From the Editor

This is our first volume produced during the pandemic. While the final stages of 48.1 were completed during the first intense weeks of the pandemic, this volume features work that the authors produced and revised in the midst of the pandemic. I am grateful not only to the authors, but also to the editorial team who has been diligent and always available, even as they (and all of us) have been in countless Zoom meetings about financial and other administrative crisis at our institutions, listening to updates and plans for how our colleges or universities, or our own children’s schooling attempt to confront the challenges of the virus, or attending crash courses on how to teach online (and if you haven’t, check out the articles by some of our colleagues detailing useful tips and lesson plans on teaching medieval Iberian literature on line, put together by Christi Ivers on La corónica Commons).

The summer was hectic, stressful and busy, and I have to say the fall semester has kicked off in a chaotic and unsettling way. But amidst the stressful training, planning and, at least in my case, worrying, there were some bright sides. The inability to travel led many in our field/s to use the new (or at least new to many of us) tools for online collaboration to create virtual scholarly events and communities. I heard some excellent papers and conversations on medieval Iberian topics, including the notions of race and of how scholars of premodern and early modern Iberia have (or have not) dealt with it, Morisco literature and culture, at the virtual Medieval Academy panel on “Multilingualism, Multiculturalism, Multiconfessionalism in the Medieval Mediterranean” and at the Canceled Papers virtual conference at the University of Kansas, as well as several panels on Mediterranean history and culture at other digital events hosted by various universities across the globe. I have also been present in several graduate defenses with a host of scholars from around the world. Such activities show that, while we may not be able to travel phsyically, many colleagues are choosing to support and engage in new ways. I think that La corónica can continue to offer its support and help connect the scholarly community of specialists who work in and who are interested in premodern Iberia in this changing landscape.

Two important contributions in the effort to strengthen our scholarly community that you will find in this volume are: 1. the forum on the 2019 La corónica book award winner, S. J. Pearce’s The Andalusí Literary Intellectual Tradition: The Role of Arabic in Judah ibn Tibbon’s Ethical Will. This forum is a new feature designed to stimulate scholarly dialogues not only about new scholarship, but about new ways of thinking about the field/s in which we work; and 2. the call for the next Nancy F. Marino Prize for best paper at the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo. This year’s winner was Rebecca de Souza (author of the article, “The Critique of Toxic, Noble Masculinity in Los siete Infantes de Lara,” in this volume). Please join us in honoring her at this year’s (virtual) social hour at the MLA, scheduled for Friday 8 January 2021 7:15–8:30pm EST (once we have the details we will post them on La corónica Commons and through MLA). In addition to the social hour, we also have two panels at MLA in January: “Isidore of Seville and the Persistence of Classical Antiquity,” cosponsored with LLC Medieval Iberian and Old English and chaired by Isidro J. Rivera; and a special session on “Race and Its Historiography in Medieval Iberian Studies,” organized by La corónica, cosponsored by LLC Medieval Iberian, and chaired by Isidro J. Rivera. Both panels have been chosen for inclusion in the sessions on the presidential theme “Persistence.”

We are pleased to finally bring to you the present volume of the journal, which includes the excellent peer-reviewed articles and book reviews we regularly feature. In addition, the current volume of La corónica includes a new section dedicated to the La corónica...