Índex de les obres ressenyades: Liz CASTRO, What's up with Catalonia?: the causes which impel them to the separation. [Barcelona]: Catalonia Press, 2013; Xavier SERRA, Escrits de Xavier Serra, A peu de foto = Writings by Xavier Serra. At the foot of the picture. Catarroja: Ed. Afers, 2013

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Poblet, Marta

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83iz Castro, What’s up with Catalonia?: Thecauses which impel them to the separationCatalonia Press, 2013. 228p.scrits de Xavier Serra, A peu de foto.Writings by Xavier Serra. At the foot of thepicture. Photographies by Francesc VeraEd. Afers, Catarroja, 2013. 140p.Marta PobletIDT-UABmarta.poblet@uab.catPompeu CasanovasIDT-UABpompeu.casanovas@uab.catLWe are reviewing two books that seemingly have nothing to do with each other,and are not strictly philosophy. Or maybe they are.We keep denying. The first book edited by Liz Castro is not a researchpaper. However, both its subject —historical conditions of  the present— andthe way this has been dealt with —crowdsourcing in social networks— has gainedattention and had an immediate impact. The second book, by Xavier Serra andFrancisco Vera, cannot be considered either as research from an academic pointof  view. The collaborative work between the writer and the photographer waspublished first in a blog whose content was eventually gathered into a book. Itsimpact has been also significant, and the readers have been spreading it into theweb. We should wonder in both cases, why.On January 15, 2013, American tech writer Liz Castro, who also definesherself  as a “gourd crafter, would-be farmer, and Catalanista” posted on Twitteran open call to disseminate via crowdfunding a collection of  articles she wasediting in English on the situation of  Catalonia after the massive rally for Catalanindependence of  September 11, 2012.EJOURNAL OF CATALAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY,Issue 5, 2013   |   Print ISSN 2014-1572 / Online ISSN 2014-1564P. 83-86Reception date: 5/07/2011 / Admission date: 12/12/2011http://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/JOCIHreviews84Crowdfunding can be broadly defined as a method to raise small amountsof  money from a large group of  people to support projects and initiatives byother people or organizations. Even if  crowdfunding precedes the Internet, boththe Web 2.0 and mobile technologies have fueled the emergence of  onlineplatforms that enable collective fundraising. Liz posted her project in Verkami,the pioneer crowdsourcing platform based in Mataró, and she got and amazingresponse: in less than two months, the initiative largely surpassed the goal of€7,500 and collected €12,372 from nearly 600 sponsors. Each sponsor received acopy of  the book, plus an additional copy or two to be sent to the person thesponsor had previously selected.What’s up with Catalonia? leverages Web 2.0 in its full. As Liz Castro writesin her editor’s note “it occurred to me that with the contribution of Catalanexperts, the help of new technologies, the power of  social networks, and somegood translating, I might be able to edit a comprehensive collection of  articles sothat people outside of  Catalonia could get a much clearer idea of  just what’sgoing on there”. Indeed, a large crowd of  Twitter users (including most of  thebook contributors) have played a major role both in spreading the word andpublicizing the final outcome. In a similar vein, Josep Maria Ganyet recalls in“Keep calm and speak Catalan” how a spontaneous tweet he posted on his wayto work grew into a full-fledged campaign: “Soon after I published the tweet,still on the train, I realized that the message “Keep Calm and Speak Catalan” hadtaken off. It was soon to follow the general path of  all those messages that goviral: Twitter and social media, blogs, digital newspapers, radio, television, printededitions of newspapers, and then round again. The poster “Keep Calm and SpeakCatalan” appears on websites in Japan and France, in protest movements in theUnited States, on websites in favor of Catalan culture and independence inJournal of Catalan Intellectual History.  Issue 5. 