FUTURES PAST: HORIZONS OF EXPECTATION FOR NORTH AMERICAN CATALAN STUDIES

This article returns to a speculative critique on the state of Catalan Studies in the North American academy published in 2004 by Joan Ramon Resina titled “Hi ha futur per als estudis catalans a l’Amèrica del Nord?” This return to the past is mediated by the distinction that Reinhart Kosselleck makes between two historical categories: expectation and experience. In a post-pandemic, post-recession academic landscape that privileges survival as the dominant mode of being in the field, the article concludes that the melancholic narrowing of the field is countered by a productive opening of creative research possibilities made possible by the retrenchment of market considerations.