Download PDF | Ross Brann - Iberian Moorings_ Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism-University of Pennsylvania Press (2021).
299 Pages
Preface
Although I did not know it at the time, my research for this book began in the years leading up to 1992, which marked the quincentenary of the end of al-Andalus, the expulsion of the Jews of Sefarad, and Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the so-called New World. I began receiving flyers, notices, and invitations to numerous academic and public conferences, colloquia, symposia, and exhibitions in the United States, Spain, Morocco, Israel, Iran, and Pakistan. I participated in a select few of these proceedings and published a comparative study of paradigmatic Andalusi Arabic and Hebrew laments. In the process, I created a substantial archival file to preserve all the materials that had found their way to me in the lead-up to and execution of the celebratory and critical commemorations taking place and the publications, catalogs, and films that appeared in 1992.
Then I moved on to other projects. In the ensuing years, I read some of the major publications produced during the quincentenary. I soon came to realize that the meanings ascribed to the events of 1492 and 1992 were informed by cultural tropes going back to tenth-century Córdoba and that these tropes left lasting imprints on Islamic, Jewish, and Spanish culture. As far as its significance for the history of the Mediterranean is concerned, 1992 might have come and gone with less notice than it received without the enduring sense that al-Andalus, Sefarad, and Spain were diferent, distinctive, and exceptional. The origin, early history, trajectory, and agency of that exigent trope are the subject of this book.
Acknowl edgments I have many people and institutions to thank for assisting me in countless ways in the research, writing, and now, at long last, publication of this book. First among them all is Jerome Singerman, Senior Humanities Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Press. I am deeply indebted to Jerry, a prince among senior editors and a boon companion in humanistic and practical wisdom, for supporting this project and patiently guiding me throughout its long incubation. Lily Palladino and Noreen O’Connor-Abel, expert managing editors at the Press, and Janice Meyerson, my manuscript’s skilled copyeditor, were instrumental in improving the book. My sincere thanks to Melissa Hyde, who skillfully prepared the index.
Each of these individuals set a standard for professionalism. It was a pleasure to work with them. I am deeply appreciative of the Frankel Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for providing me the opportunity to participate among the fellows assembled during the 2018–2019 academic year to interrogate “Sefardic Identities.” In particular, I thank Ryan Szpiech, who served as the intellectually dynamic organizer and lead fellow of our research group, and the vibrant director of the Frankel Center, Jefrey Veidlinger, along with the center’s uncommonly gracious staf. My daily and weekly interactions with Ehud Krinis, Moshe Yagur, and Sarah Pearce among the center’s fellows were immensely beneficial. Among the fellows Marc Herman and Martin Jacobs, in particular, provided me with new leads and references. Although I completed the research and writing for this book at the University of Michigan, I am indebted to various people at Cornell University.
My academic home in the Department of Near Eastern Studies provides me with interdisciplinary intellectual stimulation regarding virtually every facet of Near/Middle Eastern studies from well before the historical record through the modern period; and the NES department’s dedicated office staf is simply without peer in supporting my advising, teaching, and research endeavors. xii Acknowledgments For this project my colleague Munther Younes stood out as an invaluable resource on account of his encyclopedic knowledge of the Arabic language through its history. Ziad Fahmy, my department chair, also answered a query about an odd Egyptian Arabic term in a modern bibliographical reference. So too, I thank my graduate students Rama Alhabian (now Dr. Alhabian) and Kiley Foster for their penetrating questions and comments in seminars and during office hours and through their own lucid research and writing. Cornell University Olin librarians Ali Houissa and Patrick Stevens are incomparable magicians when it comes to finding the textual resources I needed.
Finally, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, subsidized the University of Pennsylvania Press’s publication of this book. Among the many colleagues, some former students, who advised or assisted me on various matters I thank Esperanza Alfonso, Mercedes GarcíaArenal, Peter Cole, Jonathan Decter, Susan Einbinder, Rachid El Hour, Sharon Kinoshita, Joseph Lowry, David Nirenberg, Tova Rosen, Jessica Streit, and Kenneth Wolf, each of whom graciously answered the call with my questions and requests. I also gratefully acknowledge the Press’s two blind readers for their initial comments. I am indebted to the reviewer that read the completed manuscript and ofered an especially valuable critique that I endeavored to follow as best I could. Talks from the book in progress at various academic institutions including Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CUNY, Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, Kings College London, NEH Summer Institute (The Mediterranean Seminar, Barcelona), NYU Abu-Dhabi, Princeton, UC Berkeley, University of Colorado, University of Connecticut, the University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale, assisted me in framing and refining my thoughts.
A precis of the project, “Andalusi Exceptionalism,” appeared in A Sea of Languages: Rethinking the Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History, edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Karla Mallette (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 119–134. Parts of Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 appeared in preliminary form in “Competing Tropes of Eleventh Century Andalusi Jewish Culture,” in Ot LeTova: Essays in Honor of Professor Tova Rosen, edited by Eli Yassif, Haviva Ishay, and Uriah Kfir [Mikan 11/El Prezente 6] (Be’er Sheba: Heksherim Research Center and the Department of Hebrew Literature, Ben-Gurion University and the Gaon Center for Ladino Culture, 2012), 7–26.
After I had completed writing this book and delivered it to the Press, two of my senior academic mentors sadly passed away. Frank Peters of NYU broke the mold for irrepressible wit and brilliance; Isaac Kramnick of Cornell inspired me with his incomparable intellect, educational vision, and humanity. I miss their wisdom, their humor, their friendship. My immediate family, Eileen, Amir, Allon, Leah, and Talia, are sources of endless inspiration for me. In particular, Talia’s scintillating intellectual curiosity and luminosity are wondrous to behold. I dedicate this labor of devotion for al-Andalus and Sefarad to my one and only love and partner for life, Eileen Yagoda, whose tolerant embrace of my eccentricities and idiosyncrasies is legendary.
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