Tròpics de Shakespeare : orígens i originalitat del Hamlet català

Hamlet és una de les obres que més ha inspirat autors, actors, directors i dramaturgs catalans. De fet, es podria dir, com en altres cultures europees, que és l'obra que determina tota traducció i representació posterior de Shakespeare, i que marca els orígens de la seva influència en la tradició cultural europea. Aquest article presenta la història retòrica del Hamlet català mitjançant les traduccions, les adaptacions i altres formes de reescritura de l'obra, a més de la seva representació teatral des de mitjans del segle XIX. Explora el paper privilegiat de l'obra com a generador de discursos sobre Shakespeare a Catalunya, tot analitzant la manera en què es relaciona amb altres discursos culturals, sobre la llengua, el teatre i la política de la representació a Catalunya.Hamlet is one of the plays which has most captured the imagination of Catalan writers, actors, directors and playwrights. Indeed, as in many other European cultures, it might be argued that it is the play that determines all subsequent translation and reception of Shakespeare, siting the origins of his influence on European cultural tradition. This article presents a rhetorical history of Hamlet in Catalan, as traced through translations, adaptations and other rewritings of the play, as well as stagings and performances since the second half of the nineteenth century. It explores the play's status as one of the key generators of discourse about Shakespeare in Catalonia, and analyses the ways in which it interacts with other cultural discourses, on language, theatre and the politics of representation in Catalonia

Effigies of return in Spanish Republican exile theatre and performance cultures

This chapter deals with a particular stage of exile, that of return, ranging from the ways in which theatre was used to deal with its perceived impossibility, through theatrical responses to the experience of repatriation and the journey home, to recent reception and re-presentation of exile theatre on the Spanish stage. However, instead of just seeing theatre as a mode of representing exile and return, as in the case studies traced earlier by José Sainz and Francisca Montiel, there will be greater focus here on the way in which it presents, embodies and performs different stages of exile, constructing a space of encounter in which the limits of experience are inscribed and incorporated into the bodies of actors negotiating a theatre space that is somehow shared with an audience. Thus, though the material discussed will contribute to the study of how exile has been represented in literature, art and film, reflecting on the epistemological and ontological implications of these representations, it will also provide grounds on which to interrogate the assumptions underlying such an approach: namely, that literature, art and film (and within this theatre as 'literary' or 'dramatic' text) can only aim to represent, that their only status is as attempted 'places of memory' that might be considered to stand for a particular individual or group experience and, if recovered from the archive, stand in either metaphorically or synecdochically for national history or memory (Cándida Smith 2002: 11). The examples studied here could, on the whole, be approached from such a perspective, and have been to varying degrees by other critics. However, these cases can also be treated as documentary traces of the performance of exile and return, through focus on their status as orature and on their performativity, on the way in which they open a space for remembrance, providing windows onto environments of memory

Francesc Foguet i Boreu, «El teatro catalán en el exilio republicano de 1939», Biblioteca del Exilio (Anejos 28), Sevilla, Renacimiento, 2016, 203 pp.

Ressenya sobre el llibre de Francesc Foguet i Boreu, El teatro catalán en el exilio republicano de 1939, Biblioteca del Exilio (Anejos 28), Sevilla, Renacimiento, 2016, 203 pp., ISBN: 9788416685646

The RAT Trap? The politics of translating Iberia

The latter decades of the twentieth century saw the role of translation within Hispanic Studies come under scrutiny. In part, this resulted from the reframing of approaches to language learning across the modern languages, which led to increasing emphasis on the development of generic and transferable skills. However, parallel developments in Translation Studies also made their mark on the reconfiguration of the discipline, through the incorporation of insights into the role of translation in the development of culture, in particular the formation of national literatures, and through strategic engagement with the metaphorics of translation in order to address and account for different instances and patterns of cultural contact. Whilst both translation practice and translation research remain important within Hispanic Studies, they have been assigned very different values, drawing attention to the effective divisions between research and practice in the institution. Here I will attempt to re-engage the relationship between translation practice and translation research, by exploring the presence and effects of translation within the field. Focusing on the notion of Iberia, I will trace the different processes of translation that have contributed to its configuration, whilst drawing attention to the problematic transparency of the translation process as it is currently formulated within the discipline. This will be followed by the staging of a mode of reading-as- translation that might begin to attend to the politics of translating Iberia in the current context

Multiple exposures: moving bodies and choreographies of protest in contemporary Catalonia

This article explores the significance of the moving body in contemporary Catalan culture, specifically by reading cross-disciplinary reframing of the dancer’s body in relation to the increasing deployment and visibility of choreographies of protest (Foster 2003) in urban social movements, demonstrations and public assemblies such as those galvanized by the pro-Independence movement. After careful consideration of the relationship between dance and genealogies of protest in Catalonia, the article will outline the different ways in which contemporary dance has interacted with contemporary Catalan theatre culture, before going on to focus more closely on disentangling the different aesthetic, political, and ethical rationale and effects of the recent mobilization of the dancer’s body beyond the spaces of the contemporary dance circuit. Reflecting on how the dancer’s body functions in three recent (2014–2017) shows witnessed in Barcelona—Àlex Rigola’s adaptation of Joan Sales’s novel Incerta Glòria (Uncertain Glory) at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, Carme Portaceli’s staging of the testimonies of women victims of Francoist violence during and after the Spanish Civil War, as recovered and reframed by feminist historian Carme Domingo, in Només són dones/Solo son mujeres (They’re only Women) at the Josep Maria de Sagarra theatre in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, and Sol Picó’s collaborative, processual work with women dancers and musicians of diverse cultural origins in WW–We Women at the Mercat de les Flors—I aim to articulate how they function as choreographies of protest: plotting the different modes of subjectivation enacted and their relationship to narratives of individual, social and cultural vulnerability, precarity and trauma in the contemporary Catalan space