'I don't come from the past, I come from now': AIDS and temporality in three Catalan texts

This article analyses literary representations of HIV/AIDS in Catalan against the background of current debates in Queer Theory about sexuality and temporality, taking into account the invisibility of the disease within Catalan culture, which is symptomatic of a representational crisis. Through a psychoanalytic reading of Maria Antònia Oliver's Tallats de lluna (2000), Xavier Fernández i Gené's Del roig al vermell (1999) and Pepe Sales's Sense re, sense remei (2009), the essay raises three questions related to AIDS, sexuality, subjectivity, and temporality. Firstly, what do the temporal relations and structures in the representations of AIDS available in Catalan tell us about subjectivity with regards to finitude, contingency, and mortality? What does it mean to read literary representations of AIDS in 2012, when this very act seems an anachronism? Finally, what do these representations tell us about the nature of witnessing and its ethical implications, especially when witnessing involves speaking on somebody else's behalf? The essay argues that these texts and their marginal position within contemporary Catalan literature raise questions about the effects of the ideologies of canonicity on the representation of illness and, more specifically, the representation of HIV/AIDS. It is precisely the marginal status of these texts, the critical oblivion to which they have been subjected, that makes them appear almost as archaeological objects outside their time, as anachronistic as the gesture of discussing AIDS today. I argue, however, that such a critical gesture and its corresponding focus on temporality, mortality, and remembrance, are crucial for understanding the present condition of Catalan culture

The EU Council Presidency Dilemma: an Historical Institutionalist Interpretation

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of taking into account the variable of EU institutional development when analysing the consequences of EU membership. Using an historical institutionalist perspective, the article examines the path of the Council Presidency since its origins and argues that five decades of institutional feedback have unexpectedly altered its nature. Originally conceived as an intergovernmental function, today the Presidency has become hybrid and increasingly identified with the Community interests. This process of institutional conversion has essentially limited the scope of action of the member states.European works councils; Europeanization; Europeanization; path dependence; institutionalism

Les teories de Huntington i les seves possibles conseqüències a Catalunya

En una primera part, l’autor revisa i reformula alguns dels trets més característics de la tesi del xoc de civilitzacions de Huntington. Fernàndez apuntala la seva anàlisi amb interessants contribucions d’autors com Robert Kaplan, Bernard Lewis, James Payne o Martin van Creveld. En la segona part, l’article presenta breument, a la llum d’algunes de les conclusions de Huntington i des d’una visió catalana revestida d’una certa realpolitik, alguns dels grans reptes i desafiaments als que haurà de fer front el nostre país els propers anys

La didàctica del patrimoni: nous camins per nous temps

L'article tracta d'una de les branques emergents en Didàctica de les Ciències Socials: la Didàctica del Patrimoni. A partir de camps d"acció tradicionals, com el vinculat a l"ensenyament, s"obre a nous camps, com la museografia i la mediació en béns patrimonials, del qual es considera estructurant. L"article acaba amb la proposta d"una nova titulació vinculada a les necessitats socials i culturals de la nostra societat i permet que la didàctica de les ciències socials ja no sigui exclusiva del marc de l"ensenyament reglat