Cervantes Society of America

Newsletter

Here's hoping that this missive reaches all of you before you depart for places near and far for what will be a summer of much-deserved relaxation and reinvigoration.

CSA Initiatives

The Cervantes Society of America has initiated a program of grant support for conferences dedicated to the study of Cervantes' works. The Society will consider requests for up to $1000 to be used as seed money, to be matched by the sponsoring institution. It is expected that one grant will be awarded each year, although the evaluation of requests will necessarily take into account the state of the Society's operating budget, so that it may not be possible to make awards in some years. The conferences for which support will be considered must be open to all and must issue a nation-wide call for papers, but well-established conferences, newly organized conferences, and special events are all eligible for consideration. Conference organizers must be members of the Society, and must have maintained their membership in good standing for at least five consecutive years immediately preceding the request for support. Interested applicants should submit a request, including a call for papers, a tentative program, budget, and a statement explaining how the conference furthers the mission of the Society, by November I to the President (currently James Parr, University of California-Riverside). Decisions regarding the awards will be made at the annual meeting of the Executive Council of the Society in December.

Bravo!

James A. Parr presented the eleventh annual Alessandro Crisafulli lecture, entitled “Don Quixote: Telling the Tale,” at Catholic University of America on April 6, 2006.

CSA at the MLA

The topic for the 2006 CSA session at the MLA, to be held this year in Philadelphia, is “Cervantine Architectures.” The following papers will be presented: “Shelteredness and Architecture in the Quijote,” Roberto González-Echevarría (Yale University); “Literal and Literary Architecture as Legalistic Irony in Don Quijote (I, 2),” Susan K. Byrne (Fordham University); and “La armoniosa arquitectura pitagórica de las Novelas ejemplares” Juan P. Gil (University of Chicago).

Frederick A. de Armas (University of Chicago) will preside at the Business Meeting, and James A. Parr (University of California-Riverside) will present the keynote address entitled “On the Rhetoric Within and Without Don Quijote.”

CSA Elections

A ballot is included with this newsletter for the election of the Vice-President (who will become President), and for at-large delegates to the Executive Council, the governing board of the Society. Please take the time to vote, either by “snail mail” or by e-mail. The election deadline is August 1, 2006.

Cervantes on the Conference Circuit

The “Coloquio Internacional ‘Cervantes y las religiones’,” sponsored by the Departamento de Estudios Españoles y Latinoamericanos de la Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalén and the Asociación de Cervantistas. CSA members Ruth Fine and Santiago López Navia served as Directors, and also read papers (Fine: “El entrecruzamiento de lo hebreo y lo converso en la obra de Cervantes: un encuentro singular”: López Navia: “El tratamiento de la religión en las recreaciones narrativas de la biografía de Cervantes”) and the following other members also spoke: Frances Luttikhuisen (“La primera edición ilustrada de El Quijote [Dortrecht, 1657], un libro de emblemas”); Daniel Eisenberg ([plenary address]: “La actitud de Cervantes hacia sus antepasados judíos”); David A. Boruchoff (“Doctrina, vivencia y libertad cristianas”) Maria Caterina Ruta (“Una posible lectura del Quijote”); Giuseppe Grilli ([plenary address]: “Valor y libertad de las religiones en el Primer Quijote”); and Joseph Ricapito (“Dios como una construcción arbitraria en el Quijote”).

The Cervantes Symposium of California was held at the University of California-Davis on April 15, 2006. It addressed the topic “The Future of Cervantes Studies after 2005.” Francisco Márquez Villanueva (Harvard University) gave the keynote presentation “Nuevas perspectivas biográficas de Cervantes.” The following members presented papers: Emilie Bergmann (University of California-Berkeley), “Allegories of Childhood in Cervantes”; Ruben Builes (Stanford University), “North and Back: The Pan-European Cervantes of Historia septentrional”; Christina Lee (Connecticut College), “Local/Popular Religion in La fuerza de la sangre”; Eduardo Olid Guerrero (University of California, Davis), “El ritual del disfraz en las Novelas ejemplares de Cervantes”; and Jorge Aladro Font (University of California, Santa Cruz), “El género epistolar en la obra de Cervantes.” Those attending the symposium were also entertained by Cervantes' entremés El viejo celoso staged by the Golden Age theater troupe Grupo de teatro La Poltrona directed by Adrienne Martín.

Publications by CSA Members

Chris Sliwa has published Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Barcelona: Edition Reichenberger, 2006).

Tom Lathrop has published a new translation of Don Quixote, based on his own edition, designed for literature in translation courses. Instructors who teach the Quixote in translation may request an examination copy at lathrop@udel.edu.

Other Cervantes Publications

A Dutch translation of Don Quijote has been published by Barber van de Pol (Amsterdam, 2006).

An article on Don Quijote by Georg Pichler appears in Der Fremde im Eigenen: Sprache, Literatur, Kultur edited by María Luisa Hernández, et al. (Madrid: Ediciones del Ordo, 2005), 545-553.

(As always, we are indebted to Karl Ludwig Selig for these items. I apologize both for any errors in transmitting the German, as well as for misspelling Professor Selig's name in the last newsletter.)

Cervantine Sightings

(Thanks again to Professor Selig.)

A number of filmed versions of Don Quijote, by such directors as Orson Welles, G. W. Pabst, and others, were screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center during December 2005. Welles' version is also mentioned as a “lost masterpiece” in The Film Snob's Dictionary by David Kamp and Lawrence Levi (NY: Broadway Books, 2005), especially pp. 83 ff.

The Repertorio Español is presenting a dramatization of Don Quijote through May 12 at the Gramercy Arts Theater in Manhattan.

The March 1, 2006 New York Times included an article about a play purportedly authored by Shakespeare and John Fletcher in or around 1612 called “The History of Cardenio” and based on Don Quijote I.

Compiled by Theresa Ann Sears, Secretary/Treasurer (Romance Languages, UNC-Greensboro, NC 27402)

Ballots should be returned to Theresa Sears, Secretary/Treasurer, CSA, Dept. of Romance Languages, U. of North Carolina-Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402 (or by e-mail to Jarifa@aol.com) no later than August 1, 2006.