They called it democracy? The aesthetic politics of the Spanish transition to democracy and some collective hijackings of history after the 15M movement

This article studies the imaginaries of political change available during the Spanish transition to democracy (1973–1982) and their new political usages by the Spanish 15M Occupy movement in the context of the 2008–2014 economic crisis. I argue that protesters are now rediscovering the old symbols used against Franco’s dictatorship and adapting them to the new political circumstances, through graffiti, slogans, artistic performances and other ephemeral materials

¿En estado crítico? Sobre ciertas formas de escritura ensayística actual y sobre las mutaciones de la cultura peninsular contemporánea que las han hecho posibles (2016-2017)

RESUMEN El presente artículo enfoca el análisis de ocho ensayos españoles recientes, posteriores a la crisis de 2008, con el propósito de extraer de ese análisis las características de una práctica de la prosa de ideas. Entre esos rasgos destacan la relación del ensayo con las nuevas instituciones y redes de colaboración social y la tendencia a plantear los problemas en clave menos local y más global. Al mismo tiempo, el descrédito del estado-nación y la cultura derivada del mismo ha abierto un espacio de reflexión donde lo minoritario, lo rural o lo privado cobran especial relevancia. Con todo, son la precariedad, la cultura digital y el feminismo los factores que marcan buena parte del ensayo actual, directamente vinculado a las realidades sociales, económicas y políticas más acuciantes.   ABSTRACT This article takes into consideration eight Spanish essays written after the 2008 crisis in order to describe a way of practicing and performing the essay as a genre. Among this features the rol of new institutions and social collaboration nets stands out as well as a tendency of considering issues in a more global than rather local view. At the same time, the discredit of the nation-state and its cultural practices opened a space for reflection where minority, rural or private concerns gain increasing relevance. However, is in social, economic and politic besseting circumstances such as precariousness, digital culture and feminism that today’s essay focuses on.

They called it democracy? The aesthetic politics of the Spanish transition to democracy and some collective hijackings of history after the 15M movement

This article studies the imaginaries of political change available during the Spanish transition to democracy (1973–1982) and their new political usages by the Spanish 15M Occupy movement in the context of the 2008–2014 economic crisis. I argue that protesters are now rediscovering the old symbols used against Franco’s dictatorship and adapting them to the new political circumstances, through graffiti, slogans, artistic performances and other ephemeral materials

Cuando ataca Ronaldo ataca una manada. El discurso del fútbol en los media actuales como discurso épico (estructuras, formas y funciones comparadas)

Este artículo pretende analizar comparativamente el discurso mediático sobre el fútbol en la España contemporánea, específicamente en su dimensión radiofónica, en relación con la épica románica medieval. Un estudio comparado de los rasgos retóricos, estilísticos y narrativos de ambos discursos revelará la presencia común de numerosos rasgos y la posibilidad de entender un discurso en términos del otro. Ante la hipótesis de hallarnos ante actualizaciones bien diferenciadas de un mismo tipo de narrativas, la parte final del trabajo tratará de plantear la cuestión de una posible comparación entre las funciones de ambos discursos en los entornos culturales en los que surgieron.This paper analyzes the discourse of football in media (specifically in radio-channels), in contemporary Spain, in comparison with Medieval Romanic epic. A comparative study of rhetorics, stylistic and narrative marks of both discourses reveals the presence of several common characteristics and the possibility of understanding one discourse in terms of the other. The final part of this paper discusses the hypothesis of having two well-differenced actualizations of the same type of narratives, both with discursive functions generated by their cultural environmen

Figurative lights: Images of Techno-Scientific slides and Secularization in Spain during the 18th Century

This paper asembles and studies a set of iconological representations linked to technical and scientific transformations during the eighteenth Century in Spain, reading them in a dialectic between modern science, Enlightenment policies and popular culture. After analyzing the emergence of representations both of science and scientists according to the process of institutionalizing science as a socio-professional language, two specific eighteenth century technologies are studied: magic lanterns and aerostats. By interpreting their first images and their infiltration into popular and official speeches and the imagination of the moment, it is argued that in those images a tale of demo-Enlightenment is expressed, a tale about secularization and progress as a collective aesthetic experience

Poética da Nação em Agostinho da Silva. Comunidades de discurso globalizadas e hermenêutica da literatura nacional.

