Newsletter
Cervantes Society of
America
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As the winter winds down, and we suddenly find ourselves at mid-semester,
it is once again time for a belated Winter Edition of the Newsletter.
First and foremost, the Minutes of the CSA meetings held at last December's
MLA Convention in San Diego:
29 December 1994 - Meeting of the Executive Council
Present were Profs. J. J. Allen (president), A. Williamsen, R. ter Horst,
M. McGaha, A. Martín, A Cruz, C. B. Johnson, and W. Clamurro.
I. Prof. Allen called the meeting to order at 7:25pm. The minutes of the
previous meeting were read and approved.
II. Announcements: Prof. Allen informed us of the recent death of our friend
and colleague Monique Joly.
Prof. Johnson announced that the main topic
for the 1995 Southern California Cervantes Symposium would be “Approaches
to La gitanilla.” The Symposium will take place on Saturday,
May 6, 1995. The 1996 Symposium will be held at UC, Riverside.
III. Since he could not be there in person, Prof. McGaha's Editor's report
was read by Prof. Clamurro and is as follows:
“The rate of submission of articles to
Cervantes remains relatively stable. This year we have accepted
approximately 1/3 of the articles submitted, though we have required most
of the authors to make substantial revisions to the articles before accepting
them. As usual, we published Geoffrey Stagg's paper from last year's business
meeting. With 176 pages, the fall 1994 issue was
one of the largest we have ever published; in addition to Stagg's article
on La Galatea, it contained eight papers from the Southern California
Cervantes Symposium held in April 1993, and two book reviews.
“This year we have managed to get the
journal back on schedule; i.e., it is now actually coming out in the season
listed on the cover. the forthcoming issue —Volume XV, number 1
(spring 1995)— should be ready for distribution
in late February or early March. It will contain selected papers from the
conference on “La construcción del personaje en la obra
cervantina” held in Castro del Río in November 1993. The organizers
of the conference have ordered 525 extra copies for distribution in Spain,
which we hope will help to make our journal better known there and attract
some new subscribers. Volume XV, number 2 (fall 1995)
will be a special issue in memory of Ruth El Saffar and will contain most
of the papers from the session “Reflections on Quixotic
Desire” at this year's MLA convention, as well as some other articles
and book reviews.
“I take this opportunity to express my
deep appreciation to the members of the Editorial Board, and especially to
Jay Allen, Peter Dunn, Edward Friedman, Luis Murillo, Lowry Nelson, Jr.,
Helena Percas de Ponseti, Geoffrey Stagg, Bruce Wardropper, and Alison Weber,
all of whom have evaluated article submitted during the past year. They have
all done their job so conscientiously that I am always proud to send their
very thoughtful comments to the authors, and I am certain that the authors
share my gratitude. In fact I had the very pleasant—and
unusual—experience this year of having an author whose article we had
rejected write me an effusive letter of thanks for the excellent reader's
report.”
IV. The Secretary-Treasurer then gave his Treasurer's report (attached at
the end of this newsletter) and also announced the results of the recent
elections, which are the following:
Elected as Vice President: Prof. C. B. Johnson; Executive Council Members:
(1) N.E. region, D. Finello; (2) S.E., A. Weber; (3) M.W., S. Hutchinson;
(4) S.W., J. Whitenack; (5) Pacific, E. Bergmann. The At-large Council Members
elected were A. Williamsen, H. Mancing, E. Urbina, F. de Armas, and G. Shipley.
V. Considerable discussion was given to the suggestion put forward by Prof.
Allen and included as an opinion item on last year's election ballots, concerning
the possibility of holding the business meetings of the Society at other
places (and times) from the annual MLA Convention. Many of our members who
expressed any opinion on the question were in favor of this idea (see the
subsequent report from Prof. Allen, included here, after the minutes). These
comments also made worthwhile suggestions for how the format of future business
meetings—to include panels, special presentations, etc.—might be
modified to allow more time for discussion of papers and lectures, etc.
The suggestion was made to explore the possibility
of holding the first such alternative site meeting in April 1996 at the Southern
California Cervantes Symposium. After some discussion of the idea, it was
moved (by Prof. ter Horst) and seconded (by Prof. Martín) that the
1996 meeting be at the So. Cal. Cervantes Symposium. The motion was approved.
