Contemporary Spanish Research Articles

Grotesque Deconstruction of Oficial Colonial and Postcolonial Latin-American Identities From Valle-Inclan’s Tirano Banderas to Silviano Santiago’s Cosmopolitismo do pobre

This article explores the deconstructive function of grotesque elements in contemporary Spanish and Ibero-American Literature. Starting with Tirano Banderas. Novela de Tierra Caliente (1926), a highlight in Valle-Inclan’s esperpento aesthetics, mocking what authors as Bakhtin or Foucault pointed out as “official truths”, both collective and individual. It is argued that grotesque representation establishes a subversive relation when confronted with epic or tragic modes, as established by aristotelic-horatian and dogmatic poetics. This may shed some light on the relation between grotesque structure and critical deconstruction, from the so-called Baroque era up until modernist and postmodernist essay, such as it is the case of one of the most thoroughly sophisticated contemporary writers in Brasil, Silviano Santiago, whose collection of essays O Cosmopolitismo do Pobre (2004) is the third pillar of our analysis.

Senado y servicios de documentación

Tras un breve repaso histórico de los trabajos de archiveros y bibliotecarios parlamentarios en la Edad Contemporánea española, se traza la evolución de las acciones de este Cuerpo superior de funcionarios de las Cortes Generales durante los 40 años de vigencia de nuestra Constitución actual, subrayando la importancia de la coordinación como principio que favorece la transparencia y la consecución de objetivos a la altura de los tiempos.
 El artículo finaliza trasladando a conceptos actuales las tradicionales funciones de esta profesión: reunir materiales, conservar, organizar, describir, preservar y difundir son tareas que pueden denominarse en esta conmemoración, en 2018, digitalizar, gestionar el conocimiento, etiquetar con metadatos, procurar la migración de soportes y subir a la Red descripciones intercambiables y ensamblables a otras colecciones. Un reto para el que la acción de puesta al día mediante formación especializada nos ha de mantener preparados.

Open Al-Andalus: Hispanic-Muslim Heritage Impact on Spanish Contemporary Architecture

Spanish architecture, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, was characterized by the development of a variety of styles, including Neo-Muslim. The Alhambra of Granada, the Mosque of Cordoba, and the Giralda Tower of Seville, served as inspiration to the design of works that would follow these models, some to a greater extent than others, and would eventually give rise to an architectural trend that would make its way all across Spain. As such, this article attempts to provide some examples of said architecture found in different autonomous communities in Spain, examining them through four typologies, as well as to discuss the consideration and use of the Neo-Muslim style after the second half of the 20th century. The methodology behind this research involved extensive reading and analysis of both general and specific works on the subject, the study of archival materials relative to some of the selected buildings, about which preserved evidence was scarce, as well as taking photographs of the properties included in the text.

The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture. Ed. by Lorraine Ryan and Ana Corbalán

<i>The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture</i>. Ed. by Lorraine Ryan and Ana Corbalán

Therapeutic Journeys in Contemporary Spanish Graphic Novels

María y yo by Miguel and María Gallardo, Arrugas by Paco Roca and Una posibilidad entre mil by Cristina Durán and Miguel Ángel Giner Bou are contemporary Spanish graphic novels that can be considered pathographies. This article shows how they use the metaphor of the journey to deconstruct social representations and challenge preconceived ideas about autism, Alzheimer’s disease and cerebral palsy. By making readers travel to the unknown territory of differences and diseases, these works help them to discover and understand alterity. I also study how the authors use techniques specific to travel guides to explain these disorders, and interrogate the extent to which creating and reading those pathographies can have a curative dimension. This will lead to questioning the concept of the therapeutic journey.

No existen mapas para estos territorios: Rubén Martín (Díaz) y la topografía estética de la poesía española reciente

Partiendo de la premisa que el mundo poético español actual no es un espacio discursivo neutro abierto a toda aproximación textual este estudio traza las estrategias estéticas de dos poetas españoles contemporáneos cuyos nombres similares—Rubén Martín Díaz (1980) y Rubén Martín (1980)—nos obligan a ir más allá de la firma literaria y adentrarnos en las propuestas de escritura que caracterizan su quehacer poético. Aunque la obra de cada poeta establece un diálogo sugerente con muchos de los mismos conceptos—la mirada, el mundo natural, el yo y el lenguaje—su modo de concebir estos conceptos y su interacción compleja es diferente. En el caso de cada poeta se estudian textos ecfrásticos al lado de otros textos que, juntos, ofrecen una visión de la actitud de cada propuesta de escritura hacia el mundo fragmentado en el que vivimos. Esta exploración nos provee una imagen más clara de las posibilidades estéticas de la poesía española actual y su relación con la tradición literaria española. Aunque este trabajo sólo se enfoca en la obra de estos dos poetas también busca situar su obra en el contexto más amplio de la poesía española actual.

