Our first full-day agenda. After we figured out how to use the coffee machine at breakfast, we walked through the Old Jewish Quarter. Wandering its warren of narrow streets and sudden plazas, we got the lay of the land in anticipation of a return later in the day. Our main event was a tour of the Mezquita, a truly awe-inspiring structure, with its red and white arches reaching toward heaven-high ceilings. The imposition of the Catholic cathedral in the old Mosque put me in mind of Christian re-use of pagan Roman buildings (this will be an unavoidable theme for me, a Latin teacher), and there is certainly a unit to be built around the displacement or replacement of one culture by another via usurpation of physical space and practices. Despite some bleak thoughts, the main impression was beauty everywhere. There were also swallows everywhere, defending nests and eating mosquitoes. If I had to be a bird, I’d want to be a swallow.
We revisited the Jewish Quarter, stopping to discuss scholar-doctor-philosopher Maimonides (and to touch his foot, a superstition I wonder if he would approve). His “Guide for the Perplexed” is, to my happy advantage, translated into Latin, and I intend to cross-reference its themes with another son of Cordoba, the Roman scholar-playwright-philosopher Seneca, whose statue stands just up the hill. While we sat in the shady grass nearby to recover from the heat, Paul read us a letter of Maimonides relating his impossibly busy schedule (note to self: compare Maimonides with Benjamin Franklin). This letter put me in mind of a similar letter written by Pliny the Younger about his ien duties and responsibilities as a scholar and man of privilege. Possible unit on the epistolary tradition? At one point, Avi reminded us that language is culture. During a delicious tapas lunch, I reminded myself that food is culture, and during a workshop on folk songs (I use the term respectfully) at the Casa Safarad, I was reminded that music is also culture.
Paul has made frequent reference to the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry, which to me rings the echo of the Golden Age if Roman Literature (yes, I am a bit single-minded). So now I must look at my own field anew, with the question “What allows creativity and scholarship to flourish, and what are the limitations?”
Only two days in, and so many seeds already planted.