CV

David A. Wacks, Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • Ph.D. Hispanic Literatures (UC Berkeley, 2003)
  • MA Spanish Literature (Boston College, 1997)
  • AB English Literature (Columbia University, 1991)

Professional Employment:

  • Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Oregon Dept. Romance Languages (2009-)
  • Assistant Professor of Spanish, University of Oregon Dept. Romance Languages (2003-2009)

Research

Edited Volumes

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

Essays in Edited Collections

Scholarly Translation

Book Reviews

  • Ingram, Kevin, ed. The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond. Volume One: Departures and Change. Leiden: Brill, 2009. The Medieval Review (19 May 2010).
  • Decter, Jonathan. Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe. Indiana UP, 2007. Calíope 14.1 (2008): 139-42.
  • Díaz-Mas, Paloma. Sephardim: The Jews from Spain. Ed. and trans. George K. Zucker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Bulletin of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies 33.1 (2008): 33-34.
  • Young, Douglas C. Rogues and Genres: Generic Transformation in the Spanish Picaresque and Arabic Maqāma. Newark: Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 2004. Aljamía 19 (2007): 529-531.
  • Barletta, Vincent. Covert Gestures: Crypto-Islamic Literature as Cultural Practice in Early Modern Spain. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Hispania 89.1 (2006): 50-52.
  • Mocedades de Rodrigo. Ed. Leonardo Funes, with Felipe Tenenbaum. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Tamesis. 2004. Bulletin of Spanish Studies 83.8 (2006): 982-83.
  • Ibn Sahula, Isaac. Meshal Haqadmoni: Fables from the Distant Past. Ed. and Trans. Raphael Loewe. London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. La corónica 34.1 (2005): 280-83.
  • al-Harīzī, Judah. The Book of Tahkemoni: Jewish Tales From Medieval Spain. Trans. David Simha Segal. London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001. La corónica 33.1 (2004): 282-85.
  • Maravillas, peregrinaciones y utopías: literatura de viajes en el mundo románico. Ed. Rafael Beltrán. Valencia: Universitat de Valencia, 2002. Bulletin of Spanish Studies 53 (2003): 743-44.
  • Menocal, María Rosa. The Ornament of the World. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. La Corónica 32.1 (2003): 377-80.

