Biography
Roberto Andrés Talavera Pagán was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He holds a BA in Hispanic Studies from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, and an AM and PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University, with a secondary field in Medieval Studies. His research and teaching interests revolve around medieval and early modern Iberian literature, with a particular focus on narrative poetry, hagiography, the history of emotions, and the history of sexuality.
In his research, he examines the ways premodern literary texts represent, evoke, and shape emotions as entry points into how they grapple with questions of gender, sanctity, and desire. More broadly, his research asks how literature mediates our possibilities of feeling and existing in the world by both reinforcing and challenging the emotional norms that structure social life.
Roberto’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in Revista Asomante, Variaciones Borges, La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, and Hispanic Review.
Publications
- “Crying and Cringing for Another: Conversion and Vicarious Affect in Vida de Santa Pelágia.” Forthcoming in Hispanic Review.
- “The Shame of Love in the Libro de buen amor.” La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literature, and Cultures, vol. 52.2, 2024, pp. 71–102.
- “Hacia/desde el Sur y el Oriente: ‘La busca de Averroes’ y Miguel Asín Palacios.” Variaciones Borges 55, April 2023, pp. 37–57.
- “Las lágrimas del Profeta: llanto y consuelo en el relato aljamiado-morisco de la muerte de Mahoma.” Revista Asomante, 2020, pp. 291–312.
- “‘Merced de eridas que recevi de Dios’: simbología bélica en los hológrafos de Santa Rosa de Lima.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (UPR), Year 7, No. 2, 2020, pp. 25–45.
- Review of The Iberian Apollonius of Tyre, edited and translated by Emily C. Francomano and Clara Pascual-Argente, Harvard UP, 2024. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 84. ISBN: 978-0-67429-103-4. Forthcoming in La corónica 53.2.