New Article!

Modernity, the Search for Meaning, and the Spanish Streetcar Experience in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Madrid: Clarín, Galdós and Pardo Bazán

Using three Spanish short stories set in Madrid, Benito Pérez Galdós’s “La novela en el tranvía” (1871), Clarín’s “Doña Berta” (1892), and Emilia Pardo Bazán’s “En tranvía” (1901), this article speaks to the alienating experience of everyday life in the city. Attention is paid to the movement of streetcars in Madrid and how this movement reflects a defining characteristic of modernity, the search for meaning after the industrial revolution. Mixing urban geography and literary analysis, this article complicates the notion of the city as totalizing ideal of progress and instead stresses the messiness of modern urban experience.

Keywords: in-betweenness; modernity; streetcar; urban alienation; Madrid

If you are interested in reading the article, click here.

Anarchist Socialism in Early 20th-Century Spain

 

Anarchist Socialism in Early 20th-Century Spain: A Ricardo Mella Anthology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Anarchist Socialism in Early 20^th Century Spain is the first English translation of and critical introduction to Ideario, a collection of newspaper and journal articles written by Spanish anarchist Ricardo Mella. Given that Mella is virtually unknown to the English-speaking world, this book provides readers access to his extensive body of work about Spain, human nature, and a world increasingly dominated by capitalism. Suitable for both the general public interested in learning more about anarchist ideas and for scholars studying twentieth-century Spain, the three introductory essays help to introduce Mella, ground his work in the context of Spanish anarchism, and draw connections between Mella and the urban in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spain.

 

 

The Right to Housing in COVID-19 Lockdown Times

Webinar

 ‘Stay Home Without a Home’.

The Right to Housing in COVID-19 Lockdown Times

 

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2020

 Time: 11 a.m (EDT, New York City); 12 a.m. (UTC-3, Rio de Janeiro); 4 p.m (WEST, Lisbon); 5 p.m (CEST, Barcelona and Turin); 6 p.m. (EEST, Beirut)

 Duration: 1h15

 Event in partnership with the project HOPES: HOusing PErspectives and Struggle (FCT, PTDC/GES-URB/28826/2017), and the CIES-ISCTE-IUL Monthly Seminar on Social Movements and Political Action

 Zoom:

https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/meeting/register/vJcvcOipqzMiDdltmn3EEp5KC2kuCEorNg

Contacts: guya.accornero@iscte-iul.pt or simone.tulumello@ics.ulisboa.pt

 Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown measures of many sorts have been adopted by authorities throughout the world. Framed in different legal regulations according to the country, and with varying extent, these measures have instructed citizens to ‘stay home’ in order to protect public health. While the importance of such restrictions is undeniable, they have simultaneously exacerbated our societies’ inequalities and made them even more evident . With the sudden suspension of the flux of social and economic activities – which ordinarily distracts us from these unequal conditions – the reality has brutally appeared. Housing is one of the sectors in which inequalities have been most evident. How can people stay home when they do not have a home? How can people pay their rent – and thereby secure their homes – when many have suddenly lost their incomes, because they have been fired or because they are not earning when they are not working?

Tourists have abandoned cities, leaving luxury hotels empty, while families are being evicted from the houses they are ‘illegally’ occupying because they do not have any alternative. While more disadvantaged people are, not surprisingly, the most affected by the situation in terms of health and security, social movements and their struggles to defend basic rights are also being dramatically affected. By definition, social movements need to move, to appear in the streets, to meet and gather people in collective events. Social movements are collective entities. So how can they act in a context of lockdown and social distancing or even isolation? Against this background, the case of housing movements in many cities has shown the capacity of activists to reinvent the repertoire and content of their contention and effectively adapt it to the current conditions. Many innovations have been introduced – such as protests from balconies and rental payment strikes – while digital tools have been shown to be essential to supply the impossibility of face-to-face activism. The public recommendation – or even order – to ‘stay home’ has been framed through the contentious claim: ‘how can you stay home without a home?’. Due to its sheer simplicity, this claim has had a strong public impact and pushed some governments to adopt measures to address the situation of people who, lacking shelter, cannot stay home, or others who are no longer able to pay their rent.

In this webinar, we will deal with these situations, drawing on recent urban experiences of housing activism in the context of Covid-19 in different cities around the world (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Lebanon, Brazil and United States). We are aware that events are still new and ongoing, so it is difficult to draw out any tendency or generalizations. For this reason, our aim will be more to report and witness what is happening around the ‘right to housing’ at this crucial time ‘in the heat of the moment’, and to try to understand what room there is for maneuver – in terms of constraints and opportunities – in this specific situation, with an eye on the future.

 Moderator:

 Simone Tulumello (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon)

 Speakers:

 Guya Accornero (Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, Lisbon University Institute)

Felipe G. Santos (Department of Politics – University of Manchester)

Giovanni Semi (Department of Cultures, Politics and Society – University of Turin)

Mona Harb (Department of Architecture and Design – American University of Beirut)

Alex Magalhães (Institute of Urban and Regional Planning and Research – Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

Sam Stein (Graduate Center – City University of New York)

 

Coview: Transnational Networking Call

Dear people affected by the crisis,
dear people in solidarity,
hello to all, who are concerned about the political and social trends
and developments in face of the Covid-19 pandemia,

Not long ago, Coview: social and political covid-19 Watchgroup was
founded, an initiative to respond to the political and social impact of
COVID-19 and the accompanying measures – digitally and on-site. By now
over 200 people are connected in Coview via a decentralized,
non-hierarchical horizontal organizational structure. For more Infos
about basic principles check out
https://coview.info/statement-grundsaetzlich/
Our work claims to be intersectional and transnational. We document,
analyze, connect, thematize and challenge the status quo.

