Aljamiado-Morisco Literary Studies: A Fifty-Year Survey

• Published in: La Corónica Vol. 50; no. 1; pp. 231 - 247
• Main Author: Wood, Donald W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures 01.09.2021
• ISSN: 0193-3892; 1947-4261; 1947-4261
• DOI: 10.1353/cor.2021.a910125

At its core, the present article is a response to Jerry R. Craddock's brief work "Concerning the Transliteration of Aljamiado Texts," published in La corónica in 1976. Craddock's critique of the cumbersome system by which scholars render Aljamiado texts in Latin characters provided a starting point from which to survey key theoretical trends and approaches to working with Aljamiado-Morisco texts that have emerged during the past half century. Our journey begins in Europe, particularly in the Universities of Oviedo and Alicante where Álvaro Galmés de Fuentes, Antonio Vespertino Rodríguez, and their students set the standards for creating critical editions of Aljamiado works on both sides of the Atlantic. Important contributions from other parts of Europe are also highlighted. From there, we turn to North Africa, particularly Tunisia, to highlight the work of Abdeljelil Temimi and the Fondation Temimi pour la Recherche Scientifique et l'Information (FTERSI). Our survey concludes with the work of American scholars and emerging, often interdisciplinary, tendencies that are currently pushing the boundaries of theoretical interpretation in American universities.