We begin this new semester of Iberian Con­nec­tions devoted to the central question of the study of the Iberian Con­nec­tions and Public Human­ities. We want to explore how the work we do in the aca­demic world is not, and cannot be, dis­con­nected from the public sphere. Maybe the public sphere, as we used to know it, has bursted into a con­stel­lation of bubbles that seem to have their own grav­i­ta­tional fields. We want to inves­tigate how history, philology, the human­ities, the social sci­ences, etc. tackle the cul­tural, political, and social dynamics of those bubbles and their grav­i­ta­tional fields, thus impacting public and political life.

Our first guest is Sarah J Pearce pro­poses a critical reading of Darío Fernández-Morera’s recent The Myth of the Andalusian Par­adise. Beyond explaining the argu­ments of this spe­cific book, which she reads with painstaking attention and expertise, Pearce delves into ques­tions about how the human­ities are always public in many dif­ferent ways –including the uses of the past to support political visions.