International Conference
10–11 June 2024
British-Spanish Geographies:
Mapping the Literature and Culture of Spain’s Transition, 1960s-1990s
School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick
CALL FOR PAPERS (in English or Spanish)
The aim of this conference is to undertake a critical evaluation of the cultural, literary, and emotional entanglements between Spain and the British Isles during the period of Spain’s Transition into a global and globalized democracy (this Transition broadly understood as beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the 1990s).
The international aspect of Spain’s political Transition has long been acknowledged by historians in assessing the foreign factors and agents involved in the construction of the democratic state. Meanwhile, Spanish Literary and Cultural Studies have pointed out the transnational and extraterritorial quality of the cultural production of this period, highlighting the voracious and cosmopolitan attitude of Spanish writers, intellectuals, and cultural mediators as they prepared the foundations of a global and capitalist democracy. This conference seeks to deepen our understanding of the transitional period by focusing on the engagements between two cultures whose historic and dynamic relations pose a particularly important case to the development of the Spanish democratic process.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach – from literary and cultural studies, to comparative and area studies, through to space and emotion theory, geocriticism, history, and politics – this bilingual conference seeks to break new ground in the assessment of the Transition by mapping the contours of this British-Spanish geography, including studies of: the reception and exchange of literary and cultural models; the development of personal networks and intercultural mediations; the production of translations, literary representations, and mythologies; and the creation of new cultural repertoires with their related affective and epistemological frameworks.
Confirmed speakers:
Rosi Song, University of Durham
Elisenda Marcer, University of Birmingham
Vicente Molina Foix, writer
Proposals for papers of 20 minutes: Please email a 200-word abstract in English or Spanish to Santiago Bertrán
santiago.bertran@warwick.ac.uk by Friday 15th of March 2024. Note that the spaces for this conference are limited, although we will try to accommodate as many participants as possible.