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98th Faculty Research Lecture
Is There An Author In This
Text?
Sidi Hamid Benengeli, Don Quijote and the
Metafictional Conventions of Chivalric Romance
Carroll B. Johnson
Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
April 26, 2005
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Professor Carroll B. Johnson from the Department of Spanish and
Portuguese was once described as "one of the few American scholars
in Early Modern Spanish studies who can converse with people on both
sides of the Atlantic." Another scholar stated that Professor
Johnson's work is "so far ahead of its time that when it appears, it
is deemed idiosyncratic, even peculiar, by prevailing critical
wisdom, only to be resoundingly vindicated over time as having been
on the vanguard of a whole new set of critical principles and
hypotheses."
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A special jewel of our own institution, Professor Johnson
received his undergraduate degree from UCLA, and has taught at the
university for his entire academic career. A native of Los Angeles,
Professor Johnson first came to UCLA in 1955 as a freshman. He
graduated with a B.A. in Spanish in 1960, and a M.A. the following
year. Following a year as a Fulbright Fellow in Spain, he received
his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard in 1966.
He has been a member of the UCLA Department of Spanish and
Portuguese since 1964, and was for thirteen years its chair.
Professor Johnson's latest book, Cervantes and the Material World
(2000), examines the effects of materialist practices such as
commodification, commerce and exchange on the lives of the
characters, their motivations and their possibilities for action.
His current project, a study of the presence of the
Arab-Ottoman-Islamic world -- and especially the Spanish moriscos
(Spanish Moors) -- in Cervantes' works, comes back to the
ethnic-religious conflicts of early modern Spanish society.
In his lecture, Professor Johnson will explore the links between
Don Quixote and the Morisco culture of the late Spanish
Renaissance.
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