David Wacks

assistant professor

Contact info:
Office: FR 418
Phone: (541) 346-4029
wacks@uoregon.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Degrees, years, and locations:
A.B. English Literature 1991, Columbia University
M.A. Spanish Literature and Language 1997, Boston College
Ph.D. Hispanic Literatures and Languages 2003, University of California at Berkeley

Research and teaching interests:
Medieval Iberian literature, especially collections of short narrative
Cultural Hybridity in Medieval Iberia:(Islam/Christianity/Judaism, Romance/Arabic/Hebrew)
Sephardic Jewish Culture

Courses taught:
SPAN 316: Survey of Medieval and Golden Age Literature
SPAN 333: Introduction to Narrative
SPAN 407: Wine, Women, and Song: Medieval Iberian Poetry
SPAN 407: Women Writers of Medieval Spain
SPAN 407/507: Story Collections from Medieval Spain
SPAN 407/507: Jewish Literature of Medieval Spain
SPAN 407/507: Islamic Literature of Medieval Spain

Spring 2005:
SPAN 316
SPAN 407 Women Writers of Medieval Spain
Fall 2005: on leave
Winter 2006: on leave
Spring 2006: on leave


Publications

Current Projects

Hispano-Hebrew Literature, a monographic study aiming to reposition the Hebrew literature of Christian Iberia within Hispanic Studies.

Translation and Study of `Efer ve-Dinah, a 15th century Hispano-Hebrew novella, with Michelle M. Hamilton (UC Irvine).

Authored Books

Framing Iberia: Narrative Collections of Medieval Spain in Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Romance.

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

Don Juan Manuel on the Border: Reconquest Ideology and Andalusi Narrative Practice in the Conde Lucanor. Forthcoming in special issue of Diacritics, "(New) Theory of Medieval Iberia " (2007).

Reading Jaume Roig's Spill and the Libro de buen amor in the Iberian maqama tradition. Forthcoming in Bulletin of Spanish Studies (2006).

Don Yllan and the Egyptian Sorceror: Vernacular commonality and literary diversity in medieval Castile. Sefarad 65.2 (2005): 413-33.

The Performativity of Ibn al-Muqaffa's Kalila wa-Dimna and Al-Maqamat al-luzumiyya of al-Saraqusti. Journal of Arabic Literature 34 (2003) 178-89.

Edited Books

Wine, Women and Song: Hebrew and Arabic Literature in Medieval Iberia. (co-edited with Michelle M. Hamilton and Sarah J. Portnoy) ( Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2004).

Essays in Edited Collections

Conflicted Identity and Colonial Adaptation in Petrus Alfonsiís Dialogus contra judaeos and Disciplina clericalis. Converso Literature. Ed. Amy I. Aaronson-Friedman. Leiden: Brill, forthcoming (2007).

The Poet, the Rabbi and the Song: Abraham ibn Ezra and the Song of Songs. Wine, Women and Song: Hebrew and Arabic Literature in Medieval Iberia. Eds. Michelle H. Hamilton, Monographs, 2004. 47-58.

Translations

Ibn Sahula's Tale of the Egyptian Sorcerer: A Thirteenth-Century Don Yllan. eHumanista 4 (2004). 1-12.

Selected Book Reviews

Barletta, Vincent. Covert Gestures: Crypto-Islamic Literature as Cultural Practice in Early Modern Spain. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Forthcoming in Hispania (2006).

Ibn Sahula, Isaac. Meshal Haqadmoni: Fables from the Distant Past. Ed. and Trans. Raphael Loewe. London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. Forthcoming in La corónica 33.2 (2005).

al-Harizi, 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.

Menocal, María Rosa. The Ornament of the World. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. La corónica 32.1 (2003): 377-80.