Sarah McNamer's Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text Wins MLA's Scaglione Publication Award

Posted in Announcement

The Modern Language Association of America has announced that is awarding the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies to Sarah McNamer, for Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text.

The award committee’s citation reads:

This critical edition and English translation of Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text presents for the first time the long-neglected Italian vernacular version of an influential Latin text and advances an argument for its female authorship. The work represents a significant contribution to the study and understanding of medieval devotional literature and, more broadly, of the role of women in the emergence of vernacular literature and theology. Sarah McNamer’s critical text is clear and accessible; her translation is elegant, clean, and engaging. The manuscript productively addresses the historic turn indicated by our ability to consider a female author, as well as the foundation of scholarship on which that ability lies. Beyond medieval studies, McNamer’s edition has suggestive implications for how to write revisionary textual scholarship.

Congratulations, Sarah!