Ruth Fine

Ruth Fine (Hebrew: רות פיין‎‎; born 1957 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a professor of Spanish and Latin-American literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Fine chaired the Department of Romance and Latin American Studies and served as Director of the European Forum. She serves as Director of the Institute of Western Cultures at the same academic institution. Since 2008 Fine also serves as president of the Association of Hispanists in Israel.

Academic background

In 1981, after receiving a MA degree from the University of Buenos Aires in Comparative, Spanish and Latin-American Literature and in Spanish and Latin philology, Fine immigrated to Israel. In 1998 Fine received her PhD degree in the Department of Spanish and Latin American literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Since 1987 she has been working at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Between 2008 and 2012 Ruth Fine chaired the Department of Romance and Latin American Studies. Among her academic tasks at the Hebrew University, she was appointed in 2009 as the first director of the "Liwerant Center for the study of Latin America, Spain, Portugal and their Jewish Communities". In 2010 she was also appointed as the Director of the "Institute of Western Cultures". From 2012 until October 2015 she served as director of the "European Forum". In 2007, after founding the Association of Hispanists in Israel, she was elected as its first president, a position she holds ever since. Fine also holds various positions in International associations that are linked to her areas of research, such as member of the academic board of the International Association of Siglo de Oro (AISO), and vice-president of the International Association of Hispanists.

In 2012 she was awarded with the "Order of the Civil Merit" conferred by the King Juan Carlos I of Spain to a foreign citizen, for an extraordinary service for the benefit of Spain and the relations between Israel and Spain.

In 2016 she was elected corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española)

Her main areas of research are Spanish Golden Age Literature (16th–17th centuries); The Literature of the Conversos after 1492; The Work of Miguel de Cervantes; The Presence of the Bible and of Jewish Elements in the Work of Cervantes; Semiotics and Literary Theory; Contemporary Ibero-American literature; The Work of Jorge Luis Borges.

• Reescrituras bíblicas cervantinas, (in press), Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica-Iberoamericana. Frankfurt am Main/Madrid: Vervuert / Iberoamericana.
• Fine, Ruth, Michele Guillemont and Juan Diego Vila (eds.) (2013), Lo converso: orden imaginario y realidad en la cultura española (siglos XIV-XVII), Madrid-Frankfurt Am Main: Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 536 pp.
• Fine, Ruth y Daniel Blaustein (eds.) (2012), La fe en el universo literario de Jorge Luis Borges. Jerusalem, Van Leer Institute and Hildesheim ן¿½ Zürich ן¿½ New York: Georg Olms Verlag, TKKL Series directed by Alfonso de Toro.
• Casado, Manuel, Ruth Fine y Carlos Mata (eds.) (2012), Jerusalén-Toledo. Historias de dos ciudades. Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, Frankfurt am Main / Madrid: Vervuert / Iberoamericana.279 pp.
• R. Fine y C. Mata (eds.) (2010) Textos sin fronteras. Literatura y sociedad, Pamplona, Editorial EUNSA.
• Fine, Ruth and Ignacio Arellano (eds.)(2009) La Biblia en la literatura del Siglo de Oro.Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, Frankfurt am Main/Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana.
• Fine, Ruth and Santiago López Navia (eds.)(2008). Cervantes y las religiones. Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, Frankfurt am Main/Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana.
• Una lectura semiótico-narratológica del Quijote en el contexto del Siglo de Oro español. Frankfurt am Main/Madrid: Vervuert/Iberoamericana, 2006.