Proyectos
The Roots of the Spanish Transition to Democracy: University Students in Literature and Political Struggle.
Fall semester 2023—spring semester 2024
As I have a strong interest in the cultures of the Spanish transition to democracy, it is important for me to be familiar with its precedents and the context of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on a corpus composed of fiction novels, ranging from the almost unknown novel El curso by José Antonio Payno to the classic of Spanish literature Últimas tardes con Teresa by Juan Marsé, I address how literature reflected the political and generational concerns of young people under the Franco regime. In addition, I examine the relationship of these books to the publishing market of the late Franco years and to magazine articles from the period, such as Cuadernos para el Diálogo and Destino.
In the 1960s and 1970s, young people in Spain engaged in political demonstrations and campaigns that were echoed in works of literature. An analysis of these works reveals that they contain, in part, the roots of what was to come later, namely the Spanish transition to democracy.
I have had the opportunity to present my ongoing research in the framework of the BA Literaturwissenchaft Seminar at the University of Bern “Evolution of the campus novel in Spain: Two perspectives for an (im)possible genre,” which I designed and taught.
Archive of the Transition
Networks, the Literary Field, and the Publishing Market in the Twentieth Century
Research between
2020 and 2023
Literature in the making
I understand the literary field as a set of practices involving authors, editors, critics, and other elements that make up the institution of literature, as articulated by Jacques Dubois, Pierre Bourdieu, and Pascal Durand, among others. Within this context, my interests include: 1) the constitution of the “generation of ’27” in the literary field of the twentieth century and the a posteriori historiographical implications of the coining of that category (e.g., the displacement in the literary field of female authors who would later be known as the Sinsombrero); 2) the difficulties publishing books due to factors such as political censorship and exile, as represented by the case of Ramón J. Sender and his novel El lugar de un hombre.
The newspaper as a platform for the dissemination of ideas
I start from the premise that a newspaper is a publication that has an influence on the cultural and political sphere and that brings together groups from the cultural field that share a particular affinity. Specifically, I have analyzed: 1) the group linked to the magazine Nueva España and opposition to it in the 1930s and 2) the figure of María Luz Morales and the role she played in the transmission of progressive and feminist ideas in the first third of the twentieth century, in contrast to the earlier nineteenth-century ideal of femininity.
Literature and money
There is an obvious, though not always visible, vector in the relationship between literature and the market, namely economic conditions. I have studied the labor claims made by cultural workers in the early twentieth century and the debate around writing as a symbolic good rather than a profession. In addition, by focusing on the figure of Ramón Gómez de la Serna and the letters he wrote, I have shed light on the economic concerns of writers who collaborated with the press not only to gain visibility as creators, but also to obtain a source of income.
María Luz Morales
El Sol (1917-1931) by Nicolás de Urgoiti. Literary Criticism and Editorial Strategies.
Research between
2016 and 2020
The interrelation between literature, newspapers, and publishing houses is a topic that interests to me, as it provides the foundation for an interpretation of the cultural field that goes beyond texts. My thesis focused on a concrete and paradigmatic case, namely the newspaper El Sol, which represented a breakthrough in the twentieth-century newspaper industry for several reasons—among other things because of the space it gave to literary criticism. Making use of a quantitative methodology, I consulted the issues published between 1917 and 1931. This enabled me to develop an interpretation of the different phases that literary information went through in El Sol and the role of the collaborators in the development of the newspaper. I dedicated several chapters to Calpe (and its later merger with Espasa), Casa del Libro, and the publishing industry of the first third of the twentieth century, since Urgoiti made a substantial contribution to the development of the Spanish publishing sector as we know it today.
Detail of the poster “Universe of contemporary Spanish literature”
(Ernesto Giménez Caballero).
The Roots of the Spanish Transition to Democracy: University Students in Literature and Political Struggle.
Fall semester 2023—spring semester 2024
As I have a strong interest in the cultures of the Spanish transition to democracy, it is important for me to be familiar with its precedents and the context of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on a corpus composed of fiction novels, ranging from the almost unknown novel El curso by José Antonio Payno to the classic of Spanish literature Últimas tardes con Teresa by Juan Marsé, I address how literature reflected the political and generational concerns of young people under the Franco regime. In addition, I examine the relationship of these books to the publishing market of the late Franco years and to magazine articles from the period, such as Cuadernos para el Diálogo and Destino.
In the 1960s and 1970s, young people in Spain engaged in political demonstrations and campaigns that were echoed in works of literature. An analysis of these works reveals that they contain, in part, the roots of what was to come later, namely the Spanish transition to democracy.
I have had the opportunity to present my ongoing research in the framework of the BA Literaturwissenchaft Seminar at the University of Bern “Evolution of the campus novel in Spain: Two perspectives for an (im)possible genre,” which I designed and taught.
Archive of the Transition
Networks, the Literary Field, and the Publishing Market in the Twentieth Century
Research between
2020 and 2023
Literature in the making
I understand the literary field as a set of practices involving authors, editors, critics, and other elements that make up the institution of literature, as articulated by Jacques Dubois, Pierre Bourdieu, and Pascal Durand, among others. Within this context, my interests include: 1) the constitution of the “generation of ’27” in the literary field of the twentieth century and the a posteriori historiographical implications of the coining of that category (e.g., the displacement in the literary field of female authors who would later be known as the Sinsombrero); 2) the difficulties publishing books due to factors such as political censorship and exile, as represented by the case of Ramón J. Sender and his novel El lugar de un hombre.
The newspaper as a platform for the dissemination of ideas
I start from the premise that a newspaper is a publication that has an influence on the cultural and political sphere and that brings together groups from the cultural field that share a particular affinity. Specifically, I have analyzed: 1) the group linked to the magazine Nueva España and opposition to it in the 1930s and 2) the figure of María Luz Morales and the role she played in the transmission of progressive and feminist ideas in the first third of the twentieth century, in contrast to the earlier nineteenth-century ideal of femininity.
Literature and money
There is an obvious, though not always visible, vector in the relationship between literature and the market, namely economic conditions. I have studied the labor claims made by cultural workers in the early twentieth century and the debate around writing as a symbolic good rather than a profession. In addition, by focusing on the figure of Ramón Gómez de la Serna and the letters he wrote, I have shed light on the economic concerns of writers who collaborated with the press not only to gain visibility as creators, but also to obtain a source of income.
María Luz Morales
El Sol (1917-1931) by Nicolás de Urgoiti. Literary Criticism and Editorial Strategies.
Research between
2016 and 2020
The interrelation between literature, newspapers, and publishing houses is a topic that interests to me, as it provides the foundation for an interpretation of the cultural field that goes beyond texts. My thesis focused on a concrete and paradigmatic case, namely the newspaper El Sol, which represented a breakthrough in the twentieth-century newspaper industry for several reasons—among other things because of the space it gave to literary criticism. Making use of a quantitative methodology, I consulted the issues published between 1917 and 1931. This enabled me to develop an interpretation of the different phases that literary information went through in El Sol and the role of the collaborators in the development of the newspaper. I dedicated several chapters to Calpe (and its later merger with Espasa), Casa del Libro, and the publishing industry of the first third of the twentieth century, since Urgoiti made a substantial contribution to the development of the Spanish publishing sector as we know it today.
Detail of the poster “Universe of contemporary Spanish literature”
(Ernesto Giménez Caballero).