Repositioning modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde in Spain: A transatlantic debate at the Residencia de Estudiantes

The purpose of this bilingual, collaborative, many-voiced essay is to distill the dynamic, insightful and at times polemical exchange of ideas that took place during the “Modernity and the Avant-Garde in Spain: A Debate from the Perspectives of the United States and Spain” symposium organized by Susan Larson and Juan Herrero-Senés on July 17 and 18, 2019 in the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid. The gathering brought together 14 scholars (seven based in Spain and the rest in the United States and Great Britain) whose research stems from a wide variety of methodologies and intellectual traditions. This encounter was a unique opportunity to engage directly with each other’s work, to answer key questions about promising theoretical approaches and to share strategies to collectively solve some of the most pressing problems that are commonly faced by researchers and students in this rapidly-changing field. After the co-authors consider some of the most important ideas that came out of the encounter, this essay ends with the brief interventions of the participants in the dialogues: Andrew A. Anderson, Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles, Nicolás Fernández-Medina, Leslie J. Harkema, Juan Herrero-Senés, Juli Highfill, Susan Larson, Abelardo Linares, José-Carlos Mainer, Domingo Ródenas de Moya, Nil Santiáñez, Renée M. Silverman, and Andrés Soria Olmedo.