In recent years, Spanish politics has been in turmoil over the question of Catalan independence. At first a contentious issue, tensions reached their peak in October 2017, when the attempt by the Catalan government to hold an independence referendum was met by heavy-handed police intervention from the Spanish state. From then on, the entire democratic system in Spain has entered into a crisis, accelerated by a series of political, normative and cultural issues. Every new development, including the recent pandemic, brings about a new split in the relations between Madrid and Barcelona.

In this webinar, three internationally-renown experts will share their informed perspectives on the state of the Catalan-Spanish crisis from different research angles. Our guest speakers are:

  • Mireia Trenchs-Parera, Professor (Chair) at the Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, expert in sociolinguistics and language attitudes and ideologies in Catalonia.
  • José Luis Martí, Associate Professor at the Department of Law, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, expert in legal philosophy and constitutional law.
  • Peter Kraus, Professor in Political Science, Universität Augsburg, expert in pluralism and minority issues, nationalism, European integration and identity.

Please, join the event and discussion if your research interests fall anywhere within the areas of sociolinguistics, language ideologies and language politics, democratic theory and political and cultural identity, party politics and voter mobilisation, Spanish/Catalan politics.

The webinar is part of the ongoing joint work between the Departments of English and Political Science at Stockholm University, and the Department of Political Science at Lund University. Financial support from the Board of Human Sciences to spin collaboration within the Profile Areas of Stockholm University is gratefully acknowledged.

To participate at the webinar, please write an email to josep.soler@english.su.se with your name and affiliation by 16 September at the latest.

The event will be in English.

Local organising team:
Josep Soler, Department of English, Stockholm University.
Niklas Bremberg, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University.
Anthoula Malkopoulou, Department of Political Science, Lund University.