Rethinking Barbary: Early Modern Dialogues with Islam

FAIN: RZ-50725-07

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)
Maria Antonia Garces (Project Director: November 2006 to July 2013)

The production of an English/Spanish facing-page edition of a late-16th-century account of life in Algiers. (36 months)

We intend to prepare a scholarly Spanish edition and an English translation of an early modern Iberian text, Antonio de Sosa's _Topographia, e historia general de Argel_ [Topography and General History of Algiers] (1612). Written by Sosa while imprisoned in Algiers (1577-1581), the work is a riveting account of life in 16th-century Barbary. Questioning facile distinctions between "East" and "West," Sosa offers a vivid portrait of Algiers as a crossroads of civilizations - a diverse society consisting of Turks, Arabs, Christians, Jews, and renegades. Sosa's history of Algiers offers a colorful panorama of political transactions, corsair activities, sexual practices, circumcision "fiestas," etc. Despite these riches, the Topographia remains virtually unknown to Anglo-American scholars. Our edition will modernize archaic spelling and punctuation. Our translation will provide all the necessary critical apparatus for Anglo-American readers in the humanities to access this text.

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