Seven Stanford scholars awarded Guggenheim Fellowships

Seven Stanford University scholars have been awarded 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships. This prestigious honor recognizes mid-career scholars, artists and scientists who have demonstrated a previous capacity for outstanding work and continue to show exceptional promise.

This year’s fellows from Stanford are R. Lanier Anderson, Vincent Barletta, Enrique Chagoya, Lochlann Jain, Amalia D. Kessler, Daniel Mason and Jonathan A. Rodden.

Vincent Barletta is an associate professor of comparative literature and of Iberian and Latin American cultures. His research and teaching focus primarily on medieval and early modern Iberian literature, especially texts associated with the Portuguese empire; Iberian Islam; classical reception; comparative literature; literature and linguistic anthropology; and literature and philosophy.

“I am happy to have received a Guggenheim Fellowship and very grateful to the friends, mentors and students who have helped to shape my work,” Barletta said.

As a fellow, Barletta plans to begin work on a book project devoted to Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and culture in the crypto-Muslim communities of early modern Spain and Portugal.

“The century between the forced conversion of Iberian Muslims and their final expulsion – Christian converts or not – is a rich and compelling period of adaptation, negotiation and survival for these communities. Focusing on inherited and improvised legal frameworks, I hope to describe in some detail how Iberian crypto-Muslims structured their communal life, even at great personal risk,” Barletta said.

Barletta is a research associate at Stanford’s Europe Center and associated faculty in the Center for African Studies, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and the Center for Latin American Studies.

This is an excerpt; read the full article by Melissa De Witte featured in Stanford Today >>