Spanish Civil War Posters
This gallery and accompanying historical essay describing a collection of Spanish Civil War posters, emerged through a collaboration between the Wisconsin Historical Society and Dr. Giuliana Chamedes’s Fascism: Then & Now course. Robert Christl, a graduate fellow with the Constellations program and PhD student in the History Department, translated many of the posters into English and wrote the introductory essay. The posters were digitized by the Historical Society staff and the gallery is hosted on their website. The Civil War-era posters illustrate how the Popular Front portrayed the conflict as a global anti-fascist struggle.
The WHS’s larger collection of archival materials from the conflict, including photos of and letters written by American volunteers who traveled to Spain to fight for the Republic. The posters demonstrate how the Republic linked the Civil War and the fight against Franco to the global struggle with fascism. They reproduce speeches from President Manuel Azaña, celebrate republican victories on the battlefield, and extol Spaniards and foreigners to show solidarity with soldiers and civilian populations attacked by Franco. The posters also demonstrate the ideological diversity of the anti-fascist coalition, including republicans, socialists, anarchists, and communists.
Graphic Medicine Events
In spring 2019, Constellations brought MK Cerwiec (aka the Comic Nurse) to campus as part of our Health & Inequality Constellation. MK Czerwiec, RN, MA is a nurse, cartoonist, educator, and co-founder of the field of Graphic Medicine. She was is an artist in residence at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and served as a Senior Fellow of the George Washington School of Nursing Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement and as an Applied Cartooning Fellow of the Center for Cartoon Studies.
Constellations provided each student in Prof. Jennel Johnson’s Communication Arts 317: Rhetoric & Health class with a copy of MK’s graphic novel, Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371.
MK Czerwiec also led a graphic medicine workshop February 26, 2020. Participants examined the role of illustration in their professional and personal explorations of health, illness, disability, and caregiving. MK led us in drawing exercises and small group discussions that considered the methods of graphic medicine in educational and care provision environments.
As part of her visit, MK Czerwiec also gave a guest lecture in Communication Arts 317: Rhetoric and Health, and a public talk on Graphic Medicine on February 27th at Cooper Hall.
For additional opportunities in Public Humanities on the UW-Madison campus for undergraduate and graduate students (including funded opportunities!), please see the Center for the Humanities.