Fantastic Short Stories by Women Authors from Spain and Latin America


Book Description

It includes introductions to the life and work of female authors who are not very well known in the Anglophone world due to the lack of translations of their works. This critical work with a feminist focus will provide a helpful framework for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the UK and US. A wide-ranging bibliography will be of great assistance to those looking to pursue research on the fantastic or on any of the specific writers and texts. This book is endorsed by the British Academy as part of the project Gender and the Fantastic in Hispanic Studies, and by an established international network, namely the Grupo de Estudios sobre lo Fantástico, based in the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.




Spanish Women Writers and Spain's Civil War


Book Description

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) pitted conservative forces including the army, the Church, the Falange (fascist party), landowners, and industrial capitalists against the Republic, installed in 1931 and supported by intellectuals, the petite bourgeoisie, many campesinos (farm laborers), and the urban proletariat. Provoking heated passions on both sides, the Civil War soon became an international phenomenon that inspired a number of literary works reflecting the impact of the war on foreign and national writers. While the literature of the period has been the subject of scholarship, women's literary production has not been studied as a body of work in the same way that literature by men has been, and its unique features have not been examined. Addressing this lacuna in literary studies, this volume provides fresh perspectives on well-known women writers, as well as less studied ones, whose works take the Spanish Civil War as a theme. The authors represented in this collection reflect a wide range of political positions. Writers such as Maria Zambrano, Mercè Rodoreda, and Josefina Aldecoa were clearly aligned with the Republic, whereas others, including Mercedes Salisachs and Liberata Masoliver, sympathized with the Nationalists. Most, however, are situated in a more ambiguous political space, although the ethics and character portraits that emerge in their works might suggest Republican sympathies. Taken together, the essays are an important contribution to scholarship on literature inspired by this pivotal point in Spanish history.







A New Anthology of Early Modern Spanish Theater


Book Description

An anthology of plays from the Spanish Golden Age contains the full text of 15 plays; an introduction to each play with information about the author, the work, performance issues and current criticism; and glossaries with definitions of difficult words and concepts.




Las Románticas


Book Description

"A deep and genuine analysis of the women writers who are the objects of each chapter, utilizing the most modern methods of literary criticism . . . this book will be viewed as essential not only by scholars of women in literature but also for specialists dealing with the nineteenth century."--Gregorio C. Martin, Duquesne University "She shows us things we have not seen before. . . . This is a sophisticated, elegant, and important text. It demonstrates clearly, and for the first time, how women helped to shape Spanish Romantic discourse--both as subject and as object--and how prevailing attitudes shaped their writings."--David T. Gies, University of Virginia "A deep and genuine analysis of the women writers who are the objects of each chapter, utilizing the most modern methods of literary criticism . . . this book will be viewed as essential not only by scholars of women in literature but also for specialists dealing with the nineteenth century."--Gregorio C. Martin, Duquesne University




A New History of Iberian Feminisms


Book Description

A New History of Iberian Feminisms is both a chronological history and an analytical discussion of feminist thought in the Iberian Peninsula, including Portugal, and the territories of Spain – the Basque Provinces, Catalonia, and Galicia – from the eighteenth century to the present day. The Iberian Peninsula encompasses a dynamic and fraught history of feminism that had to contend with entrenched tradition and a dominant Catholic Church. Editors Silvia Bermúdez and Roberta Johnson and their contributors reveal the long and historical struggles of women living within various parts of the Iberian Peninsula to achieve full citizenship. A New History of Iberian Feminisms comprises a great deal of new scholarship, including nineteenth-century essays written by women on the topic of equality. By addressing these lost texts of feminist thought, Bermúdez, Johnson, and their contributors reveal that female equality, considered a dormant topic in the early nineteenth century, was very much part of the political conversation, and helped to launch the new feminist wave in the second half of the century.




Women Writers of Spanish America


Book Description

The countries of Spanish America have a history of women's literature that is full, varied, and, until now, undocumented in English. The largest collection of its kind, this annotated bio-bibliographical guide lists over one thousand authors and their works, with selected introductory annotations for the better known authors. Included are fictional works dealing primarily with women, women's literature, feminism, and the condition of women, with a separate index of anthologies.




Feminism, Writing and the Media in Spain


Book Description

The question of "women's writing": a 'double-edged' double-bind? -- The reception and marketing of women writers in Spain -- Writers, the literary market and the construction of the public personae of Matute, Montero, and Etxebarria -- Matute, Montero, and Etxebarria on "women's writing" -- The 'spectral mother'




Post-war Spanish Women Novelists and the Recuperation of Historical Memory


Book Description

The passing of Spain's Law of Historical Memory (2007) marked the official recognition of the need to confront a violent and painful past. Article 2 makes reference to specific groups who experienced discrimination including religious and ethnic communities; no reference is made to the gender repression endured by women, enforced by a patriarchal regime through its legislation and policies, with the active support of the Church and the Women's Section of the Falange. Revised narratives of the period that have emerged in recent decades have raised issues in relation to the reliability and selectivity of memory, and its ongoing mediation by intervening events. While documentary sources of the period are prejudicial, cotemporaneous post-war testimonial novels provide an invaluable resource in reconstructing the past, particularly the novels of women writers. This book draws on their narrative to reconstruct the female experience of the post-war years and in particular on the writings of novelists whose work has undeservedly been disregarded. Neither the experience of women under Franco nor the narrative of women writers of the period should be forgotten. Patricia O'Byrne lectures in Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature at Dublin City University.




Eve's Enlightenment


Book Description

Eve's portrayal in the Bible as a sinner and a temptress seemed to represent -- and justify -- women's inferior position in society for much of history. During the Enlightenment, women challenged these traditional gender roles by joining the public sphere as writers, intellectuals, philanthropists, artists, and patrons of the arts. Some sought to reclaim Eve by recasting her as a positive symbol of women's abilities and intellectual curiosity. In Eve's Enlightenment, leading scholars in the fields of history, art history, literature, and psychology discuss how Enlightenment philosophies compared to women's actual experiences in Spain and Spanish America during the period. Relying on newspaper accounts, poetry, polemic, paintings, and saints' lives, this diverse group of contributors discuss how evolving legal, social, and medical norms affected Hispanic women and how art and literature portrayed them. Contributors such as historians Mónica Bolufer Peruga and María Victoria López-Cordón Cortezo, art historian Janis A. Tomlinson, and literary critic Rebecca Haidt also examine the contributions these women's experiences make to a transatlantic understanding of the Enlightenment. A common theme unites many of the essays: while Enlightenment reformers demanded rational equality for men and women, society increasingly emphasized sentiment and passion as defining characteristics of the female sex, leading to deepening contradictions. Despite clear gaps between Enlightenment ideals and women's experiences, however, the contributors agree that the women of Spain and Spanish America not only took part in the social and cultural transformations of the time but also exerted their own power and influence to help guide the Spanish-speaking world toward modernity. The first interdisciplinary collection published in English, Eve's Enlightenment offers a wealth of information for scholars of eighteenth-century Spanish history, literature, art history, and women's studies. An introduction by editors Catherine M. Jaffe and Elizabeth Franklin Lewis provides helpful historical and contextual information.