Historical Crossroads: Spain from the Second Republic to the 21st Century - Keynotes

José Luis Abellán

Historian of the Philosophy of Ideas, thinker, and essayist. José Luis Abellán has taught in Puerto Rico, Northern Ireland and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he was Professor of the History of Spanish Philosophy until his retirement in 2003. He has also been a keynote speaker at numerous conferences in various countries in Europe, America and Asia. He was a member of the Executive Council of UNESCO (1983-86) in Spain, represented Spain in Paris (1983-1985), and was President of the Spanish Confederation of UNESCO Clubs. In 1988 he was elected the first President of Asociación Hispanismo Filosófico, and was President of the Ateneo de Madrid from 2001 until May 2009. He is currently President of Honour of the Asociación Hispanismo Filosófico. Amongst the many awards he has received are the Order of Don Quixote in the United States (1981), the UNESCO Silver Medal (1985), and the Encomienda de Alfonso X, el Sabio (1998). In 1975 he was awarded the El Europeo Essay Prize for El erasmismo español, and in 1981, the National Essay Prize for the first three volumes of Historia crítica del pensamiento español, which was published in 8 volumes in 1992.
 
Selected Publications
José Luis Abellán is the author of more than 50 other books, including Miguel de Unamuno a la luz de la Psicología (1964); Ortega y Gasset en la filosofía española (1966); Filosofía española en América, 1936-1966 (1967); La cultura en España. Ensayo para un diagnóstico (1971); José Gaos ¿Cómo se adapta un filósofo a la cultura mexicana? (1993); Ideas para el Siglo XXI (1994); El exilio filosófico en América. Los transterrados del 39 (1998); El 98: cien años después (2000); Ortega y Gasset y los orígenes de la transición democrática (2000); El exilio como constante y como categoría (2001); José Gaos. Introducción y antología (2001); El Ateneo de Madrid. Historia, Política, Cultura, Teosofía (2006); María Zambrano. Una pensadora de nuestro tiempo (2006), and El Escorial. Iconos, imágenes, mito (2009). He also directed the 6 volumes comprising El exilio español de 1939, as well as collaborating in volumes I, III and VI (1976-78). Together with Antonio Monclús, he coordinated the two volumes of El pensamiento español contemporáneo y la idea de América (1989), and co-authored El pensamiento español. De Séneca a Zubiri (1977) and La Escuela de Madrid. Un ensayo de filosofía (1991) with Luis Martínez Gómez and Tomás Mallo, respectively. 

Manuel Alcántara Sáez

 
Professor of Political Studies at the Universidad de Salamanca and Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Manuel Alcántara is a specialist in Comparative Latin-American politics. He has published books and articles on political systems, representative democracy, governability, legislative powers and political parties. He has been a visiting professor at various tertiary institutions, including the Political Studies Institute in Paris, Georgetown University, and at FLASCO, Mexico, and has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Kellogg Institute, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the College of Europe in Bruges. He regularly reads papers at conferences organized by the Asociación Española de Ciencia Política, the American Political Science Association, the European Consortium for Political Reserach, the Latin American Studies Association and the Asociación Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política, and is a member of all these associations.

Selected Publications
Manuel Alcántara is the author of the following books, amongst others: La ayuda al desarrollo acordado a Iberoamérica (1981); Gobernabilidad, crisis y cambio (1994); ¿Instituciones o máquinas ideológicas?: origen, programa y organización de los partidos políticos latinoamericanos (2004), and Sistemas políticos de América Latina (3rd ed., 2008). México frente al umbral del siglo XXI (1992); Los límites de la consolidación democrática en América Latina (1995); Las elecciones autonómicas en España, 1980-1997 (1998); Sistemas políticos de América Latina (2000); Colombia ante los retos del siglo XXI: desarrollo, democracia y paz (2001); Funciones, procedimientos y escenarios: un análisis del poder legislativo en América Latina (2005); El poder legislativo en América Latina a través de sus normas (2005); La democracia brasileña: balance y perspectivas para el siglo XXI (2008); Elecciones y política en América Latina (2008), and Relaciones entre América latina y Europa: balance y perspectivas (2008) are some of the books he has edited.

