Women's Narrative and Film in Twentieth-Century Spain

Ed. Ofelia Ferrán and Kathleen M. Glenn
This volume tracks the development of the feminine cultural tradition in Spain and shows how this tradition reshaped and defined Spanish national identity. Focusing on literature and film by Spanish women from the turn of the century to "Generation X," this collection of essays examines how concepts of gender and difference have shaped the individual, collective, and national identities of Spanish women. The contributors also examine mass media productions by women in Spain that significantly modified the meaning and representation of female sexuality, affected the representation of the female body, and prompted new attitudes toward feminism, nationalism, and gender relations.

Table of Contents

Introduction

A World of Difference(s): Women’s Narrative and Film in Twentieth-Century Spain
Ofelia Ferrán and Kathleen M. Glenn

Part I. Pre-Civil War Spain

Chapter 1

Contesting the Body: Gender, Language, and Sexuality
The Modern Woman at the Turn of the Century
Maryellen Bieder

Chapter 2

Solitude in the City: Víctor Català with Mercè Rodoreda
Brad Epps

Chapter 3

Women Novelists of the Vanguard Era (1923–1952)
Roberta Johnson

Part II. The Franco Era

Chapter 4

Fictions of Equality: Rethinking Melodrama and Neorealism in Ana Mariscal’s Segundo López, aventurero urbano
Annabel Martín

Chapter 5

Resemanticizing Feminine Surrender: Cross-Gender Identifications in the Writings of Spanish Female Fascist Activists
Jo Labanyi

Part III. The Transition to Democracy

Chapter 6

Screening Room: Spanish Women Filmmakers View the Transition
Kathleen M. Vernon

Chapter 7

Drawing Difference: The Women Artists of Madriz and the Cultural Renovations of the 1980s
Gema Pérez-Sánchez

Chapter 8

Remapping the Left in Camino sin retorno: Lidia Falcon’s Feminist Project
Linda Gould Levine

Part IV. Democratic Spain

Chapter 9

Female Visions of Basque Terrorism: Ander eta Yul by Ana Díez and Yoyes by Helena Taberna
María Pilar Rodríguez

Chapter 10

When Norma Met Mar: Thelma and Louise on the Costa Brava
Emilie L. Bergmann

Chapter 11

Gender Difference and the Metafictional Gaze in Marina Mayoral’s Dar la vida y el alma
Catherine G. Bellver

Chapter 12

“El florecimiento caprichoso de un jacarandá”: Writing and Reading the Palimpsest in Cristina Fernández Cubas’s “Lúnula y Violeta”
Ofelia Ferrán

Part V. The End of a Century

Chapter 13

Let’s Talk about Sex?: From Almudena Grandes to Lucía Etxebarria, the Volatile Values of the Spanish Literary Market
Silvia Bermúdez

Chapter 14

Gender, Sexuality, and the Literary Market in Spain at the End of the Millennium
Akiko Tsuchiya

Chapter 15

A World of Difference in Home-Making: The Films of Icíar Bollaín
Susan Martin-Márquez

Afterword

The Practice of Restitutional Feminist Criticism
Teresa M. Vilarós