Introduction I: A Festschrift for William Atkinson

Abstract

In ‘Introduction I. A Festschrift for William Atkinson’, Ann L. Mackenzie begins by explaining why William Atkinson had not previously received a Festschrift—neither upon his retirement in 1972 nor even following his death in 1992. She goes on to provide compelling reasons for rectifying this omission, and for doing so in the form of a Special Double Issue of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies. She refers in particular to Atkinson’s pioneering role in establishing Portuguese Studies and Latin American Studies as major fields of learning in UK universities. She also points to the principal part he played in 1953 to ensure the continuation of the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies after the death of E. Allison Peers, its founder-editor. Mackenzie is also informative about the contents of the Festschrift and its contributors, some of whom were once students of Atkinson in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Glasgow University. Other contributors either graduated later from that same Department at Glasgow or used to be members of its staff. Mackenzie goes on to discuss the topics, authors, periods and countries dealt with in the contributed articles, all of which, in some significant respect or degree, reflect Atkinson’s own publications on the literatures, cultures and histories of Spain, Portugual and Latin America.