Journal article
Let's Take This Outside: Moving Literary Monuments from the Classroom to the Street, and Vice Versa
Philological quarterly, Vol.103(3), pp.203-216
07/01/2024
Abstract
While during the 2010s in cities across the West activists purging the streets of colonialist symbolism were toppling statues deemed suspicious of glorifying atrocities of various kinds, two conspicuous monuments in Madrid, honoring a soldier and tax collector at the service of King Philip II's imperialist project, received no attention. Despite the intensity and breadth of the protests which condemned statues of very similar appearance in places like Barcelona or Bristol, the markers which pay homage to Miguel de Cervantes in the center of the Spanish capital emerged unscathed from the latest episode of iconoclastic frenzy. The lack of intervention cannot be attributed to apathy on the part of Madrileños, many of whom have, since 2011, expressed their political discontent by occupying streets and squares for weeks with a political fervor whose force reverberated in numerous other countries, from Egypt to the US. Their demands for societal renewal were visibly manifested around the Cervantes monuments, but, whether out of indifference, respect, or ignorance, they left the statues themselves intact.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Let's Take This Outside: Moving Literary Monuments from the Classroom to the Street, and Vice Versa
- Creators
- Luis Martín-Estudillo
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Philological quarterly, Vol.103(3), pp.203-216
- ISSN
- 0031-7977
- eISSN
- 2169-5342
- Publisher
- University of Iowa, Philological Quarterly
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/01/2024
- Academic Unit
- International Programs; Spanish and Portuguese; Obermann Center for Advanced Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9985015824102771
Metrics
1 Record Views