Research Seminar - 04.05.2026: Alex Novikoff - Toward a New Translation of the Disputation of Mallorca (1286): Polemic and Performance in a Mediterranean Milieu

Alex Novikoff, Kenyon College

Toward a New Translation of the Disputation of Mallorca (1286): Polemic and Performance in a Mediterranean Milieu

This paper introduces my English translation of the Disputation of Mallorca (1286), based on the critical edition by Ora Limor (1994), alongside a methodological reflection on translating medieval polemic as performance. As I hope to demonstrate, my translation seeks to preserve the argumentative pressure and dialogic rhythm of the Latin, treating the text not simply as a record of ideas but as staged speech shaped by gesture, setting, and familiar expectations. Through close analysis of key passages, I show how translation choices can recover the work’s theatricality without sacrificing philological precision. At the same time, I situate the disputation within the intellectual and social world of the late thirteenth-century Mediterranean port, where mercantile exchange, scholastic ideas, and interreligious encounter intersected in a less formal register. In my accompanying study I propose the notion of a “Mediterranean microhistory” to capture this dense interplay of local setting and transregional discourse, in which a single debate opens onto wider structures of knowledge, mimesis, and performance.

Gathering for coffee and refreshments at 16:00

Chair: Ori Belkind

The public is invited