Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

In 1941, a series of articles entitled “Jewish and Aryan Chess” appeared under the name of world-chess champion, Alexander Alekhine in the journal Die Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden. Alekhine’s articles claimed that Jewish players had a destructive effect in the development of chess and that there had never been a real chess artist of Jewish origin. This lecture will show how the game of chess moved from a liberal art conception around 1500 to the discovery of structural rules around 1900 and, finally, the identity issues (gender, nationalistic, ethnic) that grew up around the game precisely in the moment—the time of Alekhine and Capablanca—that it became universal.

Francesc Morales received his PhD in Romance Languages (Spanish) from the University of Florida in 2018. His research focused on nationalism in Spain through the lens of archeology. He also holds a certificate in Latin American Studies, and an MA in Spanish from UF, as well as degrees in History and Digital Humanities from two different universities in Spain.