University of Massachusetts Amherst-William Douglass Chair: Mariann Vaczi

Mariann Vaczi will be this year´s guest researcher for the William A. Douglas University of Massachusetts Amherst (Amherst, AEB), fostered by the Etxepare Basque Institute.

Lecture: ´Nation, Gender, and Fandom: An Ethnography of Basque Soccer (public lecture)´

22nd April, Herter Hall 301

Drawing from ethnographic research, this lecture will first discuss the pleasures and impasses of the tight bonds of identification that exist between soccer fans, their club and the players in Bilbao, with Athletic Club both reflecting and constructing Basque national identities and their historical changes. It will explore Basque soccer as a contested terrain of identity construction in the context of Spain, and will pay special attention to the gender dimensions of national representation and women’s presence in Basque and Spanish soccer as players, fans, leaders, sport writers, and WAGs (wives-and-girlfriends).

This event is sponsored by the Etxepare Institute of the Basque Ministry of Culture, with assistance from the Ramon Llull Institute.