A Nation of Monasteries: The Legacy of Víctor Balaguer in the Spanish Conception of National Monuments
Medieval Spanish monasteries were turned into monuments through a series of political struggles that claimed them for competing ideas of the nation from federalist, Catholic, regional, and fascist conceptions of Spain. Víctor Balaguer was a key figure in establishing the centrality of monasteries in the Spanish national imaginary. Monasteries, seen as nodes in a network that structured the Iberian territory since medieval times, were central to his political conception of the relation between Catalan and Spanish nationalism. Significantly, monasteries have remained central to debates about Spanish nationalism from 1835 to the World Heritage designations of the twentieth century. Seen in this light, monasteries appear more as instruments of political and cultural processes than as static objects. They are monuments in constant evolution, the changing and dynamic outcome of an intricate and complex process of confrontation and negotiation between social agents who struggle to define their value and meaning to the nation.
A Social History Of Modern Spain
An uncertain liberalism. Part 1 A century of dynamism: an evolving economy agriculture the textile industry transportation mining. Part 2 The land: the creation of private property Galicia. Part 3 Cities and towns: Catalonia Asturias The Basque Provinces Madrid. Part 4 Identities: the church, religion and belief national militia and civil guard education and language Caciquismo. Part 5 The Franco regime and after: the land Latifundia the consumer society culture.
Negotiating the cultural and economic outcomes of sport heritage attractions: the case of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
ABSTRACT Contemporary museums must balance their roles as commercial entities and repositories of various, and often dissonant, heritages and histories. Sports museums in particular often have clear commercial and nostalgic aims, particularly through tourist visitation, though the extent to which they represent more challenging narratives remains unclear. This paper examines how one of the most famous sports museums in the world, the National Baseball Hall of Fame (NBHF) in Cooperstown, New York, balances its dual role as tourist attraction and repository of baseball's sometimes checkered past. It was found that different sections of the museum provide greater or lesser degrees of engagement with more controversial issues, although the commercial outputs and appeal of the museum remains clear throughout. Utlimately, the NBHF demonstrates that balancing veneration and critique in collections can be commercially prosperous, and can provide a template for other sport and popular culture museums who may be wary of incorporating more challenging narratives in their exhibits. Furthermore, the symbiotic relationship between the Hall of Fame and the village of Cooperstown, particularly in creating and maintaining cultural and economic outputs, requires further exploration.