Representing History in Dire Times: A Workshop Marking the 80th Anniversary of the End of the Spanish Civil War

Date: 

Wed, 30/01/2019 - 10:00 to 18:00
Representing History in Dire Times: A Workshop Marking the 80th Anniversary of the End of the Spanish Civil War

Location: 

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Mandel Building, Room 521
Representing History in Dire Times: A Workshop Marking the 80th Anniversary of the End of the Spanish Civil War
Wednesday, 30 January 2019
2019 marks the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Spanish Civil War, the end of the Second Spanish Republic and the beginning of the Francoist dictatorship. Taking the Spanish Civil War as a case study, the one-day international, interdisciplinary workshop Representing History in Dire Times, organized by MBSF fellow Dr. Leonie Pawlita in cooperation with the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the Hebrew University, addressed the intersections between literature and history from a globalized and contemporary perspective. The Spanish Civil War is unique in its conjunction of national and international dimensions, both of the conflict itself, and of its impact on multiple representations in literature and the arts. The international dimension of the Spanish Civil War, which exceeded the boundaries of the Spanish national context, produced a universal representation of a particular historical event, making the Spanish Civil War a key moment in the theoretical conceptualization and representation of war in art. The Spanish Civil War therefore could be seen as a harbinger, foreshadowing more recent debates on the politics of remembrance and the manipulative modeling of historical narratives and conflicting accounts of violent pasts in literature and art. The workshop explored the representations of war in literature emerging from the period of the Spanish Civil War, against the background of its charged historical context both intra-Spanish and international. It discussed the role of literature and the arts in shaping the experience and memory of the Spanish Civil War and the modalities of historical representation in the aesthetic experience and the challenges of representing war and extreme violence in art, dealing with the politics of remembrance and with the ways in which literature, poetry and drama grapple with the history, memory, trauma and legacy of the Spanish Civil War.