Samuel G. Armistead

Samuel Gordon Armistead (August 21, 1927 – August 7, 2013) was an American ethnographer, linguist, folklorist, historian, literary critic and professor of Spanish. He is considered one of the most notable Hispanist scholars of the second half of the 20th and early 21st century. and was raised in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. His mother, Elizabeth Tucker Russell Armistead, was a historian and student of foreign languages; and he had, at least, one brother, Harry Armistead. He came from a family of lawyers and bankers.

He graduated from Penn Charter School in 1945. Afterwards he spent six months in the U.S. Merchant Marine and traveled to France and the Caribbean. He worked closely with another eminent Hispanist scholar, Joseph H. Silverman (1924–1989), and the musicologist Israel J. Katz (born 1930), with both of whom he developed an extensive body of work that focused primarily on the oral literature of the Sephardic communities of Morocco and the East. He also worked closely with Hispanist Manuel da Costa Fontes on studies focusing especially on the oral traditions of Portugal and Brazil.

Between 2000 and 2002 he was co-chair of the Departments of Spanish and Classics at the University of California, Davis. He was married for some time to Maria del Pilar Valcarcel-Calderon. After his divorce, he married Annie Laurie Meltzoff, Romances judeo-españoles de Tánger (Judeo-Spanish Romances of Tangier, with Joseph H. Silverman), 1977 El romancero judeo-español en el Archivo Menéndez Pidal (The Judeo-Spanish ballads in the Archive Menéndez Pidal, with several authors) (1978) Tres calas en el romancero (Three bays in the ballads, with Joseph H. Silverman), 1979 Hispania Judaica: Studies on the history, language, and literature of the Jews in the Hispanic world (with Joseph H. Silverman and Josep M. Sola-Solé), 1980 Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (corresponding member, 1998) U.C. Davis Faculty Research Lecturer (1998–1999) Premio Internacional ("International Award") Elio Antonio de Nebrija, received in the University of Salamanca (1999). Distinguished Lecturer in Medieval Studies (Arizona State University, Tempe, 2000) U.C. Davis Distinguished Professor (2003) Elected foreign Corresponding Member Named a corresponding member of the Real Academia Española (June 2009) Awarded Doctor honoris causa, Universidad de Alcalá (Madrid, December 2010).