Seth R. Kimmel
Seth R. Kimmel
Lecturer in Iberian and Latin American Cultures
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow
Contact:
srkimmel@stanford.edu
Office Hours:
Tuesdays, 1:00-3:00 and by appointmentOVERVIEW:
Seth Kimmel studies the literatures and cultures of medieval and early modern Iberia. He earned his B.A. in Comparative Literature and Religion from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined Stanford’s Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities in 2010.
His current book project, Erasing the Difference: The End of Islamic Iberia and the Transformation of the Disciplines, argues that early modern debates about the narratives, rituals, and languages shared among Old Christians and religious minorities in the Hispanic World reshaped the fields of theology and philology. The book, which examines inquisitorial guidebooks, scholastic commentaries, philological treatises, humanist correspondence, and both forged and canonical holy text, complicates conventional genealogies of tolerance, textual historicism, and religious reform.
Seth works with texts written in Spanish, French, Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew, and his other research interests include theories of secularism and religion, manuscript and early print culture, the history of cartography, and colonial narrative.
EDUCATION:
Ph.D., UC Berkeley, Comparative Literature, 2010
B.A., Columbia University, Comparative Literature and Religion, 2001
Courses
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ILAC157Aut2011-12
This survey of the literatures and cultures of medieval and early modern Iberia covers different kinds of literary texts, including lyric and epic poetry, frame tales, Renaissance prose, and Baroque drama, as well as selections from Muslim, Jewish, and Christian philosophical and theological works. Though the focus is on close reading and analytical skills in Spanish, the class also serves as an introduction to the linguistic hodgepodge that is Iberian history from the eighth through the seventeenth century.
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ILAC155/255Spr2011-12
Cervantes was an astute reader of the literature, culture, and politics of his age. This class is both a study of sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Iberia seen through Cervantes the reader and an introduction to early modern reading practices, methods of manuscript and book production, and histories of textual reception and circulation. Although readings include selections from Cervantes's works, the course examines lyric poetry, popular prose, political treatises, literary criticism, and drama from other early modern authors as well.
