Dr. Clara Pascual-Argente, L. Palmer Brown Chair in Interdisciplinary Humanities and associate professor of Spanish at Rhodes College, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant, together with Dr. Emily Francomano of Georgetown University, to support work on an edition and translation of two medieval Iberian narratives about fictional king Apollonius of Tyre. Their work will appear in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library collection, published by Harvard University Press.
NEH recently announced funding for 238 humanities projects nationwide, including 20 grants in the scholarly editions and translation category. Pascual-Argente’s grant of $89,430 is for the term of one year. The two medieval Iberian texts she and Francomano will prepare for publication are Libro de Apolonio (Book of Apollonius), a verse romance written in the 13th century, and Vida e historia del rey Apolonio (Life and Story of King Apollonius), a prose romance printed in 1488 and illustrated with 35 German woodcuts. “The new edition and translation of this lively medieval story will make it widely accessible to students, researchers, and other interested readers not familiar with Old Spanish,” says Pascual-Argente.
Pascual-Argente’s research on medieval Iberian literature pays special attention to the dialogue between works produced in the kingdom of Castile (part of present-day Spain) and their Iberian, Northern European, and Mediterranean counterparts. Her main area of interest is the reception, transformation, and political significance of classical culture and narratives during the Iberian Middle Ages. She last taught the Libro de Apolonio at Rhodes in her Fictions of Empire in Medieval Spain course.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.