Lecture “El futuro, frustrado: Perspectivas sobre la infancia queer” by Alberto Mira, organized by the Chair of Artistic Studies. 20th / 21st centuries

Lecture “El futuro, frustrado: Perspectivas sobre la infancia queer” by Alberto Mira, organized by the Chair of Artistic Studies. 20th / 21st centuries

Alberto Mira

Born in Alzira (Valencia) I studied English and Spanish Philology at the University of Valencia. Worked on an MA on gay theatre which sparked an interest on gay history and queer aesthetics and was followed up by a PhD dissertation on the queer aspects of the theatrical voices of Tennessee Williams and Joe Orton.

Spent two years as language assistant at Oxford University (Taylor Institution, 1989 – 1991) and a year as lecturer at Universitat Jaume I (1991 – 1992) in Castelló (Spain).  In 1993 I returned to the United Kingdom where I have held a number of posts: between 1992 and 1995, I lectured in Spanish film, language and literature at Oxford University, in 1995 my first full time lecturing position at Middlesex University, where I taught several courses on language, literature and translation. In 1997 I became Queen Sofia Research Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford. In October 1999 I started my current job as a Reader at Oxford Brookes University.

I started at the Spanish department, and then was transferred to Film Studies in 2005. I was awarded sabbatical leave with the support of AHRC grants in 2002 and 2006, which allowed me two write my main monographs on gay cultures in Spain and on queer cinema. Since 2003 I published fiction, translation, academic and reference volumes, as well as articles on authors such as Terenci Moix, Pedro Almodóvar, Eduardo Mendicutti, Iván Zulueta, Mario Casas, Eduardo Blanco Amor, Manuel Puig, Federico García Lorca and other authors. Currently I am a member of the HERA funded project Crusev (“Cruising the Seventies”) and am preparing projects on pop musicals, and queer boyhoods.

CHAIR OF ARTISTIC STUDIES. 20th/21st CENTURIES

IVAM-UV-UPV (Institut Valencià d’Art Modern-Universitat de València-Universitat Politècnica de València-Universidad Miguel Hernández)

Directors: Juan Vicente Aliaga / Vicente Sánchez-Biosca

The life in images of contemporary culture outruns the (material and immaterial) traditional spaces in which they were entrapped in the past, even the recent past. Their genres and registers, their ambits of circulation, their ceaseless migrations give the impression of offering a previously unknown experience of the real at the same time as, in an apparent paradox, they display a not in the least feigned technological pride.

Nevertheless, however much studies of the History of Art, Fine Arts, Journalism and Audiovisual Communication have attempted to adapt to the demands of this state of affairs, the lability of the borders between creation and reflection, technology and art, the media and the collective imaginary, among others, requires more ductile ambits of reflection and debate than those to be found in university studies and traditional research. On the other hand, unlike classical philology, palaeography, the exegesis of written texts and the image still presents an imbalance between its (emotional, conceptual, political, memory-based) impact and the instruments provided to analyse it.

The aim of Cátedra Estudios Artísticos, arising from the collaboration between the University of Valencia, the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the IVAM, will consist in encouraging this reflection about the life of images both in the world of art and in social life, including imaginary. It will do so broadmindedly, avoiding academic, artistic or technological restrictions, but, nevertheless, thriving on and taking advantage of all the academic, museum-based and institutional aids at its disposal. For that reason, the fact that it is held at the IVAM is propitious because it can enrich its activities with the reflection about exhibitions, installations or lectures, and also the series of projections.