The University of Vigo recently hosted the Second Gibraltar Language, Literature, and Culture Conference, building on the preliminary event held at the University of Cambridge last year. Over twenty-five delegates from Italy, Gibraltar, Bangladesh, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Puerto Rico, and the UK attended, presenting nearly thirty talks on a wide range of subjects, including code-switching, linguistics, literary analysis, history and general Gibraltarian culture. 

Three plenary sessions were delivered during the conference – by Professor Laura Wright from the University of Cambridge, Carmen Parafita-Couto from the Universiteit Leiden and Gibraltarian author and academic M. G. Sanchez.

Various Gibraltarian speakers took part in the event, including Dale Buttigieg with his talk titled “The past, present and future of Ligurian and Haketía in Llanito”, John Manuel Enriles with “The role of Llanito in preserving Gibraltar’s multilingual culture”, Sophie Macdonald with “Gibraltar at the untidy edges of decolonisation: Gibraltar’s cultural hybridity, language and placement on the UN’s list of Non-Self Governing Territories”, and Dominic Lopez with “Gibraltar: Colonialism and Spanish Immigration”.

From a literary perspective, too, there was also much of Gibraltarian interest, with Trino Cruz Serruya delivering a talk titled “Crossroad and Threshold: Writing in the Strait of Gibraltar”, and Giordano Durante’s “Like a second heart - nostalgia and language loss in contemporary Gibraltarian Literature”, in which the journalist and poet described the theme of nostalgia in the work of Humbert Hernandez, Gabriel Moreno, and M. G. Sanchez. Other literature highlights included presentations from Rafael Vélez Núñez from the University of Cadiz and Isabel Alonso from the University of Barcelona, who both delivered talks about M. G. Sanchez’s literary works.

The delegates were welcomed to Vigo at a reception hosted in El Pazo Quiñones de León by city councillor and academic Professor Jaime Arneiros, in conjunction with the event’s main organiser, Professor Elena Seoane of the University of Vigo’s English Department. In her welcome address, Professor Seoane observed, “Gibraltar’s socio-cultural identity is not very well known internationally and often subject to unfounded prejudices. As academics, writers, teachers, and admirers of Gibraltarian culture, it is our duty to promote it and unveil its richness to a global audience.” The reception ended with Gibraltarian slam poet Jonathan Teuma reciting a number of his poems. 

The final event of the conference was the launch of Gibraltarians and their Language, a collaborative volume edited by Elena Seoane, Cristina Suárez-Gómez, Lucía Loureiro-Porto and M. G. Sanchez, featuring the linguistic biographies of prominent Gibraltarians, including John Cortes, Charles Durante, Davina Barbara, Humbert Hernandez, Jackie Villa, Giordano Durante, John Manuel Enriles, Dale Buttigieg, Rebecca Calderon, Jamie Trinidad, Gabriel Moreno, Julian Felice, Jonathan Teuma, Michelle Rugeroni and others. 

The new book is currently for sale on unebook.es for 9.50 euros and will shortly be available on Amazon.