English's Joshua Byron Smith Begins Work on Critical NEH Scholarly Translation Grant

Photo by Grant Schol

Joshua Byron Smith

Last fall, Joshua Byron Smith, an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Arkansas' Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded a prestigious $200,000 Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Now this fall, the project, "Brut y Brenhinedd: Translating the Welsh Reception of Geoffrey of Monmouth," has started and aims to make these crucial medieval Welsh texts accessible to a broader academic and general audience.

"This work will significantly contribute to the fields of medieval studies, Welsh literature, and British history," said Trish Starks, director of the U of A's Arkansas Humanities Center. "It's an impressive and critical project that will help make foundational humanities texts more accessible and available to scholars worldwide."

The NEH's Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant provides funding to support collaborative teams in editing, annotating, and translating texts that are inaccessible or only available in inadequate editions or translations.

Smith, in collaboration with co-investigator Georgia Henley of Saint Anslem College, will create the scholarly editions and English translations of three early versions of Brut y Brenhinedd, a collection of Middle Welsh texts.

Smith said the lasting appeal of Brut y Brenhinedd arises from the fact that these texts are themselves translations and adaptations of another famous literary work, Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain - a medieval bestseller written in Latin that made King Arthur and early British history famous throughout Europe.

"Much to the detriment of several academic fields, Geoffrey's Welsh reception remains inaccessible to all but a few medievalists with the requisite training," Smith said. "Our project aims to right this wrong by providing editions and translations of Brut y Brenhinedd."

Welsh translators and adapters found a lot to like in Geoffrey's history, he added, as it gave them an illustrious past and put their nation on par with Rome.

"In their own versions of Geoffrey's history, Welsh authors would often alter their source, extending some passages while abbreviating others, or they might slip in material from other literary sources," Smith said. "Taken together, these changes provide new light on how the medieval Welsh imagined their own history."

Smith and Henley are editing and translating the three earliest versions of Brut y Brenhinedd, all of which date to the thirteenth century. With the completion of his project, they seek to bring more scholarly and interdisciplinary attention to Brut y Brenhinedd, as well as to make it more accessible to a general readership.

The project involves producing three volumes over two years, with each containing a critical edition and a facing-page translation of one version of the text.

"This project will advance and disseminate key historical knowledge and will serve as a stepping stone for other scholars to build upon," said Brian E. Raines, dean of Fulbright College. "That the work is supported by an incredibly prestigious and competitive NEH award further demonstrates our vibrant community of humanities scholars in Fulbright College at the U of A."

"By making these important Welsh texts accessible to a wider academic audience, Smith's work will contribute to the college's reputation as a center for innovative humanities research and bolster our commitment to discovery, research, creativity, and innovation," he added.

Smith's research interests include the multilingual literary culture of high medieval Britain, with particular attention to Latin, Anglo-Norman French, Old and Middle English, and Welsh. He currently serves as the president of the Celtic Studies Association of North America and is a Senior Mellon Fellow in Critical Bibliography at the Rare Book School.

Since joining the U of A in 2011, Smith has taught courses on medieval languages, philology, British literature, Celtic studies, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the history of the English language.

Smith holds a B. A. in English, classics, and linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University.

This story also appeared in the Fulbright REVIEW publication.