It was subsequently suggested that the CSA meet in the spring of 1998 at
the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference.
Prof. Clamurro expressed willingness to continue for one more three-year
term as Secretary Treasurer, at the pleasure of the officers and the newly
elected Executive Council members. Pres. Allen agreed to bring this question
to the Council members.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:05pm.
Minutes of the Open Business Meeting, 29 December 1995, 9pm.
The meeting was called to order by Prof. Allen at 9:15pm. The announcements
and reports made at the Executive Council meeting were repeated.
The motion (concerning the change of site for the '96 meetings) made at the
Executive Council meeting was made and seconded before all the members present
and was approved.
Prof. Allen introduced the invited speaker, Prof. Michel Moner (Université
de Stendhal, Grenoble III), who then gave the plenary address, “El
Quijote como desconstrucción del texto literario.”
Subsequent to the decision made at the San Diego meeting, concerning the
change of venue to California for 1996, Prof. Allen sent us the following
report:
“The proposal to hold the next annual
meeting of the Cervantes Society in conjunction with the Kentucky Foreign
Language Conference in April 1996 instead of at MLA '95 was overwhelmingly
approved by the members who responded to the proposal that was submitted
with the ballot last fall (72 in favor, 9 opposed). The proposal left open
the prospect of meeting alternately in future years with MLA and separately,
elsewhere, instead of always with the MLA, as in the past. Officers of the
MLA have assured us that such a pattern would not jeopardize out status as
an Allied Organization of the MLA.
“The Executive Council of the CSA discussed,
approved, and proposed to the members at the Open Business Meeting in San
Diego that the April '96 meeting be held in Los Angeles, in conjunction with
the Cervantes Symposium for Southern California, and the proposal was approved
at that meeting, but subsequent discussions among the larger membership of
the Executive Council resulted in a return to the original plan to meet in
Lexington, based primarily upon the following considerations: 1) the orginal
proposal supported so enthusiastically by the membership at large was for
a meeting in Kentucky, and the small group of us that approved the change
in December (and in California) was not adequately representative of the
membership at large; 2) the '94 meeting having been held in San Diego, the
choice of Los Angeles for the next meeting seemed less than ideal; 3) the
first regular meeting of the CSA on our own would benefit significantly from
association with a large language and literature conference that a considerable
number of cervantistas already attend with some regularity.
“Attendance at the KFLC is over a thousand,
among whom are something over 600 Hispanists, and the business of mailing
lists, lodging arrangements, meeting rooms, publicity, etc., is already in
place, which will allow our new CSA Vice President to focus exclusively on
planning a program, and with a flexibility in the number and kind of sessions
that the MLA lock-step format has never permitted. Instead of the MLA April
deadline for program copy, nine months and an academic year away from the
meeting time in December, the '96 Kentucky Conference will have a December
deadline, facilitating planning for those who wish to attend and
participate.”
Publications, announcements, recent and forthcoming events:
Prof. Salvador J. Fajardo (SUNY, Binghamton)
informs us that he will again be giving his NEH Seminar for Teachers,
“Reading Don Quixote” this summer, from June 26th to August
4th.
Prof. J. Allen is attending the March 15th
meeting of the Asamblea eneral of the Asociación de Cervantistas in
Alcalá de Henares, and will subsequently attend the Jornadas de teatro
in Almería.
In the area of Cervantes Bibliographies, there
has been considerable activity lately. The CSA Officers, noting the existence
of a CSA Bibliographer mentioned in the Constitution, have revived that position,
and at the willingness to serve as such, have named Eduardo Urbina to that
position. Prof. Urbina is currently working on Cervantine bibliography and
has recently given informed us that he is working with Carlos Alvar, Director
of the Centro de Estudios Cervantinos, on a prototype bibliography that will
be published in 1996 by the Centro and will include entries from as late
as 1994. This bibliography, edited by Prof. Urbina at Texas A & M, with
the collaboration of James Harner, Editor of the World Shakespeare Bibliography
(also published at Texas A & M ), is foreseen as limiting itself in this
first version to general studies, editions, translations, books, articles,
reviews, homenajes and other collections of essays, without detailed
annotation. In future years, the items will be annotated, as well as there
being the inclusion of items of a broader cultural interest; finally it is
hoped to produce the a future version of the bibliography in CD-ROM. Prof.
