Grove City College Assistant Professor of Spanish Dr. Deborah R. Forteza has been selected to participate in a competitive National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute examining a key period of European history.
Forteza will be among an elite group of NEH Summer Scholars participating in the NEH Summer Institute “Thresholds of Change: Modernity and Transformation in the Mediterranean, 1400-1700.” She will pursue an intensive program of study with a team of experts to engage the main narratives of what is arguably the period of the deepest and most impactful transformation of the region, the transition from the late Middle Ages to the Early Modern era.
Forteza, who joined the Department of Modern Languages in 2017, said she is keenly interested in the topics and methodological approaches to be discussed in the seminar. “I believe that the opportunity to participate in this NEH summer seminar will not only enrich my personal research, but also benefit the Grove City College community,” she said.
The Institute aims to help humanities instructors in history, languages, literature, art, geography and environmental studies gain insights from the Mediterranean past for use in undergraduate surveys or topical courses. They’ll be exposed to the major themes, approaches and accomplishments of recent research in the period, network with leading scholars in the field and work in the widest-ranging collection of pre-modern and early modern Mediterranean primary sources in the U.S., the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library on the campus of Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minn.
“My interest in the subject began while pursuing a Master of Divinity degree and learning biblical Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic within the context of biblical studies,” Forteza said. “After entering a doctoral program at the University of Notre Dame, I specialized in Miguel de Cervantes, who has marked connections with Jewish and Arab cultures, and explored Protestant and Catholic relations in early modern Spain and England.”