Prologue

We offer heartfelt thanks to Xavier Tubau for his vision and dedication as book review editor from July 2016 to June 2018. He accepted the position with the explicit goal of fomenting interdisciplinary and transatlantic scholarly conversations. In this capacity, Xavier commissioned eighty-three book reviews published in four issues. Each one reflects thoughtful deliberation from the initial assignment to the final editorial evaluation. Having successfully reconceived the Book Review section, Xavier will devote his energies to his own research agenda as well as other service to the profession. But his impact on this journal will long endure. The next two issues of the journal (volume 71, number 1–2) will be the direct result of the extensive international network of reviewers he cultivated. His scholarly engagement and rigor will continue to inspire us. Brown University's Department of Hispanic Studies is the new host of the Book Review, under the auspices of Laura Bass, with editorial assistance from Ana Garriga Espino and Carmen Urbita Ibarreta.

In this issue, we inaugurate a new occasional feature—the Bulletin of Practice. This section highlights issues pertinent to the actors, directors, teachers, and musicians rethinking performance traditions for our times. Fittingly, the first edition features an interview Barbara Fuchs conducted with Ignacio García, the new director of the Festival de Teatro Clásico de Almagro.

We construed the cover of this issue to spark meditation on a character type who animates the comedia de capa y espada: the dama, as paragon of vivacious urbanity. A sad and unexpected twist of fate as we entered the issue's final phase of production has reoriented the signification of Antes que todo es mi dama—from one of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's ingenious appropriations of proverbial wisdom—to the point of departure for mourning and celebrating our esteemed colleague Amy Williamsen.

• Retrato y Semblanza
• Charles Victor Ganelin

Retrato y semblanza de Amy Williamsen

Hablan en ello las siguientes personas, en orden de apariencia

Charles Victor Ganelin Miami University, Emeritus	Autor, autor de comedias
Gwyn E. Campbell Washington and Lee University	Colega, amiga y cómplice
Howard Mancing Purdue University, Emeritus	Amigo y colega
Catherine Larson Indiana University, Emerita	Colega y amiga
James Parr University of California, Riverside, Emeritus	Director de tesis, colega y amigo
Annette Kolodny University of Arizona, Emerita	Decana y amiga
Susan Fischer Bucknell University, Emerita	Colega y amiga

I first met Amy at an MLA (of course!) sitting next to her father Vern Williamsen (¡no faltaba más!) in the hotel bar (¡desde luego!). The year was 1984, and Amy was about to defend her dissertation and begin her rapid rise through the academic ranks. The work that would come to define her career on Cervantes, women writers, and the comedia, through a variety of theoretical lenses, has influenced scholars across generations. What will ever remain with us are her cheerfulness, her eagerness, and the surprising depth of knowledge she brought even early in her career. Although I can't recall the actual conversations of our first meeting, the tenor of critical thought leavened by joviality and jocularity—the sense of her wit, humor, and joy—remains firmly embedded in my memory, along with her keen intellect and effusive, kind smile. So how to describe a life lived to its fullest, particularly when that life is snatched away from her—and from all who knew her—in a cruel and unsuspecting way, although she was doing what she loved, swimming in the ocean? I wish not to dwell on the sadness of Amy's death but on her sharp, incisive mind and her vivacious, abundant, overflowing, and generous soul that touched the lives and careers of countless scholars who became her friends in short order. Gwyn E. Campbell remembers reading an early essay of Amy's as a newly appointed assistant professor, finding the courage to contact her out of the blue with questions, and receiving a reply written as if it had come from an old friend. Others have shared similar stories of Amy's generosity.

Amy grew up in Columbia, Missouri, where Vern served on the faculty of the University...