The political situation in Catalonia and Scotland will be the subjects of the two activities Faber organises this first week of November. On the one hand, on Wednesday 2 November, Andrew Dowling, historian at the University of Cardiff, will discuss the process of Catalan independence with his fellow historian Jaume Claret, and on the other hand, David Manderson, writer resident in Glasgow, will afford his view of the Scottish independence movement on Thursday 3 November. Dowling and Manderson are part of the second group of residents that arrived in Faber this 2016.

The Cardiff University historian has dedicated much of his research to studying the history of Catalonia and, in recent years, has focused his interest on the sovereignty process here. His perspective, which is both informed and external, makes him an excellent commentator to appraise the current situation in Catalonia. Professor Dowling is in the final stages of writing a study entitled Catalan Independence and the Future of the Spanish State (Ashgate, to be published in 2017), the ultimate reason for his sojourn with the Faber Residency in Olot. Alongside Jaume Claret, Director of the Degree in History, Geography and Art History at the Open University of Catalonia, he will host an open and reasoned debate on the recent history of Catalonia, based on the immediate past and the requisite references to our political and cultural landscape. The event will take place on Wednesday 2 November at 7 pm in Can Trincheria (Carrer de Sant Esteve, 29, Olot).

David Manderson describes himself as a “veteran of the losing side in the vote for Scottish independence”. Writer and academic, his vote for Scottish independence was made evident in the book The Glass Half Full: Moving Beyond Scottish Miserablism, which bears the subtitle “a self-help book for the Scottish psyche” and is defined by its co-author as a look at the schizophrenic adolescence that afflicts the entire nation. He sees the defeat of Yes not as a defeat but another step on the way towards independence, which Brexit has hastened. And looks forward to the day Scotland grows up. The activity, in which the director of Faber, Francesc Serès, shall also take part, will take place in English with no simultaneous interpreting, on Thursday 3 November at 7 pm at Casal Marià (Passeig de Ramon Guillamet, Olot).