Collective residencies / Researching war and theatre in the current scene / Olot
FRANCESC FOGUET I BOREU
From Monday, 16 October 2023 to Monday, 23 October 2023
Bio
He holds a PhD in Catalan Language and Literature from the UAB and teaches Catalan Literature and Theatre Studies at the same university. He has specialised in the study of contemporary Catalan theatre. He has published several books on the period of the war and the revolution of 1936-1939, including 'Teatre, guerra i revolució. Barcelona, 1936-1939' (2005, Serra d'Or Critics' Prize for Research in the Humanities 2006). He is also the author of several books on the Catalan actress Margarida Xirgu. In recent years, he has published 'El teatro catalán en el exilio republicano de 1939' (2016), 'Maria Aurèlia Capmany, escriptora compromesa (1963-1977)' (2018), and, together with Sharon Feldman, 'Els límits del silenci. La censura del teatre català durant el franquisme' (2016). He is a member of the Study Group on the History of Culture and Intellectuals (UB) and of the Centre for the Study of Dictatorships and Democracies (UAB).
Project
We will discuss how 21st century theatre reflects contemporary wars and how it can help us to better understand the world today.
A rewarding and stimulating research experience.
Faberllull has been a rewarding and stimulating experience, both intellectually and on a personal level. Our research on the presence of war in Latin American and European theatre comes at a time when armed conflicts are featured daily in the media and are part of everyday conversations all over the world. Having the chance to enjoy a few days of peace and quiet in such a magnificent natural setting has allowed us to debate and contrast our individual findings and pool them together in order to identify similarities and differences in the ways in which the subject of war is dealt with in theatre. Getting to share theoretical and methodological approaches and points of view and being able to engage in a more relaxed dialogue about common concerns in our field of research and about more recent wars (Ukraine, Israel/Palestine) and ongoing wars (social wars in Latin American countries), which affect us directly, has been very interesting. Moreover, the stay in Olot has enabled us, on the one hand, to consolidate the internal structure and future activities of the International Network of Theatre Researchers from Latin America and Europe (https://crae.uab.cat/riitle/), which is supported by the CRAE-UAB (https://crae. uab.cat/), and, on the other hand, to begin preparations for the 3rd International Symposium on Contemporary Theatre in Latin America and Europe, which will take place in Peru in 2025 under the title "Capitalism and Theatre in the 21st Century". Looking back on this experience, which has been positive in every sense, we would like to reiterate our opinion that Faberllull could offer more residency programmes to researchers, especially for those in the humanities and artistic fields, since they are the most hard-pressed in terms of obtaining other types of institutional support.