A University of Winchester historian is leading an international research network to study the individuals, networks and communities that made the British Isles a crucial hub for the global Hispanic world and a bridge between Spanish Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas for two hundred years from the late 1700s.
"Events in Catalonia, Mexico and Puerto Rico have drawn global attention towards a Hispanic world challenged by natural and man-made disruptions. This situation, however, is not altogether new," said Dr Graciela Iglesias-Rogers, Senior Lecturer in Modern European and Global Hispanic History at the University of Winchester.
"The eighteenth to twentieth centuries was a period similarly marked by natural disasters, the dislocation of global polities, nation-state building and the rise of nationalism."
The research project, The Hispanic-Anglosphere: transnational networks, global communities (late eighteenth to twentieth centuries), brings together historians from the British Isles, continental Europe, the Americas and Russia to work in association with scholars from other disciplines and non-academic partners, particularly heritage organisations.
"Through our research, we aim to reveal the full extent of the contribution made by people in the British Isles - often branded 'Hispanophiles' - who were closely engaged with the global Hispanic world, regardless of their birth, religion or political allegiance, as well as of those who came from the Hispanic world to the British Isles as visitors, exiles and/or migrants," said Dr Iglesias-Rogers.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, in partnership with the National Trust, the project launches with a public open meeting at the National Trust property Tyntesfield, near Bristol, at 3pm on Saturday 4 November. William Gibbs, the founder of the neo-gothic Victorian mansion and parkland of Tyntesfield, was born in Madrid and his family made much of its fortune through trading Spanish wine and Peruvian guano.
The meeting provides an opportunity to learn more about this fascinating story, while also helping to shape future research with suggestions and questions. The project website - http://hispanic-anglosphere.com - will also be officially launched on 3 November.
To celebrate the project launch, a leading Spanish scholar will play an original guitar dating back to 1819. Pieces include extracts from little-known guitar compositions published in the British Isles by Spanish composers, including one dedicated to the Scottish Fourth Earl of Fife, a British volunteer in the Spanish Army during the Peninsular War, who was also a friend of the South American liberator José de San Martin.
Free tickets for the open meeting on Saturday 4 November can be booked by emailing: tyntesfield@nationaltrust.org.uk or by telephone on 01275 461900.
For more information about the project, visit the project website or contact Dr Graciela Iglesias-Rogers: g.iglesiasrogers@winchester.ac.uk