Toward A Multicultural Configuration Of Spain

This collection of essays explores cultural phenomena that are shaping global identities in contemporary Spain. This volume is comprised of twenty essays that examine literary, documentary, and film representations of the multicultural configurations of Spain. All of the essays treat multiculturalism in Spain, focusing on reconfigured Spanish cities and neighborhoods through Latin American, African, and/or Eastern European migrations and cultures. Principal themes of the volume include urban space and access to resources, responses to the economic crisis, emerging family portraits, public versus private spaces, the local and the global, marginalities, migrations, and public expression of human and civil rights. This project examines the intercultural exchange that takes place in recent productions against an imaginary homogeneous Spanish national identity. These films, documentaries, and narratives seek to unsettle the Spanish preconceptions of the “Other(s).” Therefore, these texts construct a hybrid concept of the nation in which perceived national identities can be altered by interactions with other cultures from a broader world. The originality of the work lies in its focus on contemporary Spanish literature, documentaries, and fictional film to foment exploration of how Spanish cities, big and small, are experiencing transformation in architecture, popular customs and festivals, economics, family dynamics, and social and political agency through the arrival of new residents from across the globe. Some of the essays question the very legitimacy of the term ‘multiculturalism,’ others examine the formation of new communities, and still others explore the changes in religious representations and the environmental effects of the tourist industry. Together, the essays offer a compelling portrait of the changing face of contemporary Spain.

This edited collection examines the synergistic relationship between gender and urban space in post-millennium Spain. Despite the social progress Spain has made extending equal rights to all citizens, particularly in the wake of the Franco regime and radically liberating Transición, the fact remains that not all subjects—particularly, women, immigrants, and queers—possess equal autonomy. The book exposes visible shifts in power dynamics within the nation’s largest urban capitals—Madrid and Barcelona—and takes a hard look at more peripheral bedroom communities as all of these spaces reflect the discontent of a post-nationalistic, economically unstable Spain. As the contributors problematize notions of public and private space and disrupt gender binaries related with these, they aspire to engender discussion around civic status, the administration of space and the place of all citizens in a global world.

A Laboratory of Her Own gathers diverse voices to address women's interaction with STEM fields in the context of Spanish cultural production. This volume focuses on the many ways the arts and humanities provide avenues for deepening the conversation about how women have been involved in, excluded from, and represented within the scientific realm. While women's historic exclusion from STEM fields has been receiving increased scrutiny worldwide, women within the Spanish context have been perhaps even more peripheral given the complex sociocultural structures emanating from gender norms and political ideologies dominant in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spain. Nonetheless, Spanish female cultural producers have long been engaged with science and technology, as expressed in literature, art, film, and other genres. Spanish arts and letters offer diverse representations of the relationships between women, gender, sexuality, race, and STEM fields. A Laboratory of Her Own studies representations of a diverse range of Spanish women and scientific cultural products from the late nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. STEM topics include the environment, biodiversity, temporal and spatial theories, medicine and reproductive rights, neuroscience, robotics, artificial intelligence, and quantum physics. These scientific themes and other issues are analyzed in narratives, paintings, poetry, photographs, science fiction, medical literature, translation, newswriting, film, and other forms.

Silvia Bermúdez’s fascinating study reveals how Spanish popular music, produced between 1980 and 2013, was the first cultural site to engage in critical debate about ethnicity and race in relation to the immigration patterns that have been changing the social landscape of Spanish society since the late 1970s. In Rocking the Boat, Bermúdez examines the lyrics of songs by both renowned and up and coming artists to illuminate how these new migrants challenged Spain’s notions of homogeneity, boundaries, accommodation, and incorporation. Bermúdez observes that immigration has had such a significant influence on Spanish society that the tattered boats, seen to this day on the shores of Spain and throughout the Mediterranean Sea, have become inverted emblems of the ships that were once symbols of great power and economic development. Rocking the Boat is a nuanced account of how popular urban music shaped the discourse on immigration, transnational migrants, and racialization in Spain’s new social landscape.

Fulfilling the need for English-source material on contemporary Spain, this book supplies readers with an in-depth, interdisciplinary guide to the country of Spain and its intricate, diverse culture. Far from a usual reference book, Modern Spain takes the reader through the country's history, economy, and politics as well as topics that address Spain's popular culture, such as food, sports, and sexuality. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of its content, this book differs from the average typical English manuals that very rarely cover in depth the whole array of interesting issues that define Spain in the 21st century. The vast amount of information makes this book the perfect companion for any reader wishing to learn more about Spain. Packed with current facts and statistics, this book offers an unbiased view of a modern country, making it an ideal source for undergraduate students and scholars.

Around the turn of 21st Century, Spain welcomed more than six million foreigners, many of them from various parts of the African continent. How African immigrants represent themselves and are represented in contemporary Spanish texts is the subject of this interdisciplinary collection. Analyzing blogs, films, translations, and literary works by contemporary authors including Donato Ndongo (Ecquatorial Guinea), Abderrahman El Fathi (Morocco), Chus Gutiérrez (Spain), Juan Bonilla (Spain), and Bahia Mahmud Awah (Western Sahara), the contributors interrogate how Spanish cultural texts represent, idealize, or sympathize with the plight of immigrants, as well as the ways in which immigrants themselves represent Spain and Spanish culture. At the same time, these works shed light on issues related to Spain’s racial, ethnic, and sexual boundaries; the appeal of images of Africa in the contemporary marketplace; and the role of Spain’s economic crisis in shaping attitudes towards immigration. Taken together, the essays are a convincing reminder that cultural texts provide a mirror into the perceptions of a society during times of change.

This critical anthology sets out to explore the boom that horror cinema and TV productions have experienced in Spain in the past two decades. It uses a range of critical and theoretical perspectives to examine a broad variety of films and filmmakers, such as works by Alejandro Amenábar, Álex de la Iglesia, Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo del Toro, Juan Antonio Bayona, and Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. The volume revolves around a set of fundamental questions: What are the causes for this new Spanish horror-mania? What cultural anxieties and desires, ideological motives and practical interests may be behind such boom? Is there anything specifically "Spanish" about the Spanish horror film and TV productions, any distinctive traits different from Hollywood and other European models that may be associated to the particular political, social, economic or cultural circumstances of contemporary Spain?

16 Identifying the male: Language, humor, and gender performance in Companyia T de Teatre's Homes! -- Index