Urbina would therefore like to invite any and all persons who have or know
of items that should be included to contact him: e-mail: EOU1741@ACS.TAMU.EDU;
FAX: (409) 845-6421; or by mail at the Dept. of Modern Languages, Texas A
& M Univ., College Station, TX 77843.
Another Cervantine bibliography project is
coming to completion. Prof. Jaime Fernández (of Sophia University,
Tokyo) informs us that his bibliography of the Quijote will appear
in June or July of 1995; it is titled Bibliografía del
“Quijote” por unidades narrativas y materiales de la novela
and will contain things published in the twentieth century (plus a few things
from the 19th) in seven languages: Spanish, English, French, Italian, German,
Portuguese, and Catalan. The bibliography is being published by the Centro
de Estudios Cervantinos of Alcalá de Henares, and Prof. Fernández
may have sample copies ready to bring to the upcoming August 1995 AIH Congreso
in Birmingham. Three years after this first publication the Centro hopes
to bring out an electronic edition (C-ROM), which will be continually revised
and brought up to date.
Prof. J. B. Avalle-Arce (UC, Santa Barbara)
tells us that the Centro de Estudios Cervantinos of Alcalá will publish
his Enciclopedia Cervantina this year. In addition, UC, Santa Barbara
has named Prof. Avalle-Arce the first José Miguel de Barandiarán
Professor of Basque Studies.
In the autumn of 1994 Ediciones Taurus (Madrid)
published a revised edition of the Novelas ejemplares, as edited by
Julio Rodríguez-Luis; this new edition, 613 pp., includes a critical
introduction, bibliography, notes, notes on variants, and a glossary.
From Prof. Jim Parr we learn that an anthology
purporting to sample the most innovative work on Cervantes since the mid-1970s
has appeared in Italy. Titled Releggere Cervantes: Antologia della Critica
Recente (Ed. Mariarosa Scaramuzza Vidoni [Milano: Ambrosiana, 1994]),
it includes selections by two U.S. scholars, James A. Parr and the late Ruth
El Saffar. Ruth is represented by a translation of her “Voces marginales
y la visión del ser cervantino,” Anthropos no. 98-99 (1989):
59-63, and Jim Parr by several pages from his Don Quixote: An Anatomy
of Subversive Discourse (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1988). All items
are in Italian translation.
Jorge Aladro-Font informs us that his article,
“Don Quijote y Cristóbal Colón o la sinrazón de
la realidad” appeared in the June 1994 edition of Lienzo, a journal
published at the Universidad de Lima.
Another recent publication of interest by one
of our members is Maria Fernanda de Abreu's Cervantes no romantismo
português: Cavaleiros andantes, manuscritos encontrados e gargalhadas
moralíssimas (Lisboa: Editorial Estampa, 1994).
Eduardo Urbina's article “‘En alas
del deseo’: el motivo de los altibajos en el Quijote” was recently
published in the IJHL, and he presented a paper entitled “A Matter
of Time, A Question of How: The First Staging of La gran sultana”
at a conference called “How is it Played? Genre, Performance, and
Meaning,” held at Texas A & M in October 1994.
Prof. Harry Sieber (Johns Hopkins Univ.) informs
us that an exhibition entitled “The World of Don Quijote: A Selection
of Sources on the Life, Times, and Writings of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,
1547-1616” is being organized and will be on display at the George Peabody
Library in downtown Baltimore (17 East Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore MD 21202)
from August 1 to November 30, 1995. Robert M. Bartram is the curator and
Harry Sieber will collaborate in writing the catalogue and choosing the texts.
Finally, Burton Raffel informs us that his
English translation version of the Quijote, to be published by Norton,
is due to appear later this year. The edition has an introductory essay by
Diana de Armas Wilson.
Cervantes Society of America
c/o William H. Clamurro
Department of Modern Languages
Denison University
Box M
Granville, OH 43023
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| Fred Jehle jehle@ipfw.edu | Publications of the CSA | H–Cervantes |
| URL: http://www.h-net.org/~cervantes/csa/nwsltw95.htm | ||