Coming soon: IBMT conference on artists and writers

Taking Sides: Artists and Writers on the Spanish Civil War

Saturday, 1 March 2014, 11am-5pm, Manchester Conference Centre (Sackville Street, Manchester M1 3BB)

International Brigade Memorial Trust’s annual Len Crome Memorial Lecture

A public lecture day in Manchester on 1 March will focus on the wealth of outstanding literature, film, photography and art generated by the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, both at the time and afterwards.

The four speakers (above, from left), Carl-Henrik Bjerstrom, Professor Valentine Cunningham, Dr Carmen Herrero and Jane Rogoyska, all experts in their fields, will focus on how the war in Spain has been portrayed in words and images.

This is the second year running that the lecture day is being held in Manchester. Last year’s event, which centred on the 75th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia”, drew an audience of 250.

The annual lecture is held in memory of Dr Len Crome, a GP from Blackburn who went to Spain in December 1936 and became the chief medical officer of the International Brigades.

Over 2,500 men and women from the British Isles joined 35,000 volunteers from 53 countries to fight in the International Brigades. One hundred and thirty were from the Manchester area and 35 of them were killed – out of the total of 526 from Britain and Ireland who died in Spain. 

Many more people joined the Aid Spain movement, sending ambulances, money and food to those defending the Spanish Republic against General Franco’s uprising supported by Hitler and Mussolini.

Speakers

– Carl-Henrik Bjerstrom’s research at Royal Holloway, London University, centres on the cultural politics of the left in Spain in the 1930s. 

– Valentine Cunningham, Professor of English Language and Literature at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, has written widely on the literatue of the 1930s. He is the author of “British Writers of the Thirties” and editor of “The Penguin Book of Spanish Civil War Verse”.

– Dr Carmen Herrero is Principal Lecturer on Spanish Culture and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University.

– Jane Rogoyska is a writer, filmmaker and author of “Gerda Taro: Inventing Robert Capa”. 

– The event will be chaired by Mary Vincent (above, right), Professor of Modern European History at Sheffield University. Her books include “Spain, 1833-2002: People and State”.

For further information contact:

Dolores Long (Chair, International Brigade Memorial Trust): doloreslong@fastmail.fm  0161 226 2013 (h) 07986 739558 (m)