Historians have applied the terms ‘democracy’ and ‘democrat’ to the past in their own ways and for their own purposes. We want to get behind historians’ usages and develop an understanding of how contemporaries used the term and its cognates. Who talked about ‘democracy’ and its cognates in Italy at this time? To refer to what? What did it connote?  To what extent was it used to talk about institutions, or about political culture, or about social phenomena? How was usage affected by the word’s classical inheritance and connotations, to what extent by the French revolution or other modern developments? Who called whom a democrat? Who positively identified with the cause of democracy – and why?  In what social milieux was the term used – did it have any popular currency? Within what larger semantic field did it operate? How did patterns of use vary by region and change over time?

Presentation

Historians have applied the terms ‘democracy’ and ‘democrat’ to the past in their own ways and for their own purposes. We want to get behind historians’ usages and develop an understanding of how contemporaries used the term and its cognates. Who talked about ‘democracy’ and its cognates in Italy at this time? To refer to what? What did it connote? 

To what extent was it used to talk about institutions, or about political culture, or about social phenomena? How was usage affected by the word’s classical inheritance and connotations, to what extent by the French revolution or other modern developments? Who called whom a democrat? Who positively identified with the cause of democracy – and why?  In what social milieux was the term used – did it have any popular currency? Within what larger semantic field did it operate? How did patterns of use vary by region and change over time?

Program

THURSDAY 10^th APRIL

LANGUAGE

11h-13h20 Opening

Introduction

• Pablo SÁNCHEZ LEÓN

Universidad del País Vasco
Nameless democracy, feared multitude: conceiving disorder and citizenship in the Riot of Esquilache  (1766) and its aftermath

• Javier FERNÁNDEZ SEBASTIÁN

Universidad del País Vasco
Re- appraising Democracy in Spain, 1808-1849: A waning past, a waxing future

14h50-17h45

• Marcella AGLIETTI

Università degli Studi di Pisa
Looking for «democracy» in the parliamentary speeches of the first Spanish liberalism

• Gonzalo CAPELLÁN

Universidad de la Rioja
Democratic Momentum: 1849 as a turning point in the public discussion of the concept ‘Democracy’ in Spain

Break

• Mónica BURGUERA

Universitat de València
Rethinking the gendered grounds of democracy in nineteenth century Spain

FRIDAY 11^th APRIL

PRACTICE

9h15-13h15 Convene

• Florencia Peyrou

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Becoming a citizen. Spain, 1808-1840

• Carlos FERRERA

Theatre as a stage for democracy in 19^th Century Spain

Break

• Jesús DE FELIPE

Universidad de La Laguna
Democratic unions. Democratic practices among unionized Spanish workers (1840-1860)

• Carmen DE LA GUARDIA

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
The public sphere and the transformation of democracy in the 19^th Century

14h45-17h

• Gonzalo BUTRÓN

Universidad de Cádiz
The insolence of the anarchists: liberal conspiracy and secret societies under restored absolutism

• Juan Luis SIMAL

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Spanish secret societies and the universal conspiracy, 1810-1840

Final round table

Closure

Admission free

Org.: École des hautes études hispaniques et ibériques (Casa de Velázquez, Madrid), The Leverhulme Trust