Seminar: "Don Quixote: 400 years around the World"

10:00am Opening remarks by Prof. Adam Shoemaker, Dean of Arts, Faculty of Arts – Australian National University
10:05-11:00am Don Quixote and World Literature: The Reason of the Unreason Presented by Dr. Nilda Blanco, Senior Lecturer and Cervantes specialist.University of Waikato, New Zealand
11:15-12:15pm Don Quixote on screen: film cameras tilting at windmills? The never-ending adaptation of the Spanish universal myth Presented by Mr. David Rey, Fellow Researcher, University of Leipzig, Germany
12:15-1:15pm Lunch break
1:15-3:15pm Nureyev’s Don Quixote by The Australian National Ballet
3:15-3:30pm Closing remarks by Dr. Gino Moliterno, Film Studies,School of Humanities, Australian National University

Nilda Blanco (Havana, Cuba, 1943) holds a Ph.D. in Philological Sciences from the University of Havana, where she lectured for more than 25 years. Dr. Blanco is a Cervantes´specialist and is currently Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Latin-American literature at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Don Quixote is the first modern novel and the second most published book in the world. It has been translated to all languages. Each era or literary movement has appreciated Cervantes´work in different ways. Its influences are apparent in the most important literary works. Similarly, each artistic manifestation has its own version of the book´s protagonists and their values or about some aspects of Cervantes’ work.

David Rey (Galicia, Spain, 1974), holds a Honours Degree in German Studies and Philology from the University of Santiago de Compostela and is fellow researcher of the Centre for History and Culture of Middle East Europe of Leipzig (GWZO). As fellow researcher, University of Leipzig, Germany, he is currently completing his PhD thesis on historical master narratives of the Spanish Civil and Francoism in Spanish television since 1975.

Miguel de Cervantes’ literary masterpiece, Don Quixote, has been the focus of numerous film adaptations, some of which are unfinished quixotic attempts that, nonetheless, have been celebrated as cinematic landmarks. This lecture looks into the cinematic adventures, misfortunes and outcomes associated with Quest for the ultimate cinematic Quixote, discussing the fundamental question whether Don Quixote can or cannot be successfully made into a film, and if so, within which range of fidelity to the novel and the quixotic myth.