Addressing Diversity and Difference in Contemporary Spanish Lesbian Literature: Reading Illy Nes’s El lago rosa and Cristina Cuesta’s “Zoe y Haydee”

Addressing Diversity and Difference in Contemporary Spanish Lesbian Literature: Reading Illy Nes’s El lago rosa and Cristina Cuesta’s “Zoe y Haydee”

Beyond the Sea: Seascapes and Migration in Contemporary Spanish Cinema

The image of a dead migrant prone on a beach is a tragic yet commonplace icon of the early twenty-first century, symbolizing the catastrophic synergy amongst seascapes, migration and death in the contemporary cultural imaginary. While the images of three-year-old Syrian Alan Kurdi that circulated in the summer of 2015 have recently reflected the potency of the image with regard to the (in) visibility of migrants and migration in contemporary society and culture, Spanish cinema has been engaging with this issue since the turn of the century. In this article I explore tensions between absence and presence with regard to interactions between seascapes and migration in five post-2000 Spanish films: En construccion (Guerin, 2001), Ilegal (Vilar, 2003), Retorno a Hansala (Gutierrez, 2008), Amador (Leon de Aranoa, 2010) and Biutiful (Inarritu, 2010). My contention is that these films foreground ethically motivated strategies of representation that seek to respectfully render migrants visible, or relatedly to dra...

Crime and Prejudice: Ming Criminal Justice as Seen in 16th Century Spanish Sources

González de Mendoza’s book on China, published in 1585, compiled all the first narratives about China, both Portuguese and Spanish. It contains a highly positive account of Ming criminal justice in which he emphasizes those elements of Chinese justice that deeply contrasts with contemporary Spanish and Mexican practices: the legal and public frame of torture, the public questioning of witnesses, the multilayered revisions of penalties, the public placing of the monetary fines, and the mise en scène of the death penalty. He insistently highlights the strict control upon every layer of officers and inferior ministers through a double procedure of rewards and punishments that guarantees the high standing of Chinese officials, an appraisal that Montaigne would pick up in his extremely rare allusions to China. At the same time, González de Mendoza, a thorough admirer of father Las Casas, the defender of Indians, decided to omit from his sources those elements that could provide the hardliners with arguments, the just title, to confront China, such as the nefandous sin witnessed by Loarca and the death by a thousand cuts described by Dueñas.

The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture

The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture

From Immigrants to Professionals: Contemporary Spanish Migration to the United States

From Immigrants to Professionals: Contemporary Spanish Migration to the United States

