Walter Benjamin Internacional Conference 2017
- Title:
- Walter Benjamin Internacional Conference 2017
- When:
- Thu, 28. September 2017 - Sun, 8. October 2017
- Category:
- Altres Activitats Històric EN
Description
Walter Benjamin Internacional Conference 2017
Intellectuals and commitments in contemporary times.
One hundred years after the October Revolution.
Girona -Portbou, September 28, 29, 30 and October 8th 2017
2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the so-called October Revolution, a process that had a decisive impact throughout the 20th century.
The revolution and particularly the stance towards that new reality occupied the core of the debate on ideas and political commitment. Praise for, criticism of and reactions to that event and its consequences and influences shaped a real ideological battlefield that stressed the public role of the man of letters, the philosopher, the artist and the scientist. Communism, Nazism, fascism, antifascism, anti-colonialism, and fights for democracy, freedom and peace became, at least until the 1960s, the pillars of major struggles, both in armed conflicts and the intellectual field. The emergence of new intellectual and political discourses in the late 1960s, the discrediting of real socialism and the triumph of a liberalism that embodied the supposed end of history dominated the role of the classical engaged intellectual. Nevertheless, the latent and clear mbalances and chaos produced everywhere by the expansion of the neoliberal model opened other ways of thinking and new political attitudes appeared. This, among others, led to the emergence of feminism(s) and different gender and post-colonial perspectives and anti-globalisation proposals, engagement in conflict resolution and actions aimed at the reestablishment of peace, democratic memory and respect for
human rights.
This conference will examine some of these issues to highlight the transformations of the figure of the intellectual in the light, firstly, of the impact of the Soviet Revolution throughout most of the 20th century and, secondly, the inherent complexity of the globalised world.
Program:
Thursday, 28 September
Faculty of Humanities, Universitat de Girona
Sala de Graus
6 pm Institutional opening
6.30 pm Opening lecture Historical meaning, a guide to inhabiting the present
Speaker: Amelia Valcárcel (professor of Moral and Political Philosophy, Universidad de Oviedo)
Friday, 29 September
Faculty of Humanities, Universitat de Girona
Sala de Graus
Morning session
Historical field: international scenario
9.30 am Intellectuals and Revolution: For a critical historization
Speaker: Enzo Traverso (professor of Contemporary History, Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York)
10.30 am Coffee break
11 am From the conservative revolution to postmodernism, Heidegger and Arendt
Speaker: Emmanuel Faye (professor of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy,
Université de Rouen)
12 noon Half a century of volte-face: the "engagement" from Sartre to Zemmour, via anti totalitarianism and the new philosophers
Speaker: François Cusset (professor of American Studies, Université de Paris Ouest – Nanterre)
1 pm Book presentation; Mari Paz Balibrea (ed.) Líneas de fuga. Hacia otra historiografía del exilio cultural republicano español
With the presence of the editor
1.45 pm End of morning session
Afternoon session
Historical field: Catalan and Spanish scenarios
4 pm Blue harvest. The ideologists of the national revolution (1931-1936)
Speaker: Ferran Gallego (lecturer in Contemporary History, Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona)
5 pm Intellectual commitments in the Cold War
Speaker: Olga Glondys (postdoctoral researcher, Department of Spanish
Philology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
6 pm Coffee break
6.15 pm Space and city in Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's political thought
Speaker: Mari Paz Balibrea (senior lecturer in Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London)
7.30 pm Presentation of the award 3rd Walter Benjamin Memorial International
Prize. "Recognition of an unpublished essay"
Saturday, 30 September
Social centre Ca l’Herrero
Carrer Méndez Núñez, 2. Portbou
Morning session
Ruptures, challenges and
the globalisation scenario
10 am The radical emergence of the women's voice in the public space
Speaker: Elena Hernández Sandoica (professor of Contemporary History, Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
11 am Coffee break
11.30 am European intellectuals and the movements against wars and for peace: a view of the currents and authors of the last 100 years
Speaker: Rafael Grasa (professor of International Relations, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
12.30 am Closing lecture: Sheep in wolf’s clothing: organic intellectuals and commitment in the era of disaster capitalism
Speaker: César Rendueles (professor at the Department of Sociological Theory,
Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Afternoon session
Open dialogue: cinema, memory and commitment
5 pm Visit to the Passages Memorial and Portbou Cemetery led by Pilar
Parcerisas (Associació Passatges de Cultura Contemporània)
6 pm Live broadcast open to the public of the Radio 3 programme "El séptimo
vicio", with Javier Tolentino and the group “La Guerrilla comunicacional”
Centre cívic Ca l’Herrero
Carrer Méndez Núñez, 2 Portbou
Sunday, 8 October
Route on foot Banyuls-sur-Mer to Portbou as a tribute to Walter Benjamin, with the artistic intervention “Emboscada”, by the group Nicomedes Mendes.
A project framed within the cycle "El Viatge de les Arts" by the Centre de Creació Contemporània Nau Côclea in Camallera.
Departure from Portbou. Please register at Portbou Tourism Office before 30 September 2017. T. (0034) 972 125 161 Bus fare: 5 €
Conference registration: until 24 September 2017 at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / +34 972 556533
Free attendance
The conference languages will be that of the speakers and simultaneous French to Catalan and Catalan and Spanish to French translation will be provided.
There will be a bus available to participants and attendees to travel from Girona to Portbou on 30 September, leaving at 8.30 am.
Limited seats.
Organise: Museu Memorial de l’Exili and Càtedra Walter Benjamin, Memòria i Exili (Universitat de Girona).