Perez de Ayala Lecture - CANCELLED Event

This event is part of the Faculty of Humanities annual series of lectures.

This years Perez de Ayala Lecture will be given by Javier Moscoso, Research Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the Institute of History of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

Physical Pain and Baroque Suffering in Modern Spanish History

This talk will explore attitudes towards individual and collective suffering from the 16th to the late 19th centuries. I will attempt to shed some light on the lasting cultural forms that have remained part of Spanish cultural identity. Far from focusing on discontinuities towards the pain of others, I would like to explore the influence of Catholiticism and Catholic practices in the configuration of a national character or, rather, on the representation of a Spanish identity like a "Mater dolorosa", as Prof. Alvarez Junco has so nicely described it. To sustain this thesis, I will make use of three types of source material. First, I will deal with biographical narratives and what the history of the emotions has called “ego sources”, like diaries and private documents, mainly of a religious nature. Then, I will also make use of fictional and other artistic sources, including novels and paintings. In particular, I will review some of the foundations of the so-called “arte lacrimógeno” that flourished in late 19th century Spain and will compare it to the representation of pain and suffering at the turn of the 18th century. Finally, I will explore the correlation between religious beliefs and political policies.