The Idea of the Child and the Spanish Avant Garde

Historias: The Spanish History Podcast

The idea of the child was central to the regenerationist thinking that swept Spain in the wake of the country’s defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Professor Anna Kathryn Kendrick, author of Humanizing Childhood in Early Twentieth-Century Spain, explores the philosophical origins of early 20th-century calls for educational reform in Catholicism, holism and the emerging field of psychology. We’ll also take a look at the interest that Spain’s avant garde artists of the time had in children, with Kendrick reading and analyzing excerpts from the poetry of Federico García Lorca, Jorge Guillén and Josefina de la Torre.