Epic New Worlds: Alonso de Ercilla’s La araucana (1569-2019)

Epic New Worlds: Alonso de Ercilla’s La araucana (1569-2019)
October 4-5, 2019. Alumni Hall, Old Victoria College, University of Toronto
Friday, October 4
10:00-11:30
Iberian Renaissance Epics in Print
David Fernandez (University of Toronto)
Matthew da Mota (University of Toronto)
Emiro Martínez-Osorio (York University)
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

1:30-2:00
Registration
Victoria College, Foyer

2:00-2:15
Welcome and Opening Remarks

2:15-3:30 SESSION I. Tradition and Innovation in La araucana
Alumni Hall
Imogen Choi (Exeter College) – “La araucana and Drama”
Mercedes Blanco (Sorbonne Université) – “Un episodio trágico en La araucana: la traición de Andresillo (cantos XXX-XXXII)” Chair: Sanda Munjic (University of Toronto)

3:30-3:45
Coffee
Alumni Hall

3:45-5:00 SESSION II. The Poetics of Warfare
Alumni Hall
Cory Reed (The University of Texas at Austin) – “Empathy, Indigeneity, and Empire in Ercilla’s La araucana and Cervantes’s Numancia”
Luis Fernando Restrepo (University of Arkansas) – “Epic Suffering: La araucana, Humanism, and the Meaning of Wounded Bodies”
Chair: Alan Durston (York University)
Saturday, October 5
8:45-9:30
Light Breakfast
Victoria College, Foyer
9:30-10:45 SESSION III. The Poetics of Exploration
Alumni Hall
Jason McCloskey (Bucknell University) – “‘Así el cielo lo quiso’: Christopher Columbus in Luis Zapata’s Carlo Famoso”
María Gracia Ríos (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú) – “Reading Beyond the Margins: The First English Translation of La araucana and the Anglo-Spanish War”
Matthew da Mota (University of Toronto) – “Writing Poetry from the Shore of Europe: Constructing History in Os Lusíadas”
Chair: Enriqueta Zafra (Ryerson University)
10:45-11:00
Coffee
Alumni Hall
11:00-12:15
SESSION IV. Epic and Lyric
Alumni Hall
Felipe Valencia (Utah State University) – “Ercilla and the Rise of Lyric Theory in Late Sixteenth-Century Spanish Poetry”
Aude Plagnard (Université Paul-Valéry de Montpellier) – “How Ercilla Invented Himself as a Poet and Witness Throughout the Three Parts of La araucana”
Chair: Felipe Ruan (Brock University)
12:15-1:30
Lunch
Victoria College, Foyer
1:30-2:45 SESSION V. Gendered Epics
Alumni Hall
Nicole Legnani (Princeton University) – “Domestic Bliss and Strife: Fresia and Caupolicán in Ercilla’s La araucana and Oña’s Arauco domado”
Shaun Ross (University of Toronto) – “The True Story of Dido: Ercilla’s Ambivalent Reception of Virgil”
Chair: Antonio Ricci (York University)
2:45-3:00
Coffee
Alumni Hall
3:00-4:00 SESSION VI. Keynote Lecture
Alumni Hall
Elizabeth R. Wright (University of Georgia at Athens) – “Eastward Bound from Lepanto: Race and the Ethics of Empire Building”
Chair: Tamara Walker (University of Toronto)
4:00-4:15
Final Remarks
Image: Mapamundi (1526) by Juan Vespucci.
Image thanks to the Hispanic Society of America.
The symposium was generously sponsored by the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, York University Vice President Research and Innovation, York University Provost, York University Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University Centre for Research in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Art Gallery of York University, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, The University of Toronto Centre for Comparative Literature, The University of Toronto Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The University of Toronto Latin American Studies Program, the Asociación Canadiense de Hispanistas and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.