News from Berlin

In this part of the conference the chairman was Friedhelm Schmidt-Welle, part of the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut. Karen Lisboa from the Universidade de São Paulo and Andrés Jiménez Ángel, from the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt were exposing their ideas in the first part of the second workshop. The latter reflected on the works of the Colombian intellectuals Ezequiel Uricoechea, Rufino José Cuervo and Miguel Antonio Caro. Jiménez Ángel analyzed their role as dilettante, as a way to explain how science was experienced in Colombia at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. There was a selflessness in this process of spreading knowledge that gave them the character of dilettantism. In the case of Brazil, the lecture was on the travelers in Brazil, analyzing the theoretical and practical aspects of the cultural transference. The points of the commentator, Irina Podgorny, from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, polemicized on some of the details provided by the two scholars, leading to an intense discussion that ended with a break in which delicious pretzels were served.

Cristina Alarcón, from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, started her lecture talking about the relations within the Global South: the Transference South-South. She talked, specifically, on the import-export of knowledge through the Chilean Instituto Pedágógico, as a place of formation of teachers in Latin America from 1889 to 1939. During that time, Chile was perceived as the bridge between the new continent and the old world, through fellowships and other exchange programs. The last presentation of the day was given by Sandra Carreras, from the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, on the Deutscher Wissenschaftlicher Verein (DWV) and the Institución Cultural Argentino-Germana as intermediary organizations in the transference of knowledge between Argentina and Germany.

The discussion ends and a round table was formed to discuss the transnational production and appropriation of knowledge from a historical perspective.

News from Berlin – Berlin Global