From Colonial Pride and Hispanic Prejudice

1898 is a crucial moment in Spain’s cultural history: Losing its last Colonies Cuba and the Philippines to the USA caused an unprecedented crisis in Spanish self-understanding that set a complex process of spiritual reconstruction rolling. To rebuild Spanish cultural identity as isolated state nation without losing touch with those parts of the Colonial past that were felt as belonging to its broader cultural environment required sophisticated reflection. Cultural issues had to take over the function to bridge between national borders. Music got is own part in this recycling of the Colonial into the Hispanic.

La figure de la sorcière dans la littérature du XIXe siècle (Jules Michelet, George Sand, Eliza Orzeszkowa)

The nineteenth century uncovered and analysed the tragic episodes of witch-hunting and ‘witch’ trials common in Renaissance Europe. Fascinating not only to historians, this subject also inspired men of letters who popularized the image of the witch as an old, ugly and evil person, who thus deserved her lot. Jules Michelet’s La sorcière of 1862 takes a very different approach. Simultaneously a literary and historical work, the book proved scandalous as it rehabilitated the figure of the witch, shedding favourable light on her image: it was the witch who was able to save a last spark of humanity in moments of despair; it was she who acted as comforter and healer to the people. In the context of nineteenth-century literature, certain works by female authors that focused on ‘witches,’ stand out. Whilst certain male authors (Michelet included) presented the witch as a figure from the past, who had finally perished in the 17th century, texts such as George Sand’s La petite Fadette (1848) or Eliza Orzeszkowa’s Dziurdziowie (1885), suggest that the end of witch trials did not imply an end to accusations, persecutions, and even executions of ‘witches’ – and, that in terms of culture, witchcraft or sorcery had not disappeared from the societies they knew.

Reinach-Nord (BL, Suisse): Une ferme gauloise à l'aube de l'époque romaine

Situé dans la vallée de la Birse, Reinach appartient à l'arrière-pays de Bâle et est localisé dans la plaine du Rhin supérieur. Cette zone jouant un rôle important pendant la Guerre des Gaules ainsi que durant le Ier siècle apr. J.-C., on doit envisager de forts bouleversements du peuplement de cette région au changement d'ère. Grâce à des conditions favorables, les structures de La Tène finale au lieu-dit "Mausacker" sont très bien conservées et permettent de restituer une ferme laténienne avec deux phases différentes. Au même endroit se situe une villa gallo-romaine, mieux connue par ses enclos funéraires que par les structures résidentielles. Des études pluridisciplinaires financées par le Fonds national suisse (FNS) sont en cours pour les vestiges laténiens et gallo-romains de Reinach-Nord.