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

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

    Maryellen Bieder

  2. Solitude in the City: Víctor Català with Mercè Rodoreda

    Brad Epps

  3. Women Novelists of the Vanguard Era (1923–1952)

    Roberta Johnson

    Part II. The Franco Era

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

    Annabel Martín

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

    Jo Labanyi

    Part III. The Transition to Democracy

  6. Screening Room: Spanish Women Filmmakers View the Transition

    Kathleen M. Vernon

  7. Drawing Difference: The Women Artists of Madriz and the Cultural Renovations of the 1980s

    Gema Pérez-Sánchez

  8. Remapping the Left in Camino sin retorno: Lidia Falcon’s Feminist Project

    Linda Gould Levine

    Part IV. Democratic Spain

  9. Female Visions of Basque Terrorism: Ander eta Yul by Ana Díez and Yoyes by Helena Taberna

    María Pilar Rodríguez

  10. When Norma Met Mar: Thelma and Louise on the Costa Brava

    Emilie L. Bergmann

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

    Catherine G. Bellver

  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

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

    Silvia Bermúdez

  14. Gender, Sexuality, and the Literary Market in Spain at the End of the Millennium

    Akiko Tsuchiya

  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