O presente texto pretende analisar a noção de comunidade que Agostinho da Silva elabora ao longo da sua obra, a partir da construção de uma "poética nacional". Perante um pensa­mento de tipo centrípeto, habitual em determinada crítica do filósofo, que tende a adjudi­car-lhe um lugar no seio de uma filosofia nacional do Portugal contemporâneo, o que aqui vamos propor é que o seu conceito de nação não pode ser entendido numa perspectiva hegeliana, da existência de estados criadores de indivíduos e sustentados por uma história com maiúsculas (Hegel, 1988: 42-3 ), da mesma maneira que os seus trabalhos sobre a lite­ratura ou a cultura portuguesa não se podem ler numa perspectiva que não seja a interna­cionalista, ou que o seu conceito de uma Ibéria transnacional não funciona num sentido peninsular. A nossa tese é a de uma progressiva perda de referencialidade geográfica nos conceitos históricos e identitários na obra de Agostinho em relação à sua tradição textual, que repercute numa maior abstracção significativa na sua linguagem e uma conseqüente extensão semântica dos seus termos. Neste processo, o trabalho de exegese e o diálogo intertextual com outros "poetas da nação" marcarão a deslocação da filosofia agostiniana. Por último, por trás da ampliação da base semântica da sua noção de identidade colectiva o que se abre é a possibilidade da sua universalização. Assim, a partir da sua exegese de Pessoa e de sua tradição interpretativa, Agostinho traça um projecto de imaginação de uma comunidade cidadã globalizada, multicultural e não eurocêntrica

El mito quinqui. Memoria y represión de las culturas juveniles en la transición postfranquista

This work starts from an initial image ?the quinqui room as a historical room? to propose the study of the quinquillero phenomenon in a complex dialectic between mythology, historicity and memory. I confront the current return of the quinqui in relation to the emergencies of the supposed historical quinquis in the archive of the seventies. That this is a problematic confrontation. My work is organized in two stages. First, it is about deconstructing ?the quinqui myth?, analyzing its characteristics and reasons both in its current construction, as a quinqui return, and in its historical emergence. And then it comes to thinking about what this myth prevents us from seeing, what political and historical reasons it serves, and what experiences and subjects it makes invisible

El franquismo contra la pared. Poética y ciudadanía en las pintadas de la transición española

This paper proposes a study from critical theory and cultural studies of a study of the graffiti made in the seventies on the walls of Spanish cities against the Franco dictatorship.Este artículo propone un estudio desde la teoría crítica y los estudios culturales de un estudio de las pintadas realizadas en los años setenta en los muros de las ciudades españolas contra la dictadura franquista

La extracción de la piedra de la memoria. Una estética subalterna bajo el franquismo: el caso del cantero José Meijón

Este artículo presenta el caso del cantero José Meijón, un artista psiquiatrizado que, durante cincuenta años, produjo una fascinante obra en piedra alrededor de la villa de Marín (Pontevedra, Galicia). Su arte invisible es hoy un vibrante testimonio de la represión franquista en su localidad y de las problemáticas de la memoria de la Guerra Civil. Planteamos una reconstrucción de su corpus y una serie de estrategias de lectura de sus obras en relación con las transformaciones modernizadoras que experimentó su medio entre 1931 y 1980. Para ello, desplegaré la biografía y la leyenda oral del personaje, en relación con su obra, sobre el espacio social y cultural al que pertenecía, para desde allí plantear una estrategia de lectura orgánica que integre al tiempo biografía, historia, estética y espacio. A partir de ahí, ofrezco una breve historia política de las transformaciones en el territorio de Marín desde la Guerra Civil como marco general de comprensión del arte de Meijón. En la tercera sección, trataremos de poner su obra en diálogo con las tradiciones rupestres que cita y cuyos códigos actualiza en clave de vanguardia, como espacio de escritura memorial del rico universo político y religioso local (republicano, trabajador y protestante) destruido durante la Guerra Civil. Por último, me interesa plantear las tensiones que la obra de Meijón plantea con los llamados procesos de recuperación de la memoria histórica actuales.; This article offers a case study after the works by mason José Meijón, an artist subjected to psychiatric discipline that, during fifty years, developed a fascinating project over the stones around the town of Marin (Pontevedra, Galicia). His invisible art represents today a telling testimony of the repression under Francisco Franco's dictatorship and of the problems related to the Spanish Civil War's memories. I will defend a possible reconstruction of Meijon's artistic corpus and a number of reading strategies to offer a comprehension of his work in relation to authoritarian developmentalist politics between 1931 and 1980. In order to do so, I will display Meijon's biography and oral legend in relation to his works and to the social and cultural space from which they originate. My goal is to offer a comprehensive reading taking into account history, biography, aesthetics and the space as a whole. In section two, I will present a short political history of Marin's territory and its transformations since the Spanish Civil War, to provide a general frame for Meijon's art. Section three, interrogates his art in relation to the local prehistoric engravers that he explicitly quotes, updating their codes in terms of avant-garde aesthetics. By means of this gesture, Meijon is organizing a memorial writing for the rich religious (protestant) and political (working-class and Republican) local democratic universe, destroyed during the war. Finally, I am interested in focusing political tensions that Meijon’s works arise today face to our so-called processes for the recovering of historical memory