Episode 28 with Anna Kathryn Kendrick
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.
The Episode
The Guest
Anna Kathryn Kendrick is Director of Global Awards and Scholarships and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Literature at NYU Shanghai. Her research interests include Spanish literature and intellectual thought, the history of education and child study, and aesthetics. Her first book, Humanizing Childhood in Early Twentieth-Century Spain, developed from her PhD dissertation, which was awarded the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland Prize for best doctoral thesis in Hispanic Studies in 2016. Her work has been published in the Modern Language Review and the Bulletin of Spanish Studies, among others. She is a member of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland, the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, the Modern Language Association and the National Association of Fellowship Advisors. She holds an M.Phil. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar, as well as an A.B. in History and Literature from Harvard University.
Suggested Reading
- Borrás Llop, José María, ed. Historia de la infancia en la España contemporánea (1834-1936). Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 1996.
- Capitán Díaz, Alfonso. Historia de la educación en España. 2 vols. Vol. II. Madrid: Dykinson, 1994.
- Galí, Alexandre, ed. Història de les institucions i del moviment cultural a Catalunya 1900-1936. 24 vols. Vol. II: Ensenyament primari, segona part. Barcelona: Fundació Alexandre Galí, 1979.
- Holguín, Sandy. Creating Spaniards: Culture and National Identity in Republican Spain. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
- Kendrick, Anna Kathryn. Humanizing Childhood in Early Twentieth-Century Spain. Cambridge: Legenda, 2020.
- Martínez Alfaro, Encarnación, Leoncio López-Ocon Cabrera, and Gabriela Ossenbach Sauter. Ciencia e innovación en las aulas: centenario del Instituto-Escuela (1918-1939). Madrid: UNED, 2019.
- Popkewitz, Thomas S. Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform: Science, Education, and Making Society by Making the Child. London: Routledge, 2008.
- Viñao Frago, Antonio. Escuela para todos: educación y modernidad en la España de Siglo XX. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2004.
Poems Featured
- García Lorca, Federico. Canciones, ed. by Mario Hernández. Madrid: Alianza, 1982.
- Guillén, Jorge, Cántico. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1928.
- Josefina de la Torre, ‘Mediodía’, in Poesía infantil recitable, ed. by José Luis Sánchez Trincado and Rafael Olivares Figueroa, 7. Madrid: M. Aguilar, 1934.
Historias 