Review of: Queer Obscenity: Erotic Archives in Dictatorial Spain , Javier Fernàndez-Galeano (2024) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 269 pp., ISBN 978-1-50363-875-4, h/bk, $110.00 ISBN 978-1-50363-950-8, p/bk, $28.00 ISBN 978-1-50363-951-5, e-book, $26.60

Pedro Almodóvar’s Madres paralelas (2021) is arguably his most politically engaged work yet, with the protagonist Janis (Penélope Cruz) leading a project to exhume a Civil War mass grave. This essay begins by exploring previous engagement by Almodóvar with memorialization practices, including the short film Cultura contra la impunidad (2010). The analysis of Madres paralelas tackles the privileging of memory work and familial inheritances, with attention to the role of photography and the final scenes at the exhumed graveside. Ultimately, Almodóvar’s film, diegetically and as material object, intervenes in the current ‘memory economy’ as an act of justice.

The archetype of the orphan has a long history in the western cultural imaginary. In need of culturally and politically legitimized familial structures to ensure the child’s moral and physical needs are met, substitute parental figures loom large in narratives of orphanhood where the (anti-)hero comes good. This article will consider the presentation of female orphans in two films: Carla Simón’s Catalan film Estiu 1993/Summer 1993 (Simón, 2017) presents the story of Frida, who has just lost her parents to AIDS and is relocated to her aunt and uncle’s rural family home, while Saura’s celebrated Cría cuervos/Raise Ravens (Saura, 1976) focuses on Ana, one of three sisters recently orphaned and now under the care of their aunt in late-Francoist Madrid. The article will examine the similarities between the two films’ thematic and formal approaches to the subject matter, attending to their respective socio-historical contexts.

This article examines the shape of the pedagogical canon of Spanish degree courses in UK Higher Education institutions. After identifying briefly the current challenges to the sector, the article discusses the results of a data set relating to the academic year 2015/2016, before comparing them to data sets from the academic years 2006/2007 and 1998/1999. It will be shown that there is a demonstrable dissipation of any sense of a canonical core. The article concludes by suggesting that the shift away from a literary core towards a greater array of literary and cultural objects of study is part of the evolution of modern languages, and may be of benefit to the discipline.

The twenty-first century ‘memory boom’ in Spain has resulted in a plethora of narratives in which the Civil War and the early years of Franco’s dictatorship feature prominently. Studies of these works have addressed representations of memory and trauma, recognizing how the authors reanimate the past and narrate stories of conflict and loss to a readership distanced from the historical events. This essay explores four texts, identifying the strategies that have shaped their circulation in the current affective economy. Analysis pays particular attention to text, but also explores the image as formative in the reading experience.

Researchers of contemporary Spanish literature, film and culture often find themselves unsure of what exactly their objects of study should be. There is a well-defined – in perception if not in pra...

JOAN RAMON RESINA (ed.), Iberian Modalities. A Relational Approach to the Study of Culture in the Iberian Peninsula. Contemporary Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 8. Liver- pool: Liverpool University Press. 2013. xvi + 271 pp. ISBN 978-1-84631-833-7.In the closing chapter of this collection of essays, its editor, Joan Ramon Resina, notes that the Romans divided the Iberian Penin- sula into three: Lusitania, Betica and Tarra- conencis, with the cities now known as Lisbon, Seville and Barcelona as their respec- tive centres; Madrid and its geographic and symbolic centrality come to prominence much later. The observation is made in passing, within a discussion of Josep Pla's travel writing, but it underpins the central tenet of Iberian Modalities as an interrogation of current and previous political and cultural formations, both theoretical and practical, of Iberia and Iberian Studies.In addition to a preface and an introduc- tion, the volume comprises fourteen essays by different contributors. Half are scholars based in North American academic institu- tions, the other seven are from different European countries. The fact that only two of the essayists are currently based in Iberia is perhaps indicative of the institutional spaces in which questions of Iberia have been raised; indeed, this collection originated in a 2011 symposium at Stanford University. All essays are in English with translations of quota- tions, in some cases the original quotation is also provided.Resina's Introduction continues the work of his 2009 monograph Del hispanismo a los estudios ibericos, in which the author lamented the place of departments of Spanish and Portuguese in academia and argued for the acceptance of Iberianism as a new paradigm. Here, he claims that the concept has survived ridicule, is now being debated in departments, and will eventually become institutionalized. As such, Resina situates Iberian Studies as a subfield of comparative studies, whose inter- locking parts must be attended to equally. It may be that one particular language of the peninsula is the 'selling point' in the academic marketplace, but Resina argues that the Iberian body politic is malleable, performative, and its constituent parts must be brought into dialogue. The contributors to the first section of the book agree: Keown assesses the position of Hispanic and Iberian Studies in the UK and, crucially, Ireland, whose political history provides for a greater support of so-called peripheral languages, while Delgado uses imagery of the spectral, dream and fantasy, to argue for a 'juxtaposi- tional' approach to the field. Santana is one of the few to explicitly state his own position and limitations in relation to Iberianism and as such his essay wisely recognizes the potentialities and limitations of translation and transition across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Marti Monterde explores the question of national traditions and doubled writers, within, between and without a particular nation. …