Román Álvarez Rodríguez

Professor at the Universidad de Salamanca, and Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Literatures. Román Álvarez Rodríguez has also been Head of the Department of English, and for ten years was Director of the British Council in Salamanca. He has published numerous studies on English and North American literature, through its different periods, movements, genres and authors. He has given courses and lectures at universities in various countries, has organized many specialist seminars and other events at the Universidad de Salamanca, and has also been involved in philology-related publishing activities. In recent years he has collaborated with different assessment and accreditation agencies, including ANECA (Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación), ACPUA (Agencia de Calidad y Prospectiva Universitaria de Aragón), AQUIB (Agència de Qualitat Universitària de les Illes Balears), ACUM (Agencia de Calidad Universitaria de Castilla-La Mancha) and AGAE (Agencia Andaluza de Evaluación).

Selected Publications
Román Álvarez Rodríguez is the sole author of several books, including Origen y evolución de la novela histórica inglesa (1983) and El espectáculo de la cultura: Gran Bretaña y España ante el fin de siglo (1995), and  is the editor of La presencia ausente: perspectivas interdisciplinares de la posmodernidad (1994) and  La mujer ante el tercer milenio: arte, literatura, transformaciones sociales (1997). For ten years he co-directed the international journal Anglo-American Studies, and together with Ramón López Ortega compiled Poesía anglo-norteamericana de la Guerra Civil española (1986). In the field of Translation Studies, he has edited Cartografías de la traducción: del post-estructuralismo al multiculturalismo (2002) and co-edited, together with M. Carmen África Vidal, Translation, Power, Subversion (1996). 

Antonio Elorza

Director of the Department of Political Studies and Administration III within the Faculty of Political Studies and Sociology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Antonio Elorza's research fields include the history of political thought and social movements in Spain, nationalisms and fundamentalisms.

Selected Publications
Antonio Elorza is the author of several monographs, including La ideología liberal en la Ilustración española (1970); La razón y la sombra: una lectura política de Ortega y Gasset (awarded the Premio Anagrama in 1984); Un pueblo escogido. Génesis, evolución e ideología del nacionalismo vasco (2001); Umma: el integrismo en el Islam (2002); El nuevo terrorismo islamista. Del 11-S al 11-M (2004) and Tras la huella de Sabino Arana: los orígenes totalitarios del nacionalismo vasco (2005). He coauthored Queridos camaradas. La Internacional Comunista y España (1999) and Cuba/España. El dilema autonomista, 1878-1898 (2001) with Marta Bizcarrondo. One of his most recent monographs is Los dos mensajes del Islam. Razón y violencia en la tradición islámica (2008). 
  
  

Miguel Hernando de Larramendi

 

Associate Professor of History of the Contemporary Arab World at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, in Toledo, and researcher with the International Mediterranean Studies Workshop at the Autonomous University in Madrid, where he directs the doctoral programme. Miguel Hernando de Larramendi's fields of expertise include Spanish foreign policy in the Arab world and the Mediterranean, Hispano-Maghrebi relations, and Maghrebi immigration in Spain. The development of religious pluralism in Spain is another of his fields of specialisation.
 
Selected Publications
Miguel Hernando de Larramendi has written and edited several books, including La política exterior y de cooperación de España hacia el Magreb (1996); La política exterior de Marruecos (1997), which has been translated into Arabic (2005); Emigración, traducción y culturas (1999); Historia y memoria de las relaciones hispano-marroquíes. Un balance en el cincuentenario de la independencia de Marruecos (2007); Religion.es. Minorías religiosas en Castilla-La Mancha (2009), and La política  exterior española hacia el Magreb: actores e intereses  (2009).