Koldo Mitxelena Chair 2022: Harkaitz Cano

With support from the Etxepare Basque Institute, the Koldo Mitxelena Chair at the University of Chicago has organised a course entitled ‘No hay cine pequeño: Intimidad, documentales y experimentación fílmica en el cine vasco contemporáneo’ (There’s no such thing as small cinema: Intimacy, documentaries and film experimentation in contemporary Basque cinema´). The course, aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students, will run from 28 March to 4 June and will be led by Harkaitz Cano.

The programme includes two activities. The first is the course organised by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. The second, a lecture and poetry reading entitled ‘Harkaitz Cano: poetry and poetics´, that will be held on April 27, at 4:30pm, at Classics 21 room (University of Chicago).

The course will explore a sampling of contemporary Basque cinema to analyse types of film (autobiographical pieces, documentary essays, short films...) that are particularly relevant in the Basque context. Owing to its small scale and convulsive history, certain stories must be told in order to preserve the collective memory.

The public is invited to a separate event as part of the Mitxelena Chair programme: a bilingual poetry reading based on the recent publication of ‘Good Wolf, Bad Wolf’ and a talk in which Cano will explain his approach to literary creation. The talk and poetry reading will be held at The University of Chicago´s Classics 21 classroom.

The course led by Harkaitz Cano is part of the undergraduate and doctoral programmes offered by the University of Chicago’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. It will therefore be open to doctoral students from any discipline in the Humanities, and to undergraduate students from any department within the university.

The Koldo Mitxelena Chair of the University of Chicago is one of the nine chairs organised by the Etxepare Basque Institute at universities abroad. The Koldo Mitxelena Chair is part of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and offers seminars and lectures related to the Basque humanities.