Abstract
This article analyzes costumbrismo as the first literary genre to develop the notion of postimperial nostalgia in nineteenth-century Spain. The article argues that a postimperialist analysis of this literature can shed light on the rather, idiosyncratic history of nineteenth-century Spanish literature (literature of manners and historical novel > almost no realism > naturalism). It also establishes the bases for a more cultural and political understanding of nostalgia and modernity in Spain and the Hispanic Atlantic as well as the (postmodern) Global North, so that Spanish nationalism is redefined as an (in-different) postimperial discourse about colonial loss. More theoretically, the article aims at redefining nineteenth-century Spanish history in Lacanian terms by arguing that Spain as a nation is simply an imaginary formation of a symbolic order that is ultimately Atlantic and post/imperial, wherein the colonial loss points to the traumatic irruption of the Real.
Highlights
The Atlantic and the Imperialist Economy of Loss and GainThis article focuses on the early nineteenth century in order to explain an apparent contradiction on the Spanish discourse of colonial loss
Volume 1, Issue 1 Gabilondo order that is Atlantic and post/imperial, wherein the colonial loss points to the traumatic irruption of the Real
This article focuses on the early nineteenth century in order to explain an apparent contradiction on the Spanish discourse of colonial loss
Summary
This article focuses on the early nineteenth century in order to explain an apparent contradiction on the Spanish discourse of colonial loss. Feminism, postcolonial theory, and Marxism and by analyzing “postimperial indifference,” I want to argue that nineteenth-century Spanish history cannot be read as a national history in which a Spanish political subject loses and gains, according to different imperialist changes in Atlantic history (colonial loss). Rather, it has to be read as a postimperial history of fragmentation in which nationalism becomes an imaginary and discursive enplotment that unsuccessfully attempts to contain and suture the declining Spanish empire and its inevitable fragmentation. This analysis might establish the bases for a more cultural and political understanding of nostalgia and modernity in Spain and the Hispanic Atlantic as well as the global/postmodern Global North
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
