IX International American Studies Association World Congress (IASA)

Date: Monday, July 8^th, 2019.

Title: A Diplomat’s Perspective on the US-Spain Common History.

Ambassador of Spain. Diplomat and writer. Honorary Trustee of the Fundación Consejo España – EE.UU. Counselor of Spanish Delegation to the United Nations and Advisor to the U.N Security Council (1978-1983) and Ambassador of Spain to Namibia/Botswana (1998-2000) and Norway/Iceland (2000-2004), Consul General of Spain in Los Angeles (1989) and Puerto Rico (2010). He was Director of the Institute of Spain in London (1985) and Director General of Casa de América in Madrid (1994).

Director of seminars: The Spanish Enlightenment in the Independence of the United States: Benjamin Franklin, Royal Academy of History, Madrid, (2006), The Spanish Contribution to the Independence of the United States, 1763-1848, (2007), at the National Portriat Gallery, Washington, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution. International Conference on the impact of the Cortes of Cadiz in North America, Congress of Deputies, Madrid, (2009). He also contributed to exhibitions and catalogues like Legacy. Spain and the US in the age of Independence, NPG Washington (2007), Bernardo de Galvez, Casa de América (2015) and The recovered Memory, Torre Iberdrola, Bilbao (2016). He has volumes related to the Spanish legacy in the United States like The Spanish Enlightenment in the Independence of the United States: Benjamin Franklin, (2007). Norteamérica a finales del siglo XVIII: España y Estados Unidos, (2008), The exposition in the province of New Mexico, 1812 by Don Pedro Baptista Pino, UNM PRESS (1995) and La Esfera de los libros,  (2015).

Literay works, awarded the Café Gijón Prize for Novel (1961), the Pio Baroja Price. Also The Grass Rains, (Mac Millan N.Y.1984), West of Babylon UNM PRESS (2007).

His Articles were published in newspapers like ABC, El Mundo, Diario 16, Los Ángeles Times, La Opinión, Nuestro Tiempo, Revista de Occidente, and El Nuevo Día.

Allen Josephs, University of West Florida

Date: Tuesday, July 9^th, 2019.

Title: On Hemingway and Spain and Cormac and Mexico.

He is University Research Professor and Professor of Spanish at the University of West Florida where he has taught for 50 years. Virtually everything Allen Josephs has written emanates from his deep love for Spain and Spanish culture, including the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America.

A world-renowned Hemingway scholar and past president of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society, Josephs was also president of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in 2008, and was made an honorary member this year. He has written 12 books, including On Hemingway and Spain: Essays and Reviews 1979 – 2013; White Wall of Spain: The Mysteries of Andalusian Culture; and For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ernest Hemingway’s Undiscovered Country.

He is the author of four critical editions of the poetry of Federico García Lorca and a book of translations of Lorca’s poetry and prose, Only Mystery: Federico García Lorca’s Poetry in Word and Image. He has published numerous articles on Spain and Hispanic culture in the Atlantic, the New Republic, the Virginia Quarterly, the North Dakota Quarterly, and New York Times Book Review, as well as many publications in scholarly journals. Josephs received the George B. Smith Arts and Letters Award by the National Association of Taurine Clubs for his book: Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida and was conferred an honorary membership in the Taurine Bibliophiles of America for his “outstanding contributions to taurine scholarship.” After writing about Hemingway and Spanish culture for more than 40 years, Josephs has turned his attention to Pulitzer-Prize winning American novelist, Cormac McCarthy, whom Josephs considers one of the greatest living novelists. His latest book is On Cormac McCarthy: Essays on Mexico, Crime, Hemingway and God, published by New Street in 2016. Currently, he is translating the work of Spanish poet Fernando Valverde, and his translation of The Insistence of Harm should appear in 2019 from the University Press of Florida.

Future projects include a translation of the poetry of Spanish poet Raquel Lanseros and a two-volume thematic memoir, centered on Josephs’ literary and taurine experiences from 1962 to the present.

Manju Jaidka, Panjab University.

Date: Wednesday, July 10^th, 2019.

Title: The Old Order Changeth: Re-Defining American Studies in a World of Flux.

Manju Jaidka has taught English from 1974 to 2018. From 1998 to 2018 she served as a professor at Panjab University, Chandigarh. Apart from teaching she has held several administrative responsibilities at the university and also with the Chandigarh Administration. She has been involved in administrative work as a senior faculty member of the university, as the Head of the Department, as Director of the university IAS Study Centre, and convener of various committees, examinations and decision-making bodies.

Over the last 20 years she has been the Founder, President, Secretary, and main functionary of MELOW, the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the World, an academic association with international linkages. The total members at any given time are between 500 and 600. The society has a website, a blog, a Facebook page, a google group, and holds international conferences every year.

In addition, Jaidka has been the Chairperson of the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi 2008 – 2015, holding held public events – literary discussions, litfests, seminars, publications, etc, with the aim to promote literary activities in Chandigarh.

Manju Jaidka is often invited to national and international institutions to speak or on other assignments. She has travelled and lectured extensively in India as well as the US, UK, Europe, Canada, China, Nepal, etc. In addition, she has received prestigious fellowships from the UGC, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Fulbright Foundation. She has held assignments at universities like Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Illinois, Iowa, New York, and Concordia. She is on the international advisory board of reputed international academic organizations and has held important offices in this capacity.

Jaidka has authored more than sixty research papers and 12 academic books. The papers are published in peer-reviewed professional journals. She has also reviewed about a hundred books, served as the Editor of the university journal and the department journal, and has served on the editorial boards of several international journals.