Dr. John K. Moore Jr., associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, has been awarded a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Moore was one of 1,100 applicants; his funding will run from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017. He had previously secured an Institute for Pilgrimage Studies Fellowship at the College of William & Mary for the same work.

Moore’s current research is a bilingual edition and study of “His Majesty’s Prosecutor v. José Soller, Mulatto Pilgrim, for Impersonating a Priest and Other Crimes,” a previously unedited and unpublished legal case from late 17th-century Spain. This body of work will be the first study, edition and translation of the case against José Soller, who was apprehended on the road to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 1693 for impersonating a priest.

Moore says the case offers a rare window into the real-life challenges a person of black African descent faced in Europe after the Renaissance and shows the lengths to which one man was willing to go to try to escape discrimination.