Catalan Culture
Experimentation, Creative Imagination and the Relationship with Spain
Editor(s) Lloyd Hughes Davies,David Walters,John B. Hall
Language: English
Genre(s): Modern Languages
Series: Iberian and Latin American Studies
- March 2018 · 240 pages ·216x138mm
- · Hardback - 9781786832016
- · eBook - pdf - 9781786832023
- · eBook - epub - 9781786832030
About The Book
This volume presents studies of some of the key artistic manifestations in Catalonia in recent times, a period of innovation and experimentation, and addresses issues concerning literature, film, theatre and performance art. From the creation of a new popular theatre in the work of the Valencian playwright Rodolf Sirera, or the conception of landscape, myth and memory in the late work of the novelist Mercè Rodoreda and the urgency of memory and remembrance in the writings of Jordi Coca, the effects of censorship in Catalonia appear to have proved a spur and a challenge to writers. Desiring to occupy illegal spaces, performance groups have manifested both literally and metaphorically the international dimension of Catalan culture in the modern period, posed in the present volume by the instances of La Cubana and Els Joglars, and further evidenced in the cross-fertilization in the work of contemporary Catalan playwrights and filmmakers to foreground issues of national plurality and tensions arising between the periphery (Catalonia) and the centre (Spain and Castile).
Endorsements
‘At a time of deep transformations in the relationship between Catalonia and Spain, this book broadens the traditional limits of Catalan studies in topical and innovative ways. The volume offers a cohesive selection of essays on the performative, filmic and literary dimensions of Catalan culture, pertinently considering the shifting nature of Catalonia’s political and cultural borders. This is an extremely valuable collection showcasing the best scholarship in twentieth and twenty-first century Catalan studies: a brilliant tribute to the much-esteemed Professor David George.’
-Dr Guillem Colom-Montero, University of Exeter
‘The lively and engaging essays of the volume Catalan Culture are doubly welcome – they are timely, and acknowledgement of the inestimable contribution of David George to Catalan and Hispanic Studies internationally is long overdue. This is an excellent book.’
-Dr Louise Johnson, University of Sheffield
'This volume undoubtedly succeeds in highlighting the innovative and experimental character of Catalan culture; it is essential reading to anyone interested in understanding the ways in which Catalan production interacts with Spain, through a wide range of theoretical approaches which places it at the forefront of the most stimulating current
intellectual debates.'
- ELISENDA MARCER, University of Birmingham, Bulletin of Spanish Studies.
Contents
Index
Tabula Gratulatoria
Series Editors’ Foreword
Notes on contributors
Introduction D. Gareth Walters
A ‘Natural History’ of Return: Landscape, Myth and Memory in the Late Work of Mercè Rodoreda - Helena Buffery
‘La totalidad de la obra se representará en perfecto castellano’: Censorship of Theatre in Catalonia after the Civil War - Michael Thompson
Rodolf Sirera’s El verí del teatre (The Audition): Creating Performance, Reality and Politics On Stage - John London
‘Antes eterna o negra que rota’: ¡Ay, Carmela! and the Mythic Unity of Spain - Dominic Keown
‘… And the Great Bird of War Flew Past with Its Wings Outstretched’: The Aesthetic Recreation of Trauma in Jordi Coca’s Sota la pols (2001) - Jordi Cornellà-Detrell
Unmasking the Mask: Controversia del Toro y el Torero (Els Joglars, 2006) and the Craft of Theatremaking - Lourdes Orozco
On Influence, Tradition and Other Anxieties: Some Dilemmas of the Contemporary Catalan Stage - Sharon G. Feldman
La Cubana in the Twenty-first Century: The Popular and the Political - Maria M. Delgado