Female Identity in Spanish Literature and Culture

Dear Colleagues,

The notion of female identity in the Spanish cultural imaginary has been a source of fascination since the origins of Western culture, from the misogyny that dominated the Middle Ages; to the humanistic training of the so-called “latinas”, who used education to gain influence in a male-dominated society in the Renaissance context; to the forge of an Enlightened society of citizens with political and civil rights in which gender equality was nonetheless neglected; to the advances and setbacks experienced by women in the 19^th century following the fall of the Ancien Régime and the industrialization that brought women into the streets and into the workforce but which also brought about the establishment of the self-sacrificing figure of the “ángel del hogar”; and to the recognition of political rights for women in the early 20th century, interrupted by decades of legal discrimination in the context of the Franco dictatorship, followed in turn by the proclamation of equal rights between men and women within the 1978 Constitution—an equality principle that, with frequent cases of workplace discrimination, the scourge of gender violence, or the underrepresentation of females in political and social institutions, is far from complete.

Delineating this incomplete journey serves to introduce this Special Issue. Despite the increasing number of historical, critical and theoretical works in the last quarter of the 20^th century that focus on the role of women, the notion of female identity continues to push boundaries. This Issue invites essays that put women in the center, both as subject of discourse construction and as objects of artistic representation, and that examine the notion of female identity in literary and visual works across different time periods in the history of Spain from an interdisciplinary approach (including literary studies, cultural anthropology, media and visual art studies, and the history of ideas). We particularly welcome proposals that explore cultural texts, not only in their epistemological function as a source of knowledge of the real world but, most importantly, as a unique space for the construction of the cultural imaginary where new avenues of subjectivity, identity and agency find expression. Ideally, the contributions in this Special Issue will offer innovative and groundbreaking approaches by redefining the limits of a canon (following Iris Zavala’s definition of canon as a process of inclusion/exclusion of texts according to the beliefs, practices and models at work in a specific society at a given time); by offering new insights on topics that have already been widely debated and (in the minds of some) even settled; by focusing on new practices and models of femininity; by refiguring the spaces that female subjects have occupied, or have been allowed to occupy, in their daily lives; and by reconsidering the roles that women have played in different areas of society such as politics, literature, work, education and family.

Topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Female identity and power;
• Women in places and spaces;
• Agencies of resistance, rebellion, deviance;
• Marginal, hidden, suppressed subjectivities;
• Gender and the workforce;
• Female corporeality, disabled bodies, non-hegemonic corporeal actions, bodily materialities, maternity;
• Sexual identities, gender identities and the intersections with race, class, ethnicity, age, and disability;
• Science, technology, medicine;
• Political debates (trauma, crisis, war, dictatorship);
• Women and capital.

Please submit 250-word proposals to Sara Muñoz-Muriana ([email protected]).

Dr. Sara Muñoz-Muriana
Guest Editor

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• female identity and power
• women in places and spaces
• female corporeality
• sexual identities
• gender identities