Tracing the Borders of Spanish Horror Cinema and Television ed. by Jorge Marí

Reviewed by: Tracing the Borders of Spanish Horror Cinema and Television ed. by Jorge Marí María C. Fellie Marí, Jorge, ed. Tracing the Borders of Spanish Horror Cinema and Television. Routledge, 2017. Pp. 281. ISBN 978-0-415-34863-8. Jorge Marí's collection of essays entitled Tracing the Borders of Spanish Horror Cinema and Television does just what the title promises, within the timeframe of 1995-2015. The introduction outlines prior media scholarship on Spanish horror and points out the lack of existing work on "the renaissance of the horror genre in Spain" since 1995. The goal of this volume, then, is to explore "at length and in proper detail" significant cinematic and television productions within this period, emphasizing elements that are particularly Spanish, as well as those that are international (2). Part 1, "The (Postmodern) Gothic," contains two essays that examine the gothic characteristics of three films. First, in "Trapped in the House of Mirrors: The Others as a Transnational Gothic Thriller," Santiago Juan-Navarro reads Alejandro Amenábar's film as "more concerned with the formal mastery of a new hybrid genre (the postmodern gothic thriller) than in making political, moral, or historical statements" (18). Hence, Juan-Navarro analyzes the concepts of space, superimposed realities, and "self-conscious" fiction (29) that make The Others an example of the "female gothic," questioning the boundaries between real and fictional worlds through "restraint, innuendo, and suspense" (22). Next, in "Contemporary Spanish Gothic Heroines," Ann Davies studies how Julia in Los ojos de Julia (Guillem Morales) and María in Hierro (Gabe Ibáñez) continue to assert subjectivity in their quest for "contingent meaning" (37). In opposition [End Page 647] to both postmodern and patriarchal "grand narratives" (38), both heroines utilize their senses (sight, touch) to persist in finding out the truth. Both essays in Part 2, "Mothers, Children, Patriarchy, and the Biopolitics of Reproduction," propose new readings of social roles in popular films. Sohyun Lee's compelling and detailed argument in "Monstrous (Re)productions: Mothering Patriarchy on the Spanish Horror Screen" reads the "mother figure" as "(re)productions of female monstrosity [ … ] as a means to convey and maintain a patriarchal discourse" (53). Her examination of Andrés Muschietti's Mama and J. A. Bayona's El orfanato reveals that, although both films incorporate newer models of family social structure, they ultimately portray the mother as a mere "accessory for the father-ruled nuclear family" whose inferior, even "monstrous" status is perpetuated. Following Lee, in "Suspendido en el tiempo: Children and Contemporary Spanish Horror," Maria Pramaggiore considers three films: La habitación del niño (Álex de la Iglesia), No-Do (Elio Quiroga), and La casa muda (Gustavo Hernández). She asserts that the child is an instrument used to scrutinize "dark moments" in twentieth-century Spain and Uruguay, serving to criticize how reproduction was/is used as a political tool (68). In Part 3, entitled "Sound, Vision, Media, and Intermediality," the authors focus on spectators in relation to sight and sound. Samuel Amago's aptly named "Dude, Where's my Phallus?!: Locating the Horror of La piel que habito," starts with a review of horror elements in films leading up to Pedro Almodóvar's horror-centered work (93). In engaging detail, Amago then shows how the main character him/herself becomes a media creation symbolizing male domination and desire, as well as "a metaphor for the future uncertainty of masculinity" (101). Anne Hardcastle's "Why They Film" investigates why fictional filmmakers in "found footage" films continue to record in the face of serious danger. The author concludes that, as with documentaries, the shooting continues in order to "produce documentation, evidence, and testimony," as well as entertainment (119). Martin Barnier's "Sound of Fear in Recent Spanish Films" describes various audio phenomena that heighten fear in the audience and characters in several films: acousmêtre (an unseen voice, 125), computers, video, and other "supernatural" sounds. Barnier suggests that "new technologies" of the 1990s are perceived as audio threats that shift into images in the 2000s. As the longest section with four essays, Part 4, "The [REC] Phenomenon," is itself a testament to the popularity of the series. Several essays...

FIGURATIVE CONSTITUENTS OF THE CONCEPT COLOR IN SPANISH AND UKRAINIAN (BASED ON FICTION TEXTS)

The article features the results of a contrastive analysis of the figurative characteristics of color terms as elements of the conceptual worldview of Spaniards and Ukrainians. In this regard we consider the following topics: concept COLOR as a cross-object of conceptology, linguistic culture and discourse; color terms as an element of the conceptual worldview of Spaniards and Ukrainians; ethno-specific contrasts of the figurative constituents of the color terms black, white, red, blue, yellow, green in Spanish and Ukrainian in fiction. This study explores the linguocultural concept of COLOR from the cognitive, ethno-cultural and discursive perspectives, and therefore the concept can be considered as the subject matter of such disciplines as anthropology, linguocultural science and discourse theory. The corpus of the study was formed using the continuous sampling method from multi-genre prose written by contemporary Spanish (Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Camilo José Cela, Gabriel García Márquez) and Ukrainian (Yurii Andrukhovych, Lyubko Deresh, Oksana Zabuzhko) writers. A common feature of the color term black in Spanish and Ukrainian fiction is its use in the description of human blood and its altered states. The color terms black and white characterizing such concepts as NIGHT, DEATH, EYES can be observed in the individual authors’ worldview of Spanish-speaking and Ukrainian writers despite the non-contiguous nature of the two languages and cultures. In the Spanish linguistic culture, the color term blue is used as an image of DEATH and LONELINESS, whereas in Ukrainian – as an image of RAGE, TENSION and ILLNESS.

