A01=Peter Glazer
A01=Professor Peter Glazer
Activist Involvement
Activist Past
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Peter Glazer
Author_Professor Peter Glazer
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AN
Category=ATD
Category=HBWP
Category=JWT
Category=JWTY
Category=NHWL
Category=NHWR3
Commemorative Events
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Francisco Franco
International Brigade
Language_English
Leftist Past
PA=Available
Political Discourse
Price_€20 to €50
Progressive Politics
PS=Active
Radical Nostalgia
softlaunch
Songs from the War
Spanish Civil War
Product details
- ISBN 9781580463737
- Weight: 518g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Oct 2010
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
A detailed history of the commemorations of US activist involvement in the Spanish Civil War, based on a combination of archival and ethnographic evidence.
Nostalgia can serve as a vital tool in the emotional reconstitution and preservation of suppressed histories, rather than sentimentally privileging the past at the expense of present concerns and limiting a culture's progressive potential. Between 1936 and 1938, responding to a military coup in Spain led by Francisco Franco with the support of both Hitler and Mussolini, over 2700 US anti-fascists joined 30,000 volunteers from around the world to form the International Brigade. They came together to defend the democratically elected Spanish government against this early manifestation of the fascist Axis. After three bloody years, Franco's rebellion succeeded, and his dictatorship lasted until his death in 1975.
From the moment the first American volunteers returned home, and to this day, they have been holding commemorative events recalling the struggle. For nearly seventy years, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade have cited and re-cited their activist past in theatrically eclectic, highly emotional commemorative performances, a site for both nostalgia and progressive politics. Literary recitations, scripted dramatic pieces, songs, films, photographs, and celebrity appearances have been juxtaposed with speeches, fundraising, and a rigorous attention to pressing political and social concerns of the day. The history and content of these events isdetailed and analyzed here based on a combination of archival and ethnographic evidence. The exemplary role of songs from the war, as both nostalgic triggers and historical artifacts, is also examined.
Commemorations of theSpanish Civil War have provided necessary anchors for a period in U.S. history when views now thought extreme were an accepted part of mass political discourse. Through this rich, inter-generational performance practice, a marginalized, vernacular political minority has deployed radical nostalgia as a necessary corrective to an official culture disinterested in America's leftist past, and threatened by its implications.
Peter Glazer is Associate Professor in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Peter Glazer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
