New edition of Koldo Mitxelena Chair in Chicago
Euskara. Kultura. Mundura.
The Koldo Mitxelena Chair at the University of Chicago is one of the eight chairs coordinated by the Etxepare Basque Institute in universities worldwide. This year’s programme got underway February 21st and will continue until March 3rd.
The Koldo Mitxelena Chair at the University of Chicago is one of the eight chairs coordinated by the Etxepare Basque Institute in universities worldwide. This year’s programme got underway February 21st and will continue until March 3rd.
Jon Kortazar, writer and Professor of Language and Literature at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), is this year’s guest chair. The programme offers graduate level classes in Basque Studies. Besides several days of seminar sessions, Kortazar will also give a lecture on Monday, March 4th, at 4.30 p.m. at the University of Chicago´s Franke Institute for the Humanities. Kortazar’s lecture, Tensiones en el campo literario vasco, will analyse the creative and social tensions in Basque literature.
Housed in the Department of Humanities, every year the Koldo Mitxelena Chair invites an expert or professor to give classes, seminars and lectures on a range of topics in Basque Studies. Under the leadership of Kortazar, this year’s programme will focus on two Basque authors whose works present autobiographical or autofictional passages: Bernardo Atxaga and Kirmen Uribe. The programme will explore autobiography within fiction and analyse how these passages are included in the narrative. The analysis will be based on two novels: Nevada Days by Atxaga and Bilbao – New York – Bilbao by Uribe.
In addition to the Koldo Mitxelena Chair, the Etxepare Basque Institute oversees another seven chairs at Universities around the world. Each year all of them offer diverse subjects in Basque Studies, with the aim of teaching Basque culture, language and art at the highest academic levels. Some of the chairs have already publicised a detailed academic programme for this edition; others will follow in the coming weeks, as their programmes will take place in the second half of the year.
