’s The Spanish Princess (2019-2020), and how she seems to escape the hypersexualization and eroticization that tends to swirl around Tudor queens. Hachimi will also consider how The Spanish Princess offers a more diverse depiction of Tudor England than we’ve previously seen in historical dramas.

About the Author

Yasmine Hachimi is a Public Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies. Her book project, Tudorotica, traces the eroticization of Tudor queens across centuries and genres, from sixteenth-century letters and plays, to tv shows and fanfiction today. Yasmine is interested in how popular media and images of the premodern period challenge or affirm public understandings of the past, particularly with regards to sexuality and race. She has shared her work and expertise in several venues, including public-facing talks and publications, podcasts, and social media outlets. Yasmine is currently working on the Seeing Race Before Race exhibition (Fall 2023) alongside the CRS team at the Newberry. You can follow her on Twitter, @YasmineHachimi.