A Companion to Catalan Culture
Contributions by Alexander Ibarz, Antoni Segura, Dominic Keown, Professor Dorothy Noyes, Elisenda Barbe, Jaume Marti-Olivella, Louise Johnson, Miquel Strubell, Montserrat Roser i Puig, Robert Davidson, Tess Knighton Edited by Dominic Keown
Publication date:
21 April 2011Length of book:
282 pagesPublisher
Tamesis BooksDimensions:
234x156mmISBN-13: 9781800105249
Why Catalans insist on their identity.
The tragic fate of the millenary personality of Catalonia has rarely been fully appreciated abroad. Since the early eighteenth century its national voice has been submerged and fractured by a centralist state intent on its arbitrary, unitarian vision of a homogenized Spain. Catalan difference has emerged sporadically in the persons of such irrepressible geniuses as Gaudí, Dalí, Miró and Bigas Luna but, in the configuration of modern Europe, the relentlessinevitability of the unified state has imposed and re-imposed its singular cultural voice.
The present volume attempts to equip the English-speaking reader with a fuller understanding of the uniqueness and quality of the culture of Catalonia by providing a comprehensive portfolio of the creative contribution of the nation across a broad spectrum of achievement. Though the artistic wealth of the medieval period is acknowledged appropriately, this study, with its focus on the modern age, privileges excellence not only in the more conventional, academic spheres of history, music, language, literature and the arts but also explores the value of more basic, popular experience inareas such as sport, cinema, festivals, cuisine and the city of Barcelona.
DOMINIC KEOWN is Reader in Catalan at the University of Cambridge.
CONTRIBUTORS: Elisenda Barbé, Robert Davidson, Alexander Ibarz, Louise Johnson, Dominic Keown, Tess Knighton, Jaume Martí-Olivella, Dorothy Noyes, Montserrat Roser i Puig, Antoni Segura, Miquel Strubell.
The tragic fate of the millenary personality of Catalonia has rarely been fully appreciated abroad. Since the early eighteenth century its national voice has been submerged and fractured by a centralist state intent on its arbitrary, unitarian vision of a homogenized Spain. Catalan difference has emerged sporadically in the persons of such irrepressible geniuses as Gaudí, Dalí, Miró and Bigas Luna but, in the configuration of modern Europe, the relentlessinevitability of the unified state has imposed and re-imposed its singular cultural voice.
The present volume attempts to equip the English-speaking reader with a fuller understanding of the uniqueness and quality of the culture of Catalonia by providing a comprehensive portfolio of the creative contribution of the nation across a broad spectrum of achievement. Though the artistic wealth of the medieval period is acknowledged appropriately, this study, with its focus on the modern age, privileges excellence not only in the more conventional, academic spheres of history, music, language, literature and the arts but also explores the value of more basic, popular experience inareas such as sport, cinema, festivals, cuisine and the city of Barcelona.
DOMINIC KEOWN is Reader in Catalan at the University of Cambridge.
CONTRIBUTORS: Elisenda Barbé, Robert Davidson, Alexander Ibarz, Louise Johnson, Dominic Keown, Tess Knighton, Jaume Martí-Olivella, Dorothy Noyes, Montserrat Roser i Puig, Antoni Segura, Miquel Strubell.
A lively and informative volume that covers a wide range of aspects of Catalan culture ... Currently the only book on the market that provides this sort of introductory overview of contemporary Catalan culture, it should become a key text for undergraduate courses especially ... a solid and dependable companion.