18 Oct The Resurgence of Feminism in Catalonia: 1970-1975
Mary Nash, (History, Universitat de Barcelona)
Tuesday October 18, 2016/1:00 PM
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
Catalonia has a lengthy history of resistance to the nation’s central government, especially in the news recently for its push to succeed from Spain. Professor Nash will discuss Catalonia’s role in moving forward feminist positions and addressing women’s issues despite the fact that Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975) continued its repressive measures, especially its traditionalist approach to women’s social roles, right up until his death in November of 1975. She demonstrates that in actuality, there were signs of feminist stirrings in the early 1970s. As the last hold-out of the Republic in 1939, when Franco’s troops won the Civil War (1936-1939), Catalonia was singled out for especially harsh repression. This talk focuses on the organizations and their political alliances in the late Franco period in Catalonia that laid the groundwork for the full-blown Catalan feminism that erupted when the dictator finally died.
Mary Nash is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Barcelona. She is one of the pioneering figures in women’s historiography, not only in Spain, but internationally. She is the founder of the Spanish Association of Research into Women’s History and founding director of the Research Group in Multiculturalism and Gender at the University of Barcelona.
Sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the Latin American and Iberian Studies Program, and the Hull Professorship at the Department of Feminist Studies.