Demetrio Yocum, senior research associate in the Center for Italian Studies, has been recognized with the twenty-sixth annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies by the Modern Language Association of America.
Yocum's Petrarch’s Penitential Psalms and Prayers, published by the University of Notre Dame Press, received commendation from the selection committee, with the award ceremony set for January 5, 2024, during the MLA annual convention in Philadelphia. The members of the selection committee summarized their reasons for selecting Yocum’s manuscript as follows:
In Petrarch’s Penitential Psalms and Prayers, Demetrio S. Yocum provides a lucid translation of Petrarch’s seven psalms and ten prayers, making them available to anglophone readers for the first time in a scholarly form. Complete with detailed, pithy commentary and rich explication, the idiomatic translations remain faithful to the original text and are a valuable contribution to other recent scholarly translations of works by the canonical early Italian humanist. In the thoughtful introduction, Yocum positions the reader to engage with the translations of the psalms and prayers by situating Petrarch as both, and simultaneously, a humanist and a Christian, as an author who is devoted to praising God while also questioning traditional religious doctrine.