Edicions UB presents new theatre and poetry collections at the Catalan Book Week

The book És aquí que fan comèdia? El teatre breu català a les darreries de l'Edat Moderna, by Anna Maria Villalonga, inaugurates the Biblioteca Càmar series in the UB Philology collection, directed by Joan Santanach. The volume examines the Catalan drama of the second half of the 18^th century and the first half of the 20^th century, which, although it was despised by the enlightened intellectuals and opposed by the Church, it enjoyed extraordinary popular success and it laid the foundations for later comedy of manners. The book offers, for the first time, a complete corpus of this genre — with a catalogue of more than one hundred and fifty works, most of them unknown and unpublished — and it defines its characteristics, main themes and constants in terms of characters, plots, motifs and humorous and linguistic resources. 

The edition L'ombra desigual / Partes del fuego begins the first poetry collection of UB Editions, Reversos, linked to the Poetry Room of the University of Barcelona. This volume includes two works: L'ombra desigual, by Susanna Rafart, and Partes del fuego, by Lorenzo Oliván. It is no coincidence that the two works are articulated along similar lines of thought, since the aim of this new collection is, in the words of its director, Noemí Montetes-Mairal, "to link the work and poetics of two related authors: to see how, if they are linked, their verses create a new voice".

One outstanding work is the manual El món d’avui. De la guerra freda al reptes de la interdependència global, by Antoni Segura, which results from years of work and last-minute updates —with the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine in between—, an essential work of contemporary historiography. Since the Second World War, the global panorama has evolved at a dizzying pace with the explosion of the Third World, China after Mao, Latin America under the influence of the United States, the communist implosion in the USSR, Japan and the BRICS and terrorism, among others. The latest volume in the Centre for International Historical Studies Collection (CEHI-UB) covers the period from 1945 to the present day, and allows us to trace and analyze the episodes that have led us to the international scenario of today's world.     

Dones? Homes? Sexe i gènere, biologia i cultura, by Jordi Casanova i Roca, states that sex is the biological phenomenon that manifests itself in the existence of male and female animals, and that gender is the role that human societies impose, or want to impose, on people. What is the relationship between biological sex and social gender? Do we have to deny, in order to combat gender roles, the existence of differentiated sexual characteristics? Why are almost all human societies patriarchal? Does the path of transgenderism lead to transsexuality? The aim of the latest book in the popular science collection Catálisis is not to give closed answers, but rather to provide an approach to what these questions raise. 

The collection Figura shows that, in Spain, comparative literature has a tradition that can be considered logical and paradoxical at the same time: although the main critics have shown an implicitly comparative attitude, they have not submitted to the guidelines officially set by the university chairs. Edited by Antoni Martí Monterde and Teresa Rosell Nicolás, Comparatisme i crítica literària. La literatura comparada a Catalunya presents the contributions of fifteen researchers who write about talented authors with a European outlook, such as Ventura Ametller, Ferenc Olivér Brachfeld, Aurora Bertrana, Josep Maria Corredor, Joan Crexells, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Josep Palàcios, Jaume Pérez Montaner, Josep Maria Poblet, Rafael Tasis and Llorenç Villalonga.   

In the artistic field, two novelties are presented. On the one hand, Elles, les dones, també hi eren. Corresponsals femenines de Víctor Balaguer (1848-1896) (Singularitats collection), by Montserrat Comas i Güell, which uncovers Balaguer's social network from the female perspective — usually invisible — and reveals the intellectual work of the women who formed part of his liberal milieu and shows the difficulties that the great majority of them had to overcome in silence. On the other hand, the third title in the Quaderns d'Art i Natura collection, Història d'un Gaudí ocult, by Xavier Jové and Teresa-M. Sala, reconstructs the creative process of the Estenard de l'Orfeó Feliuà, designed by Antoni Gaudí in 1902 and of singular beauty. Although in the decorative arts the authorship of the works is usually unknown, the metal plate on the back of the insignia has made it possible to interpret it in a symbolic and constructive key in the context of the period, and to draw up a comprehensive history.   

In the field of urban planning, a co-publication with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Caminant la ciutat. Barcelona com a experiència urbana, by Estanislau Roca, Inés Aquilué and Renata Gomes (ed.), a translation into Catalan of Walking the city. Barcelona as an urban experience, which was also published in Spanish. The aim of this volume, based on a teaching and research project of the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), is to deepen the reader's knowledge of Barcelona through various routes through the city that bring the reader closer to the architecture, sociology, history and other factors that define the Catalan capital. 

The eighth issue of the contemporary culture magazine Compàs d'amalgama, which contains a monographic dossier dedicated to rural areas and presents photographs by the Dutch photographer Yurian Quintanas Nobel, is presented as the latest novelty. This magazine, directed by Francesco Ardolino and Teresa-M. Sala, brings together articles and interviews in the literary, artistic, philosophical, pedagogical, scientific and urban planning fields.