We know that many things are happening simultaneously in many countries:
repression, authoritarian leadership (for example in the right to
protest and assemble in public space), worsening situations for those
who were already marginalized. But we also see initiatives like Coview
popping up, mutual aid in solidarity, people not willing to be silenced
in their political standpoint.

This is why we send this transnational call to connect, cooperate and
start working on a collective, the transnational answer to the worsening
situation.

We see a need for a transnational response and a need for a
transnational work of all Covid-19 watchgroups and similar structures.
If you are already working on a comparable project, we would like to
start working together. If there is no watchgroup / similar structure in
your country, please feel empowered to join Coview and/or start a
watchgroup in your country/region/town/community!

Our principle is that individuals can become part of the network as
individuals. There is also the possibility of structured networking with
initiatives and organizations. (via the network working group) – for
this purpose write us an e-mail (coview@riseup.net).
We are open to cooperation, common work, networking and joined actions.
Reference groups, informal groups or groups that organize themselves
anti-hierarchically as well as communal groups and flat-sharing
communities, are welcome to join and be part of Coview. Also while still
upholding their existing structure and style of organization. We are
open to sharing our technical resources, platforms, and tools.

Please contact us so we can together strengthen the progressive movement
in the crises we are facing.
Write us an email to coview@riseup.net.
You can find the PGP Key under:
https://pgp.circl.lu/pks/lookup?search=0xC3BD88AE5724B164&fingerprint=on&op=index

For more information check out our website: https://coview.info/

By the way: as a lot of groups and initiatives are changing their
resources now towards online events. Therefore the question of location
is less relevant. Because of this, we support
https://quarantimes.global/ a transnational calendar project. Join in
with your online events.

A World of Empty Streets – Coronavirus

 

Coronavirus and Housing Issues in NY

This is a picture of C Squat yesterday. The first floor is the Museum of Reclaimed Space.

Hungry in Quarantine in Madrid

the call of chthulus

helen(a)torres

For those of you who read English, here is one of the wonderful publications of Christian Alonso, curator and researcher, about how the world changes interact with art practice and the thinking of art. The book articles were developed from papers presented at the two international symposiums Mutating Ecologies in Contemporary Art that took place in Barcelona organized by the research group AGI (Art, Globalization, Interculturality, (University of Barcelona) and hosted in the MACBA’s Auditorium on December 1, 2016 and February 21, 2018. I was honored to be invited and to publish the article “The call of Chthulus. Art of affections and everyday politics after the Chthulucene Manifesto from Santa Cruz”. + info clicking on the image

Mutating Ecologies in Contemporary Art

Christian Alonso (ed.)

What role might art exert in light of the challenges posed by climate change, resource depletion, and the diverse political and cultural…

View original post 258 more words

M.A. in Spanish and Hispanic Studies – Northern Illinois University

More information about the M.A. in Spanish and Hispanic Studies at NIU can be found here.

To apply, you will need to do the following:

1) fill out the online form

2) write a statement of purpose

3) send transcripts

4) ask two former professors to send letters of recommendation

5) take the GRE

6) send a 12-16 page writing sample in Spanish (an analysis of a novel, short story, poem, etc.)

The application deadline for Fall 2020 is April 1. If you are interested in being a Graduate Teaching Assistant, the deadline is March 1.

If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Stephen Vilaseca, Director of Graduate Studies, at svilaseca@niu.edu.

 

 

 

 

CFP Encounters: the coincidence of space, time, and subjectivity

An interdisciplinary conference
16th-18th September 2019
St John’s College, Cambridge

Paper proposals are invited for an interdisciplinary conference on ‘Encounters: the coincidence of space, time, and subjectivity’. This conference will bring into dialogue a range of disciplines to explore ways in which space and time interact, how they are socially formed or experienced, how they are culturally represented, and what this may say about subjectivity and perceptions of identity.

The conference offers an exciting opportunity for encounters between geographers, historians, philosophers, anthropologists, and literary and cultural critics, among others, to discuss questions relating to mobility, migration, globalisation, identity perception and performance, and the transmission of experience in culture and memory, both collectively and individually.

All human experience is situated in time and space but considering what this actually means for each of us subjectively is a far harder task and one that has occupied thinkers for millennia. It is possible to talk of clock time and of physical spaces, both of which give us a sense of measurability. But how does it actually feel to locate ourselves in a spatial and temporal world? How do spaces change over time (or indeed sense of time over space)? How can one space or one time have such different meanings for different people? What does this say about identity and subjectivity? How are subjective meanings constructed in word and image? How are time and space conceptualised from different disciplinary perspectives? And in what ways may differing theoretical approaches be fruitfully brought into dialogue?

Possible topics might include but are not limited to discussions of the following from any disciplinary perspective:

–       Transport and mobility
–       Social media
–       Border crossings
–       Migration
–       Encounters between word and image
–       Departures and arrivals
–       Public and private spaces
–       Past and present
–       Good times, bad times
–       History and memory
–       Gender identity

Confirmed keynote speakers include:
Prof Mark Currie (Contemporary Literature, Queen Mary University of London)
Prof Anne Fuchs (German Literature and Culture, University College Dublin)
Prof Stephen Kern (Humanities Distinguished Professor, Ohio State)
Prof Gillian Rose (Geography, Oxford)

Please send abstracts of 150-200 words and biographies of up to 100 words to Erica Wickerson by 30th April: ehf20@cam.ac.uk