Translating political vocabularies in the Iberian Atlantic. Historical semantics and conceptual transfers

Ringvorlesung "Translating Normativity: New Perspectives on Law and Legal Transfers"

20. Januar 2015, 18.15 Uhr
Prof. Javier Fernández Sebastián (Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Spain)

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
Campus Westend, HZ11

 
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Abstract
The Iberian Atlantic constitutes an interesting laboratory for studies of historical semantics, and in particular for the observation of the transfers of political and legal concepts in modern times. With one foot in Europe and the other in America, the Ibero-American world is part of so-called “western civilisation”. Understood as an ensemble that includes Iberia and Latin America, many question however the latter‘s belonging to the “West”. As well as the imprint of Christianity and classical culture, in addition to the presence of Spanish and Portuguese as main languages, one should bear in mind the considerable cultural diversity and the presistence of indigenous American languages in extensive rural areas. In any case, the fact that certain circumstances were experienced in the region far earlier than in other parts of the world – conquest, independence, republican and constitutional regimes – renders historical analysis of the circulation of political vocabulary exceptionally interesting. The aim of my lecture is to offer some general reflections (which I will attempt to illustrate with specific examples) upon this theme from the perspective of conceptual history.

CV

Javier Fernández Sebastián is Professor of History of Political Thought at the Universidad del País Vasco (Bilbao, Spain). He has published
extensively in the field of intellectual and conceptual history of modern politics. He has been fellow or visiting scholar at various universities
and research centres in Europe and the Americas, including the EHESS, the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III, the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, the University of Cambridge, Harvard University and the Universidade de São Paulo. He is member of the editorial board of several Spanish and international journals, such as Revista de Estudios Políticos and Modern Intellectual History. Among his recent books are the edited volumes Concepts and Time. New Approaches to Conceptual History (2011) and La Aurora de la Libertad. Los primeros liberalismos en el mundo iberoamericano (2012), as well as the Diccionario político y social del mundo iberoamericano. Conceptos políticos fundamentales, 1770-1870 (2009 and 2014, 11 vols.), which is the result of an on-going transnational project on conceptual comparative history in the Iberian Atlantic (Iberconceptos).

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Exzellenzcluster "Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen" in besonderer Zusammenarbeit mit dem Partner des Exzellenzclusters, dem Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte

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