Bibliomigration från periferi till semi-periferi

Bibliomigration from Periphery to Semi-Periphery. About Contemporary Spanish Caribbean Literature in Swedish Translation&#x0D; The aim of this article is threefold: firstly to describe the bibliomigration patterns of contemporary Spanish Caribbean literature to Sweden, secondly to test the Double Consecration Hypothesis, and thirdly to discuss the importance of translation in relation to World Literature. The material studied consists of 25 novels written by 15 Spanish Caribbean authors from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic translated into Swedish during the period 1990–2015. The consecration processes of the involved cosmopolitan intermediaries in the study are reconstructed in order to map out the bibliomigration. It was brought to light that the Spanish literary consecration culture is pluri-centric and the Anglo-American duo-centric, which ultimately affects the bibliomigration patterns to Sweden. Three patterns were discovered: One for Spanish Caribbean authors who write in Spanish, one for Spanish Caribbean authors writing in English and one for literature written in Spanish, published in Spanish in Sweden and then translated into Swedish. In the first case nine out of the novels verified the Double Consecration Hypothesis. Hence it seems that Spanish Caribbean literature written in Spanish has to be consecrated primarily within the Spanish colonial and postcolonial literary centers and then within the American and British consecration centers in order to be selected for translation into Swedish. In the second case ten out of the 25 Spanish Caribbeannovels were written in English, and thus not in need for double consecration to reach Sweden. In the last pattern consecration is local rather than cosmopolitan. The three patterns discovered can be described as three different forms of vernacularizing translation.

From the Subjected Subject to the Vulnerable Subject: An Unfinished Discussion in Contemporary Spanish Feminisms

AbstractThis article focuses on the subject of feminism in the specific context of contemporary Spain. During the 1970s and 1980s, the feminist movement took as its subject the “woman-housewife-mot...

Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: Teoría y práctica by Javier Muñoz-Basols, et al.

Reviewed by: Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: Teoría y práctica by Javier Muñoz-Basols, et al. Manuel Díaz-Campos Muñoz-Basols, Javier, Nina Morena, Inma Taboada, y Manel Lacorte. Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: Teoría y práctica. London: Routledge, 2017. Pp. 546. ISBN 978-0-41563-157-0. Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: teoría y práctica is a book designed to introduce undergraduate students in Hispanic Linguistics to the theoretical and practical aspects of the analysis of language. The target audience of the book is undergraduate students in Hispanic Linguistics in the United States; however, the book can also be used to teach native speakers. Prior knowledge in the field of Linguistics is not necessary to fully understand the concepts presented in the text due to its introductory level. The book is organized in eight chapters plus an introduction and a bilingual glossary. Each chapter is supplemented with a section of exercises, suggestions for research projects, additional readings, and a list of concepts introduced in the chapters The introductory chapter covers basic content related to the introduction to language, communication, the comparison between animal communication and language, communicative functions, neurolinguistics, core evidence of linguistics, and current issues of contemporary linguistics. All these topics are meant to initiate students with the basic terminology of linguistics as well as the methodologies applied to the study of language. The authors offer a theoretical orientation towards generative approaches as one of the most representative frameworks in contemporary linguistics. The second chapter is concerned with the phonetics and phonology of Spanish. The chapter begins with a description of vowels and consonants in terms of their phonology, which means the structural relationships they have in Spanish. An inventory of phonemes and their description is presented. The chapter also includes a section on syllabification and phonological transcription. [End Page 335] The fourth section of the chapter is dedicated to an articulatory description of the sounds of Spanish. A practical section on phonetic transcription is also presented. The last section of the chapter is a short explanation of suprasegmentals with a focus on lexical accent and intonation. The third chapter is dedicated to the morphology of the Spanish language. The first section presents the basic concepts of the field distinguishing between different types of affixes (prefixes and suffixes) and types of words according to their structure. The authors then provide sections on derivational morphology, other procedures for the creation of new words, a description of grammatical categories, and inflectional morphology of nouns and verbs. Chapter 4 presents a general overview of Spanish syntax. The authors begin this chapter explaining four general principles which are descriptive of the creativity of language. Then, a description of the concept of grammatical phrases (syntagmas) is introduced. The chapter moves to describe the syntactic functions, the notion of argument and adjuncts, the x-bar theory, the distinction between compound sentences and simple sentences, and finally word order. In chapter 5, the authors provide an overview of semantics and pragmatics. The sections on semantics focus on the distinction between denotative and connotative meaning, semantic roles, lexical semantics, metaphors, and idiomatic expressions. The sections on pragmatics present an overview of deixis, speech acts, politeness research, and the study of irony and humor. The history of Spanish is described in chapter 6. A general introduction to diachronic linguistics is provided at the beginning of the chapter. The second section is concerned with the influences of pre-Romanic languages in the Iberian Peninsula. The third section focuses on the evolution of Latin until the first Spanish texts appear. The fourth section illustrates the particulars of two linguistic changes from Medieval Spanish to Contemporary Spanish. The two last sections provide examples of similarities between Romance languages as well as linguistic borrowing in Spanish. Chapter 7 is dedicated to dialectal variation in the Spanish-speaking world. The first section presents introduction to basic concepts of linguistic variability. The second section provides a description of three main dialectical areas of Peninsular Spanish (Castilian, Andalusian, and Canary). The third section offers a general perspective of dialectal (areas) of Latin America...

