Professor Juan-Carlos Conde

Background

I was born and raised in Madrid. I got my Licenciatura (MA, 1985) in Spanish Philology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where I was fortunate enough to be taught by Diego Catalán, Rafael Lapesa, Julio Rodríguez Puértolas, Antonio García Berrio, Carlos Piera and Domingo Ynduráin, among others. I was determined to do doctoral work on Spanish Golden Age literature, but I ended up (for reasons still not entirely clear to me) doing a Tesis Doctoral (DPhil Thesis, 1994) on a medieval topic (a critical edition, with a substantial study, of Pablo de Santa María’s Siete edades del mundo). In 1985 I started my professional career as a lexicographer at the Real Academia Española, where I was a member of the Seminario de Lexicografía since that year to 1993. From that year onwards I was in charge of different projects in the field of digital humanities (such as CORDE -Corpus Diacrónico del Español- and Nuevo Tesoro Lexicográfico de la Lengua Española). In 1996 I was appointed Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. In 2001 I decided to move for greener pastures and accepted a post as Associate Professor of Medieval Spanish Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. When I thought that it truly was a good idea to settle down there, I was told that there was a post in Oxford I could be interested in. In 2006 I joined Magdalen College as a Tutorial Fellow in Spanish; also joined the Sub-Faculty of Spanish in 2006 as a Lecturer in Medieval Spanish Literature. In 2018 I was appointed Professor in Medieval Spanish Literature and Philology. In Magdalen I founded and directed MIMSS (Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar) and was Coordinator of The Madariaga Series. At the end of September of 2021 I left Oxford, and took a research post at the Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Salamanca.

Teaching

During my 15 years in Oxford I used to teach the whole preliminary course in Spanish (both language and literature, from medieval ballads to 21st century Latin American novel), but my favorite teaching areas were Spanish Medieval Literature and Spanish Philology. I taught Paper VI (all authors and texts, with a preference for those in the late 14th and late 15th century) and IX (Poema de mio Cid, Libro de Buen Amor and Celestina). I have lectured on Poema de mio Cid, Libro de Buen Amor, Old Spanish ballads, Don Juan Manuel, Cancionero poetry Celestina, Jorge Manrique and 14th-century Spanish literature. I was in charge of all teaching in Oxford for paper IV (History of the Spanish Language), and lectured on Old Spanish Phonology and Spanish Language in the Golden Age. I also taught Paper XII and Paper XIV options related to these two fields. I also enjoyed the occasional teaching of tutorials on Golden Age literature, especially on Cervantes, the Picaresque novel, and Garcilaso. My postgraduate teaching was centered on MSt Special Subjects related to medieval Spanish literature and to the History of the Spanish Language, and I also did teach the MSt methodological options “Palaeography and Textual Criticism” and “History of the Book” to students of Spanish.

Research Interests

Medieval Spanish Literature, with a preference for 15th-century texts and authors. My research is always grounded on historical and philological principles, and what I always try to discover is what was the meaning of the medieval texts for those who read them when they were written, in that specific set of cultural, historical and intellectual circumstances. I also have a strong research interest for the materiality of the texts, both manuscript and printed, and I have published on these topics as well. My philological interests and my past professional exercise as a lexicographer explain my interest for the history of the lexis of Spanish and, overall, for historical linguistics. I have occasionally published on Golden Age texts and authors.

In November 2016 I was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship for my research project “Reinventing Spanish History: the work of Américo Castro in its cultural context”. It has allowed me to work during the period 2017-2020 in the study of the life and work of Américo Castro, one of the most prominent literary scholars and historians of 20th-century Spain.

Selected Publications

• Cantar de Mio Cid. Texto antiguo Ramón Menéndez Pidal. Prosificación moderna Alfonso Reyes. Prólogo Martín de Riquer. Edición Juan Carlos Conde. Colección Austral, 20. Madrid: Espasa Calpe (colección Austral, 20), 1999
• La creación de un discurso historiográfico en el Cuatrocientos castellano: «Las siete edades del mundo» de Pablo de Santa María, Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca (colección ‘Textos Recuperados’, XVIII), 1999
• (With Víctor Infantes) La «Historia de Griseldis» (c1544). Edición crítica, introducción y notas. Colección “Agua y Peña”, 12. Viareggio: Mauro Baroni editore, 2000
• (With Marta Haro Cortés, eds.) Fernando de Rojas, Celestina. Castalia Didáctica, 55. Madrid: Castalia, 2002
• Actas del Simposio Internacional 1502–2002: Five Hundred Years of Fernando de Rojas’ Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (18–19 de octubre de 2002, Departmento de Español y Portugués, Indiana University, Bloomington). Al cuidado de Juan Carlos Conde. New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 2007
• (With Víctor Infantes) De cancioneros manuscritos y poesía impresa. Estudios bibliográficos y literarios sobre lírica castellana del siglo XV. Madrid: Arco Libros, 2007
• Ramón Menéndez Pidal after Forty Years: a Reassessment. Edited by Juan-Carlos Conde. Publications of the Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 1 – Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 67. London: Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar & Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 2010
• Ottavio Di Camillo’s «El humanismo castellano del siglo XV» thirty-five years after. Special issue of La Corónica, edited by Juan-Carlos Conde. La Corónica, 39.1 (Fall 2010).
• “Gaude Virgo Gloriosa”: Marian Miracle Literature in the Iberian Peninsula and France in the Middle Ages. Edited by Juan-Carlos Conde & Emma Gatland. Publications of the Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 2 – Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 69. London: Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar & Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 2011.
• El «Poema de mio Cid» y la épica medieval castellana: nuevas aproximaciones críticas. Edited by Juan-Carlos Conde & Amaranta Saguar. Publications of the Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 3 – Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 75. London: Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar & Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 2015.
• Old Ballads, New Approaches: Studies on the «Romancero viejo». Edited by Juan-Carlos Conde & David Hook. Publications of the Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, 6. Oxford: MIMSS, 2018
• Una laguna sumergida». Epistolario de Américo Castro & María Rosa Lida de Malkiel. Edición y estudio de Juan-Carlos Conde. Publicaciones del SEMYR, Documenta, 10. Salamanca: SEMYR & SEHLL, 2019.
• Teresa de Cartagena, Obras. Edición y estudio. Letras Hispánicas. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, in press (to appear in 2022).