On 14, 15, and 16 April 2008, the RIALE research group at the Universitat de València organises the International Congress «Guerra y viajes: una constante histórico-literaria» (‘War and trips: a historical-literary constant’), a scientific meeting that gathers specialists from different Spanish and German universities to reflect on the relation between wars and travel literature throughout history.
The congress held at Museu Valencià de la Il·lustració i de la Modernitat (MuVIM), is part of the commemorative acts of the bicentennial of the beginning of the Peninsular War and it is intended to analyse the structural and thematic relation between war and travel within German literature and culture, both in fictional works and documentary texts.
The different sessions also tackle stories of German-speaking travellers, who visited Spain during war periods, as well as the experiences of Spanish travellers in German-speaking territories. Through these testimonies, the congress explores the construction of cultural imaginaries and their inclusion in the broadest context of European cultural history.
The programme features renowned specialists from the Complutense University of Madrid, the Universitat de Barcelona, the Universitat d’Alacant, the Universität Leipzig, the Universität Bamberg, and the Universität Marburg, among other institutions. The lectures analyse Napoleonic Wars, the Spanish Civil War, or European colonialism, from the perspective of literature, memory, and cultural representation.
The academic leadership is undertaken by Berta Raposo, whereas the organising committee is comprised by Ingrid García-Wistädt, Isabel Gutiérrez Koester, Ferran Robles, Eckhard Weber, and José Antonio Calañas. The congress is organised by the MuVIM and the Department of English and German Philology at the Universitat de València, in cooperation with different academic and cultural institutions.
With this initiative, RIALE establishes its line of research on travel literature and intercultural relations, promoting an interdisciplinary reflection on the way historical conflicts have conditioned travel experiences, the representations of the otherness, and the construction of the European cultural memory.
