Celebrating 75 years of international solidarity against fascism

December 4, 2011
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Celebrating 75 years of international solidarity against fascism

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the International Brigades, ALBA is hosting a benefit party in the spirit of the '30s on December 9th in New York City (tickets, info), including live music and a silent auction featuring Jo Davidson bust of Pasionaria (preview and bid). The ALBA...
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Posted in News

No man is a prophet in his own country: On Garzón’s legacy

November 6, 2011
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No man is a prophet in his own country: On Garzón’s legacy

(Texto en castellano.) The astoundingly profound and widespread contributions of Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón to the promotion of justice and human rights have been everywhere on display these last two weeks of October (October 16-30, 2011).  Though not always acknowledged in the...
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Posted in Blog, Essays

ALBA inaugurates Human Rights Film Series

December 4, 2011
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ALBA inaugurates Human Rights Film Series

Focusing a wide lens on the human rights agenda, ALBA hosted “Impugning Impunity: A Human Rights Documentary Film Series” at the Museum of the City of New York in November. The festival kicked off with Hollman Morris’ Impunity, a film about the victims of...
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Two students win 2011 ALBA essay awards

December 4, 2011
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Two students win 2011 ALBA essay awards

ALBA’s George Watt Memorial Essay Prizes are awarded annually to a graduate student and an undergraduate student who have written an outstanding essay or thesis chapter about any...
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Posted in News

Masculinity, sexuality & anti-clerical violence

December 4, 2011
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Masculinity, sexuality & anti-clerical violence

This essay examines a crucial facet of violence against the clergy: the processes by which male identities, and popular ideas regarding priests’ sexuality and masculinity, influenced the forms and...
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Posted in News, Essays

Radical liberation: A road to the Spanish Civil War

December 4, 2011
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Radical liberation: A road to the Spanish Civil War

The story of Thane Summers, a student at the University of Washington, provides a case study of one man’s road to the Spanish Civil War. Because he came from...
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Posted in News

Luis Buñuel, chameleon: Revelations from the “Red Decade”

December 4, 2011
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Luis Buñuel, chameleon: Revelations from the “Red Decade”

Luis Buñuel: The Red Years, 1929-1939, due to be published next month with the University of Wisconsin Press (excerpt, order), reveals scores of unknown facts about the life and work of Luis Buñuel during a crucial decade not only in the filmmaker’s life but in the history of film and photography—as well...
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Posted in Features, Reviews, Interviews

Buñuel and the outbreak of the war

December 4, 2011
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Buñuel and the outbreak of the war

Among the sources of information about Buñuel's activities during the first few weeks of the war: is a receipt signed dated 25 August 1936, for a loan of £490 granted by Leo Fleischman, an engineer from New York who enlisted in the Fifth Regiment...
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Posted in Features, Essays

Fanny, Queen of the Machine Gun

December 4, 2011
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Fanny, Queen of the Machine Gun

Fanny Schoonheyt, the tall, blond “queen of the machine gun,” was the only Dutch woman to join in the battle action during the Spanish Civil War. Her life is shrouded in mystery. Could she have been the only female foreign official in the Republican...
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Posted in Features

Documentaries of the Lincoln Brigade

December 4, 2011
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Documentaries of the Lincoln Brigade

Viewing seven documentaries about the Lincoln Brigade in two days, a curious thing happened: I had difficulty telling them apart. Not, of course, in their broad sweep. Rather, it...
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Posted in Essays

Spain puts SCW documentaries online

November 23, 2011
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Spain puts SCW documentaries online

The Spanish daily Público reports:  Spain’s Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts has uploaded to the Ministry of Culture’s youtube channel a selection of 93 film documents from its...
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Posted in Blog

The Mexican Suitcase, by Trisha Ziff

November 5, 2011
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The Mexican Suitcase, by Trisha Ziff

Two-thirds of the way into Trisha Ziff’s brilliant documentary about the re-discovery in Mexico of 4,500 Spanish Civil War photographic negatives of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour,...
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Posted in Blog

Salaria Kea’s Spanish memoirs

December 4, 2011
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Salaria Kea’s Spanish memoirs

Part of the difficulty in studying Kea’s life—and what makes her story so intriguing—is that subtle details change from memoir to memoir. Over the last three years, I have...
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Posted in Essays

The radicalization of a Boston son

December 4, 2011
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The radicalization of a Boston son

Young men volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War for many reasons, but few American volunteers came from privileged backgrounds. When I saw 1938 and Calaceite, Spain, on...
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Posted in Essays

UC Davis: Is it fascism yet?

November 21, 2011
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UC Davis: Is it fascism yet?

It was in 2006 that I first saw this phrase, on a button worn by a young man on the uptown 6 train.  I was on the subway heading...
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Posted in Blog

Book Review: War on the diplomatic front

December 4, 2011
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Book Review: War on the diplomatic front

Al servicio de la República. Diplomáticos y guerra civil. Edited by Ángel Viñas. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2010. Diplomats are funny creatures. On the one hand, they embody an anachronistic...
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Posted in Reviews

Book Review: Quakers & the SCW

December 4, 2011
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Book Review: Quakers & the SCW

Quaker Relief Work in the Spanish Civil War. By Farah Mendlesohn. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. During the Spanish Civil War, in the face of the enormous civilian...
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Posted in Reviews

Book Review: Ernest Hemingway’s pal

December 4, 2011
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Book Review: Ernest Hemingway’s pal

Grace Under Pressure: The Life of Evan Shipman. By Sean O’Rourke. Harwood Publishing and Unlimited Publishing, 2011. “I owe Spain a great deal,” Evan Shipman wrote to his good friend...
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Posted in Reviews

Back at San Pedro de Cardeña

November 22, 2011
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Back at San Pedro de Cardeña

I had come to Burgos from New York City in order to lend my presence in representing the families of the former prisoners at San Pedro de Cardeña. My...
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Posted in Blog

Nancy Wallach at San Pedro

November 22, 2011
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Nancy Wallach at San Pedro

Nancy Wallach, daughter of Lincoln vet Hy Wallach, spoke recently at a gathering in the former concentration campo of San Pedro de Cardeña, where the Francoists held her father,...
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Posted in Blog

Remembering the IB in Madrid

November 13, 2011
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Remembering the IB in Madrid

The commemorations celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the International Brigades came at the very end of a strange never-ending summer. The blue skies that presided over...
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Posted in Blog