The European project CIRGEN (Circulating Gender in the Global Enlightenment: Ideas, Network, Agencies) celebrates its last activity this week: the international seminar ‘Legados ambivalentes. La Ilustración en los tránsitos de la modernidad, de la investigación a la docencia’ (Ambivalent legacies. The Enlightenment in the transition to modernity. From research to teaching). The seminar will take place on Tuesday and Friday at the Faculty of Geography and History at the Universitat de València. CIRGEN, led by Full Professor of the UV’s Department of Modern and Contemporary History Mónica Bolufer, received a 2.5 million euro Advanced Grant from the European Research Council.

The seminar will be held in collaboration with the TRAMOS project of the Spanish National University of Distance Learning, and will focus on gender and the formation of modern identities. Topics such as the construction of symbolic boundaries of the Enlightenment, cultural circulation, gender, race and emotions in the 18^th century will be analysed. "Our final seminar combines balance and specialised reflection with a debate on dissemination and transfer", explains Mónica Bolufer.

There will also be a reflection on the teaching of history and dissemination in society through different resources, such as digital or theatrical. For example, the ‘Writing for Women’ database will be presented at the seminar.

The programme will conclude with a dramatic reading of 18^th century letters, entitled ‘Las lágrimas van con la tinta’ (Tears go with the ink). This reading is led by Clara Bonet and interpreted by Inés Gómez, on Tuesday, 23 at 6pm in the Alfons Cucó Classroom in the Faculty of Geography and History.

The seminar will include panel discussions such as ‘Southern passions. The construction of the European South and the national matter (18^th and 19^th centuries)’, ‘Gender and emotions: sensibility, race and sexuality’ or ‘Building new stories: how to innovate when teaching and disseminating women’s stories?’, among others.

European project

The funding of CIRGEN by the European Research Council has resulted in 3 collective books, 6 dossiers, 2 conferences and 18 seminars, among other activities, both academic and addressed to the general public. For the first time, a transnational and transatlantic approach to the circulation of gender models in 18^th century’s Europe and its colonial territories was adopted. This goes beyond national or comparative approaches, and places the Enlightenment in the Hispanic empire in the historiographic context.

The project aims to study the transfer in the areas of translation, sociability, travel, reading and sensibility culture, from a point of view that stresses the subjects’ ability to act in the complex legacy of the Enlightenment to modernity.

Programme of the conferences.

Poster of the dramatic reading of the letters.