-
The Casa de Colón in Gran Canaria hosts the 24th edition of this biennial event from November 30 to December 3, which on this occasion addresses the processes of globalization in the Atlantic
-
Its program includes 222 presentations and six general conferences, both face-to-face and by videoconference.
-
Among the speakers are the Minister of Universities, Manuel Castells, and the historians Carlos Martínez Shaw, Juan Marchena and Alfredo Alvar.
-
150 of the papers are from the Canary Islands, 42 from the Peninsula, 16 from the rest of Europe and 21 from America
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, November 24, 2020- The XXIV edition of the Canarian American History Colloquium reinvents itself and its conferences can be followed live online from anywhere in the world to address the globalization processes in the Atlantic, the main theme of the this year’s initiative that has had to adapt to health circumstances, reorganize the agenda and postpone its celebration for a few months, thus saving this biennial academic event.
This new meeting takes place in the Casa de Colón from November 30 to December 3 and its theme has been chosen to commemorate the five hundred years of the circumnavigation of the Earth by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano, carried out between 1519 and 1522.
The important event will bring together eminent national and international scholars and historians in the Americanist center dependent on the network of museums of the Culture Council of the Gran Canaria Cabildo, while other speakers will explain their research by videoconference due to sanitary restrictions.
This was announced today by the Minister of Culture of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Guacimara Medina, and the director of the Casa de Colón and general coordinator of the Colloquia, Elena Acosta, during the presentation of the extensive program of this edition of the Colloquium, organized by the aforementioned center together with the Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians (Adhilac), with the collaboration of the Government of the Canary Islands.
Medina considered it essential to continue holding this meeting that has been taking place since 1976, overcoming the difficulties of the current situation caused by the pandemic and adapting its offer to new technologies.
«This Colloquium has historically revealed the historiographic currents maintained by researchers who have studied the role of the Canary Islands over the centuries as a geostrategic region,» said Medina, who also highlighted the good health of this initiative, proof of this is the large number of proposals that came from a large number of countries.
For her part, Elena Acosta added that, despite the difficulties, the Colloquium has been able to be held, since never in its more than 40 years of history has it been suspended.
In addition, he pointed out that the setbacks caused by the restrictions on the movement of the participants, paradoxically, have allowed a greater expansion and dissemination of the program for this edition.
«A problem can be turned into an opportunity, since thanks to the ‘online’ adaptation of a good part of his sessions we will reach any part of the world.»
Acosta thanked both the work of the Casa de Colón staff, as well as that of the members of the scientific committee, for having made it possible for this «research party on the history of the Canary Islands» to take place.
Manuel Lobo, representative of the scientific committee of this Colloquium, also thanked the effort not to suspend it, so that researchers and students from the two Canary Islands universities can present their work and interact through the network with other professors from the rest of the world. .
He highlighted the coordination work that the Scientific Committee has promoted with ADHLAC and pointed out that knowledge of the world began with the epic of Magellan.
«The Colloquium has successively studied from the 16th century to the present, all the peculiarities of that world and its relations with the Canary Islands,» he warned.
Of the 278 proposals received from various corners of the world, 229 have been selected, of which 222 will be presentations, to which are added four general conferences, plus the inaugural conference, by the Minister of Universities of Spain, Manuel Castells, and the closing one, offered by the president of the Mission Structure for the Commemorations of the V Centenary of the First Circum-navigation (2019-2022) of Portugal, José Manuel Carvalho.
Among the speakers are the historians Carlos Martínez Shaw, Juan Marchena and Alfredo Alvar. One hundred and fifty papers are from the Canary Islands, 42 from the Peninsula, 16 from the rest of Europe and 21 from America.
Leer más: Jimmy Choo en los Globos de Oro 2023
Three stages of globalization
The Colloquium structures its contents around three seminars on the three great stages of globalization. Due to the importance and breadth of this year’s theme, the chronological framework has been expanded to highlight, in its entirety, the historical processes that led to the development of globalization (First Globalization – 16th-18th centuries, Full Globalization -circa 1840 -1929 and current Globalization – from 1980 to the present).
To these three seminars are added their traditional thematic areas that make up this event (Archaeology, Art, Geography and Territorial Organization, Economic History, Political History, Social History, Historiography, Women and History, Religions and Multiculturalism). Within the framework of the Political History area, a special seminar will be dedicated to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Liberal Triennium (1820-1823).
All the conferences will be streaming through the museum’s YouTube and Facebook Live channels, and the online audience will be able to interact with the speakers, sending their questions so that they can be answered live. You can access directly, as well as all the news of the congress (program, news…) on the web www.coloquiosdehistoriacanarioamericana.com .
The presentations will be distributed in three classrooms in the Casa de Colón and almost fifty of them will be face-to-face, with a capacity limited to 15 people, whose attendance requires prior registration. While in a fourth room, located in the Island Library, the exhibitions of doctoral theses will take place, which will be recorded and later uploaded to the web. All the information about the XXIV Canarian-American History Colloquium is available on the web.
44 years of history
The Colloquios, coordinated by Francisco Morales Padrón, were born in 1976 as a small meeting of Americanists to discuss issues about the relations of the Canary Islands with America. In this first year, 16 papers were presented, all of them on Canarian-American topics. In 1990, more than a hundred specialists were present, a figure that has been maintained up to the present.
In these more than 40 years of uninterrupted celebration of the Colloquiums, a select list of researchers has collaborated, including leading historians, both American, European and peninsular, as well as leading figures in Canarian historiography.
Thus, researchers such as Kellenbenz, Minchinton, E. Beerman, García Gallo, Millares Carló, Miguel Artola, Henry Kamen, Joseph Pérez, John Elliott, Gabriel Jackson, Eiras Roel and Felipe Fernández-Armesto have been present.
The trajectory marked in these years has made the Colloquiums consolidate as an instrument, not just useful, but essential, for anyone who wants to delve into the study of the History of the Canary Islands.
It is with activities like this, a meeting place for Canarian, American and European researchers, contrasting various historical methodologies, that the Casa de Colón once again highlights the well-known role of the Canary Islands as a meeting point for cultures and a meeting point between Old and the New World.
