Omar Paton was one of the last Castilian Muslims to complete the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. He undertook the journey from his home city of Ávila (Castile), departing in 1491. Upon his return from the East, Paton depicted the experiences and emotions he lived during his long and dangerous pious expedition in his Memoir of the Journey to and…[Read more]

To encourage classroom dialectic I often turn to the “quitting” structure of “The Canterbury Tales,” within which pilgrims offer requitals of previous tales that range from exuberant acclamations to
raucous attacks. Within these extremes lie productive forms of correction that emerge as subtle critiques, opposing arguments, and timely (or…[Read more]

Chapter on the interactions between Roman theatrical tradition and late dramatic production in Greek language.

Introductory chapter to the collective volume ‘Theatre and Metatheare: Definitions, Problems, Limits’

The aim of this book is to explore the definition(s) of ‘theatre’ and ‘metatheatre’ that scholars use when studying the ancient Greek world. Although in modern languages their meaning is mostly straightforward, both concepts become problematical when applied to ancient reality. In fact, ‘theatre’ as well as ‘metatheatre’ are used in many differe…[Read more]

Der Vergleich der Auswirkungen der Französischen Revolution auf die Literatur und Kultur in Polen und in den deutschen Staaten ist sehr schwierig. Die polnischen Schriftsteller und Denker der ersten und zweiten Romantikergeneration sind zu spät geboren worden, um Zeugen der Französichen Revolution zu sein. Für die Älteren, wie Kazimierz Brod…[Read more]

For the past twenty years, scholars of world and global history and literature have shown that the early modern world was a complex, entangled place. And yet, by emphasizing connection, such work at times overlooks the many separations that drove the engines of global early modernity: transoceanic slave trades, tribute labor, and the economic…[Read more]

Version of academic record: Wacks, David A., Review of Roza Candás, Pablo, ed. Memorial de ida i venida hasta Maka: La peregrinación de ʿOmar Paṭōn. Oviedo, 2018. ISBN 978-84-16343-67-6. 482 pp. La corónica, vol 48, no. 2, pp. 177-180. doi:10.1353/cor.2020.0013

Analyzing trans narratives about the early moderns through the lenses of affective labor and social reparation, this chapter reclaims as trans the Shakespeare films that have been misinterpreted as homosexual. In doing so, this chapter builds a longer, more intersectional history of gendered embodiment. Reparative trans performances—works in w…[Read more]

Using the evidence of the aural as intrinsic to mester de clerecía’s mode of diffusion and reception as point of departure, this chapter examines sound as a wider and complex system of references, actualizations, and allusions that articulate and structure the mode in its composition, as part of its tools to effect meaning. Music and song play ob…[Read more]

The Danza general de la muerte (Dance of Death) (late 14th-century) is a rhymed dialogue in Castilian in which death personified greets one victim after another. It is the earliest of 3 extant Castilian versions of the Dance of Death, which was popular across Europe in the Middle Ages. The Dance of Death gives expression to the premodern view that…[Read more]

The Danza general de la muerte (Dance of Death) (late 14th-century) is a rhymed dialogue in Castilian in which death personified greets one victim after another. It is the earliest of 3 extant Castilian versions of the Dance of Death, which was popular across Europe in the Middle Ages. The Dance of Death gives expression to the premodern view t…[Read more]

From its linguistic origins as a Biblical land of great wealth across the sea, to its more recent nostalgic imaginary as a lost Golden Age of Mediterranean Jewish culture, Sefarad has been as much an idea as a physical place, a lens through which Iberian Jews have interpreted their world, first in al-Andalus, then in Christian Iberia, and later in…[Read more]

Abstract: The manuscript Cod. Donaueschingen A III 19 of the Badische Landes-bibliothek Karlsruhe is a very thin booklet of six leafs in quarto format. It was written by a professional scribe in Nuremberg around 1490. The booklet is titled Priamel red (‘Priamel speech’) and contains a collection of gnomic texts in Early New High German. The mat…[Read more]

The film The Small Back Room was written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and released in 1949. It is the wartime tale of an injured and embittered back-room scientist, who is recruited to help combat a new kind of explosive device. Based on Nigel Balchin’s 1943 novel, the film significantly alters the story’s climactic seq…[Read more]

The structure of fifth-century Athenian society remains largely unknown, as is the distribution of its citizens into different socio-political categories. Ancient literary sources mostly describe a society divided into élite and poor. However, the model of a society alternately dominated by
the élite and the ‘lower-class’ is to be recon…[Read more]

This chapter examines the rhetorical skills displayed by secondary (low–status)
characters in the extant tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. “Rhetorical
skills” are here broadly understood as the abilities required to have one’s voice heard and
one’s opinion taken into account. These speaking abilities contribute to the socio–pol…[Read more]

From the introduction:
“This volume brings to light a series of studies inspired by the conference, ‘Wine, Women and Song,’ that took place at the University of California at Berkeley in the spring of 2001. The conference provided a forum for topics in medieval Iberian literature and its legacy in the Spanish Colonial tradition. One of our…[Read more]

«De Camino a la Gloria: orígenes y sentido del Camino de Santiago en la Edad Media». Ponencia invitada en la mesa redonda “Del Camino al Pórtico” organizada por la asociación SED Cultura, retransmitido desde la sede de Ediciones Encuentro el 10/6/2021.