Maybe Never Again

Maybe Never Again

A Women’s History Month Commemoration

Part of the Peter N. Carroll Anti-Fascist Education Fund

Maybe Never Again

Co-sponsored by International Brigades Memorial Trust

Guest Lecturer Espe Pons

Please join us as we explore the contributions of the women of the Lincoln Brigade in this special presentation and discussion as part of Women's History Month.

We will explore this important history through the latest photo project of the author Espe Pons, Maybe Never Again.

With presentations by ALBA Board Member Jo Labanyi, Kathleen Brown, and Helen Oclee-Brown of IBMT

Introduction by ALBA Board Member Cynthia Young

If you have any issues accessing the Zoom, please contact info@alba-valb.org.

About the Book

Maybe Never Again is a photobook about foreign women who joined the Republican struggle against fascism during the Spanish Civil War. Espe Pons photographs the places where they worked—Brunete, Albacete, Huete, and Mataró—showing empty landscapes and ruins that evoke their absence. The project restores visibility to doctors, nurses, photographers, journalists, militiamen and thinkers who arrived as volunteers from abroad: Elzbieta Bekier, Anni Brunner, Hedwig Buss-Diener, Maria Gothelf Melchior, Nan Green, Liesel Hidden-Mottek, Kate Kirstein, May Levine, Dora Lorska, Fredericka Martin, Tina Modotti, Margarita Nelken Mansberger, Betty Rosenfeld, Jeanne Roussant, Rachel Schwartzman, Esther Silverstein Blanc, Thora Silverthorne, Gerda Taro, Clara Thalmann, Lillian Urmston and Simone Weil.

The author locates their families and constructs contemporary portraits, as well as documenting personal objects that preserve their memory. The book includes 21 biographies written by relatives and historians about the women featured. Six specialists contribute texts that provide historical and cultural context for the Spanish Civil War. It is complemented by archival photographs by authors such as Gerda Taro, Edward Weston, Kati Horna, and Agustí Centelles. With 221 pages, the photobook is self-published with the support of various cultural and historical memory institutions.

Espe Pons is a research artist who works with photography, focusing on memory and landscape, developing a practice centered on historical memory. In 2019, she was selected, along with Jordi Jové, for an artist residency program at the Three Shadows Center for Photographic Art in Beijing, China. Her work has been exhibited in various venues, including the University of Minnesota and the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City. She is currently exhibiting at the Ex Convento del Carmen Museum in Guadalajara, Mexico with exhibition Para no olvidar and Mirrors of Oblivion at the Cervantes Institute in Chicago. She has published five photobooks, Under the Light of the Sea, Tierra, Flucht, Portraits, and her latest, Maybe Never Again.

Jo Labanyi is Professor Emerita in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University. A founding editor of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, she has published widely on 19th-21st-century Spanish culture. Her book 'What Have You Done for Victory?' A Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War will be published in October 2026 by Reaktion Books.

Helen Oclee-Brown is the Executive Officer of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, which keeps alive the memory and spirit of the men and women from Britain, Ireland and elsewhere who volunteered to defend democracy and fight fascism in Spain from 1936 to 1939. A career-long linguist, Helen edits ¡No pasarán!, the Trust’s triannual magazine.

Kathleen Brown is a PhD candidate in American Culture at the University of Michigan, where she is researching American women involved in refugee relief during the Spanish Civil War. She received the 2024 George Watt award for her scholarship on American social workers in Spain. Her writing can be found in Against the Current, Long Haul Magazine, Spectre Journal, and Jacobin. She currently manages ALBA's social media.

Peter N. Carroll Anti-Fascist Education Fund

The goal of this fund is to expand our efforts to contextualize and disseminate the anti-fascist history of the United States through the experience of the Lincoln Brigade. The often suppressed and overlooked history of these so-called “pre-mature anti-fascists “is critical for an understanding of our history and present. Making sure primary and secondary source curations of our material are available to all researchers, academics, activists, teachers, and students who need it, will be the direct mission of this fund. We can think of no one better to honor than Peter N. Carroll, who had done so much throughout his life and career to fight fascism through education and awareness raising.

The ALBA Film Series

We are happy to present the ALBA Film Series as part of the Peter N. Carroll Anti-Fascist Education Fund

This series introduces feature-length movies about the Spanish Civil War, including both classics and more recent work. Participants will meet online in 75-minute workshop-style gatherings, each led by a different expert, after viewing both the film and a specially produced introductory video with background information. The series is open to all teachers (both K-12 and college) as well as the general public.