EXODUS: Mapping a lost tradition: Golden Age Drama in the Spanish Republican Exile (1939-1975)

Almost half a million Spanish left their homeland at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Among these refugees were agents who during the Second Spanish Republic contributed to the revitalization of Golden Age Drama (GAD), one of the major landmarks in the history of world theatre. It has been argued that in the diaspora established in Latin America a network of Spanish exiles contributed to the transnational diffusion of this legacy. However, this hypothesis has yet to be explored in a systematic manner. EXODUS will settle this deficit and reconstruct the history of the staging of GAD in relation to Spanish exile (1939-75). The project has 2 objectives: 1) to reconstruct the network of refugees involved in the dissemination of GAD, and 2) to explain how GAD was staged in exile, particularly by women, the most neglected group of displaced Spaniards. This MSCA will provide the ideal conditions to develop EXODUS: a) it will pair my background in GAD with the knowledge of my supervisor, Prof Wheeler (UNIVLEEDS), world expert in GAD, Theater and Gender Studies; b) it will strengthen my profile as Digital Humanist by learning Python, which will allow me to perform Social Network Analysis and which I will learn during my Secondment at ITU. EXODUS will offer an alternative history of the staging of the GAD, traditionally narrated in terms of the reactionary stagings produced in Francoist Spain. It will also provide a methodology for analysing networks of exiles reproducible across chronological and geographical settings. It will dignify exiles by highlighting their role as transnational disseminators of their cultures. This is particularly timely, as it will offer a discourse that will counter the one launched by the rising ultra-right parties against refugees. EXODUS will allow me to build upon my credentials as a leading expert in GAD to becoming an independent researcher with new intellectual insights and methodological approaches and capable of leading my research group.