Ministry of Culture Organizes Symposium About Pedro Henríquez Ureña

Ministry of Culture Organizes Symposium About Pedro Henríquez Ureña
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, August 28, 2014

The Ministry of Culture presented a symposium on “The First Seven Volumes of the Complete Works of Pedro Henríquez Ureña,” in Cuesta Centro del Libro, where two academics analyzed in depth the life and work of the Humanist.

Núñez said that the focus of Henríquez Ureña’s work is the role of the concept of humanity, even though he clarified that such focus has bad press because of a lack of understanding of the term.

Manuel Núñez, a member of the Academy of the Language, and Irene Pérez Guerra, linguist and academic, were introduced by Basilio Belliard, Director of Literary Management of the Ministry of Culture, alongside Diómedes Nuñéz Polanco, Director of the National Library. Valentín Amaro, Director of the Book and Reading, was also present.

Núñez said that the focus of Henríquez Ureña’s work is the role of the concept of humanity, even though he clarified that such focus has bad press because of a lack of understanding of the term.

As he explained, for the Dominican Humanist, the term Hispanic only refers to the union of all the nations in the American continent, which were previously part of the Kingdom of Spain.

Such ideas make up the concept of being Hispanic, which is a cultural concept unrelated to the topic of race.

Manuel Núñez recognizes that Ureña is the cultural Historian of Hispanic America, and emphasized that it was in Santo Domingo where the first poets and writers of America first emerged. 

In the Humanist’s opinion, the main issue is the Spanish language, and because of this, he became primarily a Linguist.

Finally, he informed that around 400 million people across the planet speak the Spanish language, that it is the fifth most predominant language in the world, and that, currently, it is also the most studied.

Pérez Guerra’s exposition focused on making a brief analytical summary of the previous compilations of the complete works of the author that have been published, to conclude that, certainly, the compilation made by Miguel de Mena, with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Culture, is the most complete. 

However, she said that, just like any other human work, it has strengths and weaknesses since there is not a complete record of details or locations of the entire work.

It has to be understood that this time, a decision was made to complete what had been left pending from previous works, which correspond to the archives that a daughter of Pedro had kept and which were never located.

Pérez Guerra said that to have a complete overview, it is imperative to wait for the publication of the pending volumes.

Manuel Núñez and the headtable.

The headtable.