A feminist engagement with Spanish modernism: the social objects of “las Sinsombrero”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Spanish archives house hundreds of documents related to avant-garde male poets who wrote during a period of cultural effervescence known as the Silver Age of Spanish literature (1898–1936). Feminist researchers like Tània Balló and Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles have successfully brought attention to the smaller corpus of archival materials related to modern women artists and writers, known as “las Sinsombrero”, who rebelliously took their hats off in public. Scholars working with female subjects must confront the inaccessibility of material documentation to address the historical absence of modern Spanish women. Balló's three Las Sinsombrero documentaries exemplify the wealth of non-material documentation about the lived experiences of women within cultural networks. I argue that Maurizio Ferraris's theory of documentality provides a key methodology for examining non-material social objects, such as gatherings of women at the “Academy of Witches,” as legitimate objects of study that can better represent the cultural milieu of Silver Age Spain.