Centro de Estudios Canadienses
Universidad de La Laguna
The Center for Canadian Studies of the University of La Laguna was founded in 1992 by the person who would eventually become its director, Bernhard Dietz Guerrero, Professor of English Literature at the Department of Modern Philology, Faculty of Philology.
After a research period in Canada thanks to a scholarship granted by the World University Service of Canada, Professor Dietz gathered in Madrid ten representatives of several Spanish Universities and in 1986 created the Group of Canadian Studies in Spain. Two years later, in 1988, the First Seminar on Canadian Studies was celebrated in Spain. It was held in the Ateneo, Madrid, and, together with more than one hundred participants, it counted with the presence of the Canadian Ambassador in Spain, Ms. Julie Loranger, and with the President of the Ateneo and Senator, Mr. José Prat. The assembly which gathered there, in which there was a significant number of professors of the University of La Laguna, unanimously approved the creation of the Spanish Association for Canadian Studies, with Professor Dietz as its director. Subsequently, the Spanish Journal for Canadian Studies was also founded.
A great number of affiliates from all Spanish Universities belongs today to the Spanish Association for Canadian Studies which enjoys acknowledged international prestige in such field. Once the seed was planted in the mainland, Professor Dietz developed the discipline of Canadian Studies in our university and struggled to create a Center for Canadian Studies in the institution where he had been teaching for so long. Hence, in 1991 he founded the Group of Canadian Studies of the University of La Laguna and organized, in December of that year, the First Seminar on Canadian Studies at the School of Technical Architecture of the ULL.
A year later, under the government of the then Rector of our University, Ms. Marisa Tejedor Salguero and its then Vice-Rector of International Relations, Mr. Francisco Aznar Vallejo, and with the support of the Canadian Embassy in Spain, which donated its library of more than one thousand volumes, The Centre for Canadian Studies of the University of La Laguna was inaugurated amidst a whole program of conmemorating acts of the bicentenary of our academic institution.
Having Professor Dietz as our mentor, together with a group of professors and research students, the Centre, the first in Spain in this field, began an academic life that continues today with a new director, Professor Juan Ignacio Oliva Cruz.
The Centre for Canadian Studies of the University of La Laguna pursues a multidisciplinary kind of research which aims at promoting the scientific knowledge of the Canadian reality from the perspective of the Humanities and the Social Sciences. It has served as link to several programmes of exchange, research scholarships and grants that are offered not only by our university but also by the Canadian Embassy in Spain, the Spanish Association for Canadian Studies, and La Caixa Foundation.
A great number of professors of several faculties has joined us, namely, the Faculty of Arts, Business and Economics, Communication, Geography and History, Law, Philology, and Philosophy. Our focus has always been based on a comparative perspective which has included diverse projects regarding Bilingualism, Federalism, Ecology, Anthropology, Urbanism, and the interaction of ethnic groups and literatures. Likewise, the Centre for Canadian Studies of the University of La Laguna organizes international seminars with the presence of acknowledged national and international Canadianists.