Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature

David A. Wacks is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Oregon. He is author of Framing Iberia: Maqamat and Frametale Narratives in Medieval Spain and editor (with Michelle Hamilton and Sarah Portnoy) of Wine, Women, and Song: Hebrew and Arabic Literature in Medieval Iberia.

Double Diaspora will enrich the multiple fields it participates in—medieval and romance studies, Sephardic history, Hebrew literature, and many more.(AJS Review) Wacks makes a crucial first foray toward a more nuanced critical understanding of the literary world of Spanish Jewry. His attempts to renegotiate the boundaries of the canon and extend Iberian literature to include non-Castilian and even non-Iberian texts raise profound questions about how Spanish literature should be studied and taught.(Hispania) Wacks's book uncovers the experience and enriches the academic field of Hebrew and Romance literary studies by opening up a whole new set of questions and by suggesting new approaches to the study of Jewish cultural heritage, which, as Wacks makes clear, should always take into account the surrounding non-Jewish intellectual context.(La coronica)

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1. Diaspora Studies for Sephardic Culture 2. Allegory and Romance in Diaspora: Jacob ben Elazar's Book of Tales 3. Poetry in Diaspora: From al-Andalus to Provence and back to Castile 4. The Anxiety of Vernacularization: Shem Tov ben Isaac ibn Ardutiel de Carrión's Proverbios morales and Debate between the Pen and the Scissors 5. Diaspora as Tragicomedy: Vidal Benvenist's Efer and Dina 6. Empire and Diaspora: Solomon ibn Verga's Shevet Yehudah and Joseph Karo's Magid Meisharim7. Reading Amadís in Constantinople: Spanish Fiction in the Key of DiasporaConclusion NotesWorks Cited Index