Talks and Conference Papers

  • “Chivalric Romance in the Key of Diaspora: Jacob ben Elazar’s ‘Sahar and Kima’ (13th c.) and Jacob Algaba’s Hebrew Amadís de Gaula (16th c.)” Centre for Medieval Literature, Southern Denmark Unviersity. 13 June 2013 (invited).
  • “Romance, Diaspora style: Jacob ben Elazar (13th c.) between the chivalric and the courtly.” Department of Romance Languages and Literaures, Notre Dame University. 4 February 2013 (invited).
  • “Translation in Diaspora: Sephardic Spanish-Hebrew Translation in the Sixteenth Century.” Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Colorado University at Boulder. 1 November 2012 (invited). [blog post]
  • “Two Reactions to the 1492 Expulsion from Spain: Historiography and Kabbalah.” Department of  French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, University of British Columbia. 24 October 2012 (invited). [poster]
  • “Reading Amadís in Constantinople: Translation as Diasporic Cultural Production.” 127th Annual Modern Language Association Convention. Seattle, 2012. [slides] [blog post]
  • “Reading Amadís in Constantinople: the Sephardic as imperial abject.” 2011 UC Mediterranean Research Project Seminar: “Mediterranean Empires.” 29 October 2011. [blog post]
  • “Ethnic Polemic in Medieval Spain: ‘Arabiyya, Shu’ubiyya, and ‘Ibraniyya.” Islamic Studies Institute, Stanford University. 13 October 2011 (invited). [blog post] [iTunes audio]
  • “Sephardic literature in the key of Diaspora.” Department of Romance Studies, Cornell University. 15 September 2011 (invited).
  • “Hebrew Bible: Intertextuality in Spanish-Hebrew Literature.” Scriptures in Medieval Iberia. Iona Pacific Inter-religious Centre, Vancouver School of Theology. 6 June, 2011 (invited). [slides + text]
  • “Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature 1200-1600.” Work in Progress Talk, Oregon Humanities Center, University of Oregon. 8 April 2011. [mp3][slidecast = slides + audio]
  • “Recycling the Troubadours in Hebrew: Todros Abulafia at the Court of Alfonso X” Mid-America Medieval Association (MAMA), Annual Conference XXV. Kansas City, 2011. [abstract][text][slidecast = slides + audio]
  • “The Danger of Purity: Jacob ben Elazar’s Love Stories Between Hispanism and Hebraism.” Purity and Danger Workshop on Medieval Iberian Studies. Princeton University, 2010 (invited). [mp3]
  • “Biblical and Vernacular Narrativity in Vidal Benvenist’s Efer ve-Dina.” Hebrew Literature, the Bible and the Andalusi Tradition in the Fifteenth Century. Consejo Superior de Investigación Científica (CSIC). Madrid, Spain, 2009 (invited). [abstract]
  • “The Sephardic Postcolonial.” 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2009. [abstract]
  • “Sephardic Culture and Hispanic Studies.” Diaspora and Return: Sephardic Jews beyond Spain. University of California at Irvine, 2008 (invited).
  • “Canonicity and Medieval Hispanic Studies.” 124th Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association, 2008.
  • “Emergent Castilian Vernacular and Hebrew Writing in Shem Tov de Carrión.” 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2008. [abstract]
  • “Is Spain’s Hebrew Literature ‘Spanish’?” Spain’s Multicultural Legacies. University of California at Davis, 2007 (invited).
  • “The Study of Medieval Hispano-Hebrew Literature in Modern Spain.” 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2007.
  • “Efer ve-Dinah, a Hispano-hebrew novella.” The Persistence of Philology:  Rethinking Comparative Literary History on the Twentieth Anniversary of María Rosa Menocal’s The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History. University of Toronto, 2007 (invited).
  • “The converso question in Jaume Roig’s Spill.” Medieval Studies symposium on conversion. University of California at Santa Barbara, 2007 (invited).
  • “The Near-total Eclipse of Hebrew in Medieval Spanish Literary Studies.” State University of New York at New Paltz, 2006 (invited).
  • “Restoring Hebrew to the Medieval Spanish Canon.” Intermediaries: Translating Cultures in Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic World. King’s College, London, 2006.
  • “Colonial Contradiction and Andalusi Narrative Practice in the Conde Lucanor.” 121st Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association 2005.
  • “Theorizing Hybridity in Medieval Iberian Literature.” 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2005.
  • “Mr. Fox Goes to Paris, or Petrus Alfonsi’s Animal Ambassadors of the Andalusi Intellect.” 120th Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association, 2004.
  • “The Fruits of Convivencia: Casual Collaboration Between Jewish Readers and Christian Writers in Medieval Iberia.” 36th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, 2004.
  • “Don Yllán’s Hebrew Predecessor: Ibn Sahula’s Egyptian Mage.” 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2004.
  • “La sentencia de lo que y dize: The Unreliable Narrator and Rationalist Philosophy in Medieval Iberian Fiction.” Arabic, Hebrew, and Spanish Literature: Three Golden Ages in the Iberian Peninsula. A Symposium-Seminar in Memory of Americo Castro (1885-1972). University of California at Berkeley, 2003.
  • “Glossing the Other: Representing the Language of the Minority in the Romance jarchas and the Andalusī Anecdotes of Juan Manuel.” 118th Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association, 2002.
  • “Convivencia in the Teaching of Medieval Iberian Literature.” 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2001.

Seminars and General Interest Talks

Guest Blog entries

Fellowships, Grants, and Awards

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