2013. P. 83-86MARTA POBLET, ANDREU CASANOVAS85Catalonia, as the avatars of thousands of  Facebook and Twitter users, and at itspeak had reached almost one million Google results”.The book, which includes a prologue by Catalan President Artur Mas,contains 35 essays and notes written in a concise, agile, and reader-friendly styleby renowned academics, political representatives, community leaders, writers andjournalists who present Catalonia’s history, economics, politics, language, andculture to the rest of  the world. While the essays are explicitly targeting aninternational audience, they also aim at raising awareness on the “causes whichimpel them [Catalans] to the separation”, to use the quote of  the US Declarationof  Independence that provides the subtitle of  the book. In this regard, the bookprovides historical context for remote causes while exploring the most recentevents that have triggered the growth of  the independence movement (i.e. therulings of  the Spanish Constitutional Court against the Catalan Statute, the fiscalasphyxia, or the unrest provoked by the policy of  the Spanish Ministry ofEducation towards Catalan language). Generally, nearly all contributions of  thebook distill a point of  no return with regard to Catalan-Spanish relations. AsGermà Bel puts it: “in the end we have to choose between changing states orchanging countries. From what we’re seeing, it seems like there are many moreof  us who would prefer to change states rather than bury our own country.”Overall, the shared feeling is that the stakes remain very high in Cataloniaat the moment, and adjectives defining our present time as crucial, momentous,or exhilarating are widespread. Nevertheless, the book also casts times of hope.As Muriel Casals writes: “The future is in our hands. We defend Catalonia as anew state in Europe out of Catalan patriotism and out of European patriotism.We hope to be able to add our Catalan cultural and linguistic contributions toFrancesc Vera: Vàter públic, Torí. 2010Revista d’Història de la Filosofia Catalana.  Número 5. 2013. P. 83-86Liz Castro (ed.), What’s up with Catalonia? The causes which impel them to the separationEscrits de Xavier Serra, A peu de foto. Writings by Xavier Serra. At the foot of the picture. Photographies by Francesc Vera86increase the richness and diversity of  the continent that we share with ourEuropean compatriots.”We come back now to Xavier Serra and Francesc Vera. For several monthsin 2010 and 2011 the authors published thirty-six photographs and commentson a blog online. There are still traces of  this collaboration which can be foundon the web (http://apeudefoto.wordpress.com).The outcome deserves attention. The photographs are not onlyminimalist, austere geometrically flawless: they reveal surprising details of  ourcontemporary life through their composition and the moment they capture. Thoseare present and of-the-present images which, however, have the virtue ofinstigating, drawing from the collective memory that lives in us. This is a startingpoint: buildings, landscapes, fragments of  cities —often European cities—, evokedby Francesc Vera’s trigger the viewer’s kaleidoscope of  memory. Actually, bypressing the shutter of  his camera, Francisco Vera also hit the brain that producesthe image. And the miracle occurs, because without acknowledging very wellhow it may happen, a personal discourse, yet timeless, width, made of  memoriesand full of  meaning, infiltrates as a stowaway into our consciousness. We reflectupon it when we find the intruder.There is neither inside nor outside in universality. There is no localism.Maybe this is what happened to Xavier Serra also when writing his shortcomments. Writings convey a rare, very rare sense of  freedom. The writer’s storiesare not quite the photographer’s: it is not necessary at all. The stories evoked bythe writer come from his Valencia family memories, from travels to Italy, andalways from the background of  philosophy in which he lives and where he works.For us there is no doubt. The reader is willing to watch the pictures again, and iswilling to re-read the texts. This contemporary Book of  Hours is a method book.We should study well its apparent ease, because basically it is a great little bookof  intellectual history. The intellectual history of all of  us, what today we meantby cosmopolitan.The web has the ability to capture what is of  paramount interest to adisaggregated community of  users which turns in the end into different types ofcollectivities. Personal memory is transmuted into a shared memory. Both LizCastro’s volume on Catalonia and Vera and Sierra’s volume on the timelessnessof  the present time have this feature in common. Very different in style andcomposition, the web has made them all and for all.English version by Marta PobletJournal of Catalan Intellectual History.  Issue 5. 2013. P. 83-86MARTA POBLET, ANDREU CASANOVAS

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