Arts and humanities, the melting pot of the 20th century Catalan culture
The book La Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres de la Universitat de Barcelona (1902-1973). Un gresol dʼintel·lectualitat (Edicions UB, 2023), by the lecturer of the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Barcelona Agustí G. Larios, gathers the history of the faculty over almost all the 20th century and it shows the important role played by this center in the history of the Catalan cultural world.
The book La Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres de la Universitat de Barcelona (1902-1973). Un gresol dʼintel·lectualitat (Edicions UB, 2023), by the lecturer of the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Barcelona Agustí G. Larios, gathers the history of the faculty over almost all the 20th century and it shows the important role played by this center in the history of the Catalan cultural world.
Throughout the 20th century, a great part of the cultural elite in Catalonia stepped into the classrooms of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the UB, one of the places where the intellectuality of the country was built. Despite the general dynamism that prevaded the world of ideas and knowledge of the time, the faculty took a long time to break away from its conservative tradition and embrace innovations: it underwent fluctuations and changes such as, among others, the expansion of majors in 1910, the university autonomy during the Spanish Republic, the post-war regression, the massification of the 60s and the Maluquer Plan.
This book, which received in 2022 the Jaume Vicens Vives Award on Contemporary History by the Institute for Catalan Studies, joins the historiographic study of the Catalan cultural world and it provides the readers with the keys to identifying and understanding the lines of continuity and the changing circumstances of an institution that contributed to the progress of knowledge. The chapters of this volume go over the contradictions of the centralist university system, the road to the autonomy, renewals of the university framework, the upheaval of the Civil War, the Francoist reorganization of studies, the subsequent transformation of the teaching staff and the division of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Agustí G. Larios got his doctorate in Contemporary History at the University of Barcelona. He is now a lecturer in this university and is a member of the Intellectual and Cultural History Group of Studies (GEHCI). His main research lines are political history, sociability, cultural history and history of the universities. He is the co-author of several monographs, among which are Els inicis de lʼassociacionisme contemporani a Sant Feliu de Llobregat (1850-1914) (1997), Les festes majors a lʼHospitalet: barris Centre i Sant Josep (1999) and Cent anys de cooperativisme agrari a Sant Boi de Llobregat (1909-2009) (2009).
La Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres de la Universitat de Barcelona (1902-1973). Un gresol dʼintel·lectualitat is part of the archive of history books of the UB by UB Editions, which includes volumes such as Breu història de la Universitat de Barcelona (with Spanish English editions), by Montserrat Fullola Pericot; La Universitat de Barcelona. Història dels ensenyaments (1450-2010), coordinated by Josep M. Fullola Pericot, Francesc Gracia Alonso and Jordi Casassas i Ymbert, and the collective work Els tresors de la Universitat de Barcelona. Fons bibliogràfic del CRAI Biblioteca de Reserva.