Seville as a “New Rome”: The 16th Century and Renaissance
After 1492 and the arrival of Columbus in America, Queen Isabella the Catholic founded the Casa de Contratación – House of Trade in Seville, and the city became the most important port in the kingdom. At that time, Seville was the capital of the known Old World and of the New World of America.
The 16th century is the century par excellence in Seville; the most important civil buildings are from this period, such as the town hall but also the Lonja, the current Archive of the Indies, built after the royal visit of Philip II.
New styles in art and architecture, but also new ideas arrive in Seville: in the recently founded university and in the navigational school, classic texts of geography or mathematics are translated while Magellan begins the first circumnavigation of the planet from the city; new plant species from America were planted in private gardens in the city; Hernando Colón, son of the explorer Christopher Columbus, owned one of the largest libraries in Spain, preserving Erasmus of Rotterdam´s books, at the same time that the Inquisition began to ban texts.
Come and discover Seville in the 16th century with us!
Date: Saturday, December 11, 2020
Time: 11:00 am
Duration: 90 minutes
Meeting Point: Puerta de Jerez, Bancos de la Fuente de Híspalis. The tour will end at the Alameda de Hercules (lunch time).
Fee: 13€. Cash will not be accepted. Pay for your reservation now but wait to pay for any guests until you receive confirmation that space will be available for them.
Payment Methods:
By Credit/Debit (Bank) Card OR By Bank Transfer
Number of participants: Maximum 9. Priority will be given to AWC members; other guests may be registered on a space-available basis. Message Maruja on WhatsSApp at 617 78 08 74 to add a name to the waiting list.
Covid Restrictions: Restrictions in place on the day of the event will be enforced. Please wear a mask and remember to maintain appropriate distance from others in the group.
Contact Person: Maruja Herrera Menchén, WhatsApp 617 78 08 74.
Movie Night Online
We will meet December 5th at 7pm on Zoom to talk about the movie. You have until then to watch it! It’s available on Netflix.
Scent of a Woman is a 1992 American drama film produced and directed by Martin Brest that tells the story of a preparatory school student who takes a job as an assistant to an irritable, blind, medically retired Army officer. The film is a remake of Dino Risi‘s 1974 Italian film Profumo di donna, adapted by Bo Goldman from the novel Il buio e il miele (Italian: Darkness and Honey) by Giovanni Arpino and from the 1974 screenplay by Ruggero Maccari and Dino Risi. The film stars Al Pacino and Chris O’Donnell, with James Rebhorn, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Gabrielle Anwar.
Here is the link to join the movie night group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/0OdJRCEbNtFLxZyhBdteAw
Gymkhana—NEW
See other details HERE.
Gymkhana!
Come on a walk and scavenger hunt through the center of Seville!
Follow a set of directions from point to point around town; find items related to Seville’s art, history, or silliness. Take a photo and answer a question or two, then on to the next stop!
This is an independent activity— you can do it alone, or with a team of up to 4. Choose your own date and time. The challenge starts on Sunday, November 29 and runs until Sunday December 20.
The route is 6,5 km. It starts and ends in Plaza Nueva, at the arch of the Ayuntamiento. Allow at least 3 hours for the entire route, not counting breaks. If you would prefer to walk a shorter distance, the points for 2, 3, 4, or 5 kilometers are indicated in the text.
Download the route description at http://awcseville.com/gymkhana/
After signing up, please let us know when you plan to do the walk, and who your team members are. Contact Kathy Sherretts on WhatsApp, 662151800, and we will note your schedule. (We want to avoid having multiple AWC members on the course at the same time.)
I did not indicate a stop for coffee or tapas, but I encourage you to stop and take a break at any bars or cafés that look interesting! Part of what this is about is to find something new to enjoy in Sevilla. Remember to turn off your timer when you stop, and turn it back on again when you go back to the route. (And make a note where you stopped, in case we want to try the place later!)
While our Covid perimeter restrictions are in place, only Seville residents can sign up for the event. However, we have a home version of the instructions that can be used with the Street View of Google Maps—we hope that you will take the challenge from home! (Get the Street View instructions at http://awcseville.com/gymkhana/)
For more information, contact Kathy Sherretts on WhatsApp, 662151800.
We will announce the results, with a few of our favorite photos, in the January AWC newsletter.
February Book Club
Book: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world–until the unthinkable happens.
In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/793… Meeting ID: 793 215 1881
Any questions? Please contact Barbara Guidera at Barbara.Guidera@spanishstudies.org or Mary Keegan at mskeegan10@gmail.com.
January Book Club
Book: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/793… Meeting ID: 793 215 1881
Any questions? Please contact Barbara Guidera at Barbara.Guidera@spanishstudies.org or Mary Keegan at mskeegan10@gmail.com.
Movie Night Online—NEW!
Movie Night Online is in the making! We are going to meet online to watch Remains of the Day on Netflix. It will be Saturday, November 21 at 8:00pm. After the movie we will have a little chat on Zoom. You will need to have Google Chrome on your computer. Zoom meeting details will be sent prior to 8:00pm.
Here is a link that explains how it works: https://watchnetflixtogether.com
Here is the link to join the movie night group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/0OdJRCEbNtFLxZyhBdteAw
Tomares Breakfast Club
Bada Bar
Plaza del Ayuntamiento, 5
Tomares 41940
Due to current Covid19 restrictions, a breakfast club in Tomares for local residents.
Pay for what you consume!
For more information contact Joanne Waage on 635847838 or Whatsapp.