Date/Time
Date(s) - 11 Apr 2017
5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Columbia University Faculty House
Category(ies) No Categories
Claire Gilbert, St. Louis University
“Arabic Translators in Renaissance Spain”
In the sixteenth century the language policies of the Spanish kings fostered cultural hierarchies that redefined Arabic as a sign of heterodoxy and a potential threat to the state. Among the Spanish subjects that continued to use Arabic were translators who both circumvented and enforced anti-Arabic policies and sentiments. Despite the legislation against speaking Arabic or possessing Arabic texts and the expulsions of Arabic speakers, there was a continuous presence of Arabic texts and those who were paid to read them throughout the Habsburg period in Spain. In fact, we can trace an increasing professional stability among Arabic translators in Spanish institutions, revealing the important place that Arabic documentation and information came to hold in law courts, fiscal registers, parish records, and educational institutions in Spain and Spanish territories in North Africa. In this presentation I examine strategies that different Arabic speakers used to shape their participation in and treatment by the administrative structures of the Spanish monarchy. I explain how Arabic translators in Spain relied upon and cultivated family and patronage connections that allowed them access to position, information, and other resources, adjusting their strategies over time as the demography of Arabic speakers changed. I will also discuss how, as this demography changed, so too did the place of Arabic as a Spanish administrative language, transitioning from a language of domestic minority rule to a language of international diplomacy and the projection of Spanish Habsburg reputation on a European scale.