The 30 and 31 March and the 1 April 2017 the 21st Congress of the German Association of Hispanists was held in Munich, a cosmopolitan and hispanophile city par excellence, and headquarters of a very old university that was moved there at the beginning of the 19th century. It is regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in Germany and, according to various international rankings, it is the best university in mainland Europe. The latest conferences by German hispanists and, particularly, the 20th congress held in Heidelberg in March 2015, have highlighted that, due to the globalisation phenomena, Spanish has become one of the most important languages in international communication. Moreover, Hispanism has begun to spread to new geographical and cultural spaces. Naturally, Hispanism is still alive in the territories of the Iberian Peninsula, where Spanish has been present since the Middle Ages, and is equally active overseas, this is, in Latin America and part of Africa, where it was established in the dawning of the Renaissance.
Nevertheless, we have come to realise that these territories have never been spanishised, not even completely hispanicised. In reality, since its beginnings, Hispanic culture coexisted, for better or worse, with other languages, literatures, beliefs and cultures. In all these historical constellations, Hispanicity has never been all-encompassing. The Iberian Peninsula has had a variety of inhabitants and occupiers: the Iberians, Celts or Basques at the beginning; Phoenicians, Romans and Jews in Antiquity; Visigoths, Suevi and Byzantines in the early Middle Ages; Moors (Mauri), Saharawis and Berbers during the Muslim domination. Later on, the Indigenous peoples of the New World were subjugated by the Spanish Empire, which also controlled great part of Italy and Flanders.
Due to all of these reasons, it seems to us that it is more appropriate to speak of the “places” of Hispanism, rather than of Hispanic “territories”. These places of Hispanism are spread over a wide geographical and cultural area and, naturally, they are interconnected with other fields of language, literature and knowledge, constituting a cultural universe that everyone is called upon to share. Spanish language and culture have rarely covered a homogenous and unified space, but rather occupied areas bordering other linguistic, literary, cultural and ideological fields. These inevitably exerted their influence on Hispanism, but it also could influence them in turn. And this is still the case today. Suffice it to recall multilingualism and the heated debates on the role of Spanish language in the Iberian Peninsula, or the different layers of the Hispano-American population: indigenous peoples, Spanish, mestizos (individuals of mixed European and indigenous non-European ancestry), Africans, mulattoes, creole peoples and immigrants from so many other European and Asian countries.
As a result, the conflictive or harmonious coexistence of Hispanicity with so many other languages, ethnicities and cultures has become even more impactful due to the globalisation process that is being experienced in so many countries. It is true that migratory movements can affect the territories that had traditionally been considered as protectors of Hispanism, creating new challenges and culture mixtures. However, the effects of migration operate in the opposite direction as well, as they imperceptibly transform societies that welcome Hispanic people from abroad. Proof of this is the fate of the Sephardim and Moriscos expelled from Spain, the political exiles who fled the many dictatorships of the 20th century, or, nowadays, the striking case of the United States and other metropolis that attract a considerable amount of migrants.
The Congress of Hispanists that took place in Munich invited people to focus and debate on all of these layers in broad topic that concerns all the Hispanism disciplines and whose urgency is increasingly notable. As at previous congresses, besides plenary lectures and cultural events, this work will be carried out in sections that will cover the five main disciplines of Hispanism as it is conceived in Germany:
- history of the language and linguistics
- literary and film studies
- cultural studies and media
- translation studies (“translatology”)
- didactics of Spanish as a foreign language
More than 600 specialists in Spanish and Hispanic literature, language and culture studies participated. The majority are professors of Spanish linguistics, literature and culture at different universities around the world, including leading experts in various subjects.
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