Classical Tradition Seminar – Argentina (Buenos Aires)​

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The period this project deals with – i.e. from 1800 to 1920, particularly in its first half -- is connected to ‘Neoclassicism’ and is also the period in which modern criticisms regarding the classical tradition were generated. How did this tension unfold, in Latin America, where, concomitantly, independent, post-colonial nations were being formed? How did the classical tradition interact with other traditions such as the Native American or the African?
 

The seminar will take place in Buenos Aires, which is considered the most “European” Latin American metropolis. This topos will pose an extra challenge to participants: how can such a thing as “European influence” be defined? How did Buenos Aires, not only architecturally, but culturally, choose its paradigms?
 

With a disciplinary point of view, it should be pointed out that Classics and Latin American Studies are two academic fields that very seldom meet. Scholars of the classical tradition from various fields rarely research texts or images produced within the boundaries of what we now know as Latin America. The results of this seminar, therefore, will help to address a lacuna that exists not only in Latin American countries but also internationally.

 

 

The main points of discussion of this seminar are:
 

• Classical tradition and Latin American nationalisms;
 

• Tensions between classicism and anti-classicism;
 

• Forms of interaction between the classical tradition and other traditions, both indigenous and foreign;
 

• Classical tradition: identity, universality and otherness;
 

• Classical tradition in the 19th century seen from a Latin American perspective.