Posted in Baron Book Prize

2007 Baron Book Prize Winner: Jonathan Decter

2007 Baron Book Prize Winner: Jonathan Decter Posted on June 30, 2007

Decter, Iberian Jewish LiteratureThe Baron Book Prize for 2007 was awarded. Congratulations to:

Jonathan Decter of Brandeis University for Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe (Indiana University Press).

In Iberian Jewish Literature, Decter explores Hebrew prose and poetry in both its Islamic-Arabic context and its Christian-Romance context.  His work draws on scholarship in Romance languages and literatures, medieval Hebrew literature, and Arabic studies and is in dialogue with contemporary literary theory and cultural studies.  In speaking of the book at the award ceremony in Washington, DC, in December, Professor Robert Chazan, a former president of the AAJR, praised the book for its willingness to encompass Hebrew literature from both the Muslim and Christian periods and for its methodological sophistication.

Decter’s book grows out of his doctoral dissertation, which he wrote at the Jewish Theological Seminary under the supervision of Professor Raymond Scheindlin.