Exhuming Bodies, Producing Knowledge: Collective Memory, Justice and Restitution in Contemporary Spain January 29, 2010

In Social Sciences, Room 614,

This Colloquium Series and International Conference will explore the role that the recent exhumations of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship have had in the emergence of the movement for the “recovery of historical memory” in Spain. At the beginning of the 21st century, over 30,000 bodies were still interred in mass graves throughout the country. Subsequently, the emergence of civic associations, created by ordinary citizens to undertake exhumations of these graves, has had an enormous impact on Spanish society. In part, the media impact of the exhumations has led to pressure to pass the “Law of Historical Memory” by the Spanish Congress in October 2007, a significant, if insufficient, step towards confronting the legacy of the war and dictatorship in contemporary Spanish society. We will analyze the multiple and complex relations between bodies and knowledge that arise in these exhumations and that explain their political, social, cultural and legal significance in Spain and in other post-authoritarian or post-conflict settings.
Come join us in these discussions. You are invited to attend any one or all of the monthly discussions, as well as the April Conference. You do not have to attend the Colloquium Series to attend the Conference.

Additional sponsorship for the Colloquium Series and the conference is provided by the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and US Universities. Organization of the conference was made possible through an interdisciplinary research award on the topic of Body & Knowing, the subject of the University Symposium for the two-year period beginning in the fall of 2008.

Official Website: http://igs.cla.umn.edu/research/spain.html