Projects
Alfonso X, the Códice Rico, and the Diagrammatic Imaginary. (description forthcoming)
Fragments for a History of Modern Remediations of the Iberian Middle Ages. (description forthcoming) Upcoming Talks and Conferences
Comedy and Cruelty: Marian Masochism in Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa Maria . “The Comic Supernatural” Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA on April 21 & 22, 2017
This paper explores the comical aspects of masochistic Marian devotion as depicted in Alonso X’s highly illuminated 13th century “Codice Rico” of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Drawing my theoretical orientation from Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Venus in Furs in a lengthy essay titled “Coldness and Cruelty,” I argue that the illustrated miracles stories are couched in a contractual relationship with the Virgin that permits a “twisting of the law by excess of zeal” leading to the humor displayed in many of the manuscript’s roughly 1200 image panels. Memberships
The Elvin Nerd BW Blues Band
