Eccentric modernities: The Essay and Intellectual Networks in the Hispanic area

Eccentric modernities: The Essay and Intellectual Networks in the Hispanic area

Organizer
Domingo Ródenas de Moya (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) / Jordi Gracia Garcia (Universitat de Barcelona)
Venue
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Location
Barcelona
Country
Spain
From - Until
25.10.2017 - 27.10.2017
Deadline
25.02.2017
By
Diana Sanz Roig

The cultural imaginary of modernity tends to place the Hispanic world in a peripheral position. That same imaginary presupposes that, enclosed in their eccentricity or on their margin, modern cultures in the Spanish language are in a subsidiary position when establishing a dialogue of international scope. If Guillermo de Torre could speak of the difficult Spanish universality, Beatriz Sarlo of Argentine peripheral modernity or Héctor García Canclini of the various temporalities in the Latin American hybrid cultures was because this subordinate status was already settled. The capitis diminutio of being Americans, noted by Alfonso Reyes in 1936, was in fact a more general fatality, that of being Spanish-speaking intellectuals. The main reason for this biased analysis is that Hispanic modernity has been considered an alien element in modern European identity, and European and North American cultural producers did not include Spanish and Latin American actors in the international circuits of modernity.

However, the abundant essay production in Latin America and Spain throughout the twentieth century makes it superfluous to question whether there was a true cultural modernity, but it keeps open the question about the unique conditions of Hispanic modernities, their processes of importing ideas, models and currents and on the international diffusion of its literary and intellectual production. In this sense, a joint view on Spain and Latin America allows us to evaluate national and international cultural networks and reveal unique patterns in the migration of texts, ideas and agents, while testing established geocultural concepts.

The purpose of this conference is to question the peripheral character of these modernities, both Spanish and Latin American, and investigate the specificity of these modern cultures, both autonomous and heteronomous with respect to the Western hegemonic model. In order to do this, it is essential to examine and evaluate cultural practices, particularly those concerning the forms of non-fiction and the essay, and the action of many agents and institutions who shared the aim of achieving an ever evasive modernity in Spanish-speaking countries without neglecting the paradigm of modernity represented by Europe and the United States. This intention was made through operations of connection with the international context in a double sense: towards the outside, seeking to give visibility to the work of Hispanic creators, and to the interior, assimilating the renovating forms and the aesthetic and ideological currents of the Contemporaneity and subjecting them to permanent reflection.

To cover the multiplicity of actors associated with these international practices and networks, the conference will focus on individuals who played the role of cultural mediators: thinkers, writers, literary critics, columnists, translators, editors, Diplomats, promoters and cultural activists, as well as institutions such as art and literature criticism, the publishing industry, literary magazines and gatherings, the press, foundations and patronage, fairs and literary prizes.

We welcome paper proposals dealing with the many forms and aspects of the theme of the conference. Potential topics include:
- Mediations between Spain, Latin America, United Sates and Europe: essayists, disseminators, networks.
- Spanish and Latin American Essay and essayists.
- The figure of the intellectual: mission and functions.
- Transatlantic collaborative networks.
- The debate on cultural / literary modernity in Spain and Latin America.
- The publishing world: publishers, collections, market.
- The literary field of the Hispanic avant-gardes through the prose of ideas.
- The Hispanic letters on the map of world literature.
- Literary translation: export and import of the Hispanic essay.
- Literary criticism: principles, professional practice, critics.
- Transatlantic players.
- Heterodoxies, exclusions, dissent.

Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes and will be accepted in Spanish, Catalan and English. Please send a 350 to 500-word abstract, a brief cv and a list of recent publications to congresoensayo2017@upf.edu by 25 February 2017.

For information about registration, travel or accommodations, please contact Carlos Femenías at congresoensayo2017@upf.edu

DEADLINE: 25 February 2017 for 350-word abstracts and proposals

Scientific committee: Javier Aparicio Maydeu (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Carles Besa (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Eduardo Creus Visiers (Università degli Studi di Torino), Eduardo Hernández Cano (Université Paris IV - Paris Sorbonne), Juan Herrero Senés (University of Colorado at Boulder), Jordi Ibáñez Fanés (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Laurie-Anne Laget (Université Paris IV - Paris Sorbonne), Fernando Pérez-Borbujo (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Diana Roig Sanz (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya).

Programm

Contact (announcement)

Domingo Ródenas de Moya
Jordi Gracia Garcia

E-Mail: congresoensayo2017@upf.edu

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/01/13/eccentric-modernities-the-essay-and-intellectual-networks-in-the-hispanic-area
Editors Information
Published on
18.02.2017
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Language(s) of event
Catalan, English, Spanish
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