John Dagenais, Professor

University of California, Los Angeles
dagenais@humnet.ucla.edu




Research Interests:

Medieval Iberian Literatures and Cultures (Castilian, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, Latin, Occitan), Manuscript Culture, The Mediterranean, Medieval/Postcolonial, Medieval Art and Architecture, Digital Humanities, Pilgrimage and the Camiño de Santiago





While you are at UCLA, be sure to take advantage of opportunities for Study Abroad:

Read an article on the impact of study abroad on life opportunities and career paths by John Arboleda, UCLA Alumni Association Board member, Latin American Studies major and friend of the Barcelona Summer Travel Study Program. "UCLA and an international career were not on his radar screen"
Or see the full interview with John at "Interview with UCLA alumnus John Arboleda."




Recent Activities and Research:





  • UCLA Hebrew Aljamiado Research Group. Faculty director. 2017-2023.

  • "Translation as the Sincerest Form of Plagiarism: Translation and Linguistic Repatriation in cAbd Allāh al-Tarjumān's Disputa del ase." In Iberian Babel: Multilingualism and Translation in the Medieval and the Early Modern Mediterranean. Ed. Michelle Hamilton and Núria Silleras-Fernández. Leiden: Brill, 2023. 147-169.

  • "Before the Civil War: The Spanish University Mediterranean Student Cruise of 1933." Mediterranean Studies Association Annual Conference (Brno, Czech Republic/Online, June 2, 2023)

  • "An Allegorical Journey from Tunis to Mallorca: Abd Allah al-Tarjuman's 'Cobles de la divisió del regne de Mallorques'." Mediterranean Studies Association Annual Conference (Gibraltar/Online, May 28, 2021).

  • "Evolution of a Pilgrimage Site: Modeling Compostela (800-1211)." With José Suárez Otero. Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference (Online, April 15, 2021)

  • "Two Mediterranean Itineraries of a 9th-Century Arabic Beast Fable: The Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn by the Ikhwān al-Şafā''." Mediterranean Studies Association Annual Conference (Crete, May 30-June 1, 2019).

  • Manuscript Workshop: Catherine Brown, Remember the Hand: The Articulate Codex in Early Medieval Iberia. Department of Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, September 27, 2019.

  • "The Rooster and the Primate: Technologies of Reading in Diego García de Campos's Planeta." "¡Mirad cuán bueno y cuán delicioso es habitar los hermanos juntos en armonía!": Essays in Honor of Eric W. Naylor. Ed. Grant Gearhart and Joseph T. Snow. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2019. 71-91.

  • "The Libre de bons amonestaments by cAbd Allah al-Tarjuman: A Guidebook for Old and New Christians." Polemical Encounters: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Iberia and Beyond. Ed. Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State UP, 2019. 305-29.

  • "Two Mediterranean Itineraries of a 9th Century Arabic Beast Tale: The Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn by the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’." Mediterranean Studies Association. Crete. May-June, 2019.

  • "A Lullist in the New World: Bernat Boïl." A Companion to Ramon Llull and Lullism. Ed. Amy M. Austin and Mark D. Johnston. Boston: Brill, 2019. Pp. 499-514.

  • "A Lullist in the New World: Junípero Serra." A Companion to Ramon Llull and Lullism. Ed. Amy M. Austin and Mark D. Johnston. Boston: Brill, 2019. Pp. 533-551.

  • "Eiusque Manu Scriptus: Junípero Serra's Mallorcan Class Notes." The Worlds of Junipero Serra: Historical Contexts and Cultural Representations, ed. Steven W. Hackel. University of California Press, 2018. 37-66.

  • "Unveiling Judeo-Spanish Texts: A Hebrew Aljamiado Workshop" (with Roxanna Colón-Cosme, Nitzaira Delgado García, Payton Phillips Quintanilla, and Tania Varela). February 22, 2018 (reprised March 14, 2018).


    Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS 2666: "Vision Delekt[a]ble"


    The VR Romanesque Cathedral and Town of Santiago de Compostela, Phase 2 (ongoing)

  • Romanesque Redivivus: A Full-Scale 3D Computer Reconstruction of the Medieval Cathedral and Town of Santiago de Compostela [search under Videos: compostela]
    From the Celebrating the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (November, 2010)

  • See the Cathedral Model in:



    • Selected Publications:




    Internet Projects