My Tongue's not Straight: Gender, Language and Agency in Contemporary Spanish Queer Epistolary Fictions

My Tongue's not Straight: Gender, Language and Agency in Contemporary Spanish Queer Epistolary Fictions

Liter·Alia: Hispanic Literatures in their Context. A Digital Annotated Edition of Spanish Works of Fiction As a Tool to Teach Spanish Literature to Second Language Students

Frequently, students of Spanish as a second language struggle when they must read works of fiction. This critical situation on reading comprehension often happens because learners have a limited knowledge of vocabulary, and they lack enough historical and aesthetic contextual background data. As a solution, creating a tailored online digital annotated edition can help to develop comprehension skills, support informative and critical reading, and enhance writing discussions. This can be reached when we build around a particular text a net of multimodal interaction fueled by audiovisual resources, written explanations, and topic-based enquiries which are placed as annotations linked to meaningful key-words in the main text. Thus, this paper focuses on describing an online digital annotated edition prepared for Spanish students of language and literature (level B2) in the framework of an introductory course of Contemporary Spanish Literature taught at the University of Oslo (Norway) on 2017.

Investigar la Historia Contemporánea en España: a la sombra de la Ley de Secretos Oficiales

El acceso sin trabas a los archivos es condición básica para la investigación histórica y para garantizar la información y la transparencia en la gestión pública. Sin embargo, estos derechos no siempre están asegurados. Para los ciudadanos y los historiadores, el pleno acceso a los archivos es una cuestión pendiente en lo tocante a algunos documentos de la Historia Contemporánea española, lo que ha frustrado, además, la posibilidad de atender el derecho a la verdad, a la justicia y a la reparación que demanda el Derecho Internacional Humanitario para las víctimas de la Guerra Civil y del Franquismo.

Bodies of Evidence, Resistance and Protest: Embodying the Spanish Civil War on the Contemporary Spanish Stage

AbstractThis article explores ways in which the Spanish Civil War has been represented and performed on contemporary Spanish stages, focusing analysis on three productions: Àlex Rigola’s 2015 adaptation of Incerta glòria by Joan Sales; Joan Ollé’s 2014 adaptation of Mercè Rodoreda La plaza del Diamante; and Carme Portaceli’s 2015 adaptation of Carmen Domingo’s Només són dones/ Solo son mujeres. I use one of the most emblematic plays to construct and explore a space for memory of the Spanish Civil War, José Sanchis Sinisterra’s ¡Ay, Carmela! (1987), to investigate a shift in emphasis from the urge to create a space for memory to concern with how the often traumatic memories of the war and its aftermath are inscribed corporeally. I argue that in the context of contemporary discursive practice about the Spanish Civil War, the direction theatrical explorations are taking presents an opportunity for innovative reflection on the way we look at bodies in relation to events of collective violence and trauma, centring not only on the search for the bodies of the dead but also on ways in which living bodies continue to be marked by and transmit the impact of these events into the future.ResumenEn este artículo se propone explorar la manera en que se ha representado la Guerra Civil Española en el escenario, centrándonos en tres espectáculos: Incerta glòria de Joan Sales (adapt. y dir. Àlex Rigola, 2015); La plaza del Diamante de Mercè Rodoreda (adapt. y dir. Joan Ollé, 2014–2015); y Només són dones/ Solo son mujeres de Carmen Domingo (adapt. y dir. Carme Portaceli, 2015–2016). Volviendo a uno de las obras más emblemáticas relacionadas con la construcción y exploración de un espacio para la memoria de la Guerra Civil, ¡Ay, Carmela! (1987), escrita por José Sanchis Sinisterra, se investigará la manera en que ésta nos ayuda a identificar y vislumbrar un cambio de paradigma en el tratamiento teatral de la memoria histórica desde el deseo de crear un espacio para la memoria al interés en los procesos por los cuales las experiencias traumáticas de la guerra y el franquismo son corporeizadas e inscritas en el cuerpo. Se propondrá que el énfasis escénico en los cuerpos de la Guerra Civil representa una oportunidad para reflexionar sobre las pautas utilizadas para estudiar el impacto corporal de la violencia y el trauma colectivos, y considerar cómo los cuerpos vivos y vivientes incorporan y transmiten las huellas de este impacto hacia el futuro.