The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture
New Hispanisms: Cultural and Literary Studies Series

This collection of essays explores cultural phenomena that are shaping masculine identities in contemporary Spain, asking and striving to answer these compelling questions: what does it mean to be a man in present-day Spain? How has masculinity evolved since Franco?s dictatorship? What are the dynamics of masculinity in contemporary Spanish culture? How has hegemonic masculinity been contested in cultural productions? This volume is comprised of sixteen essays that address these very questions by examining literary, cultural and film representations of the configurations of masculinities in contemporary Spain. Divided into three thematic units, starting with the undermining of the monolithic Francoist archetype of masculinity, continuing with the reformulation of hegemonic masculinity and finishing with regional emergent masculinities, all of the volume?s essays focus on the redefinition of Spanish masculinities. Principal themes of the volume include alternative families, queer masculinities, performative masculinities, memory and resistance to hegemonic discourses of manliness, violence and emotions, public versus private masculinities, regional masculinities, and marginal masculinities. This exploration not only produces new insights into masculinity, but also yields nuanced insights into the recuperation of memory in contemporary Spain, the reconfiguration of the family, the status of women in Spanish society, and regional identities.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

List of Figures

Lists of contributors

Introduction: The Reconfiguration of Masculinity

Section I: The Forge and Cultural Subversion of Francoist Masculinity

Chapter One: Old Traditions and Revolutionary Tendencies by José Colmeiro

Chapter Two: The Poetics of Defeat in Alberto Méndez’s Los girasoles ciegos by Ellen Mayock

Chapter Three: Masculinity and Historical Memory by Olga Bezhanova

Chapter Four: Comic Masculinities by Lisa Renée DiGiovanni

Chapter Five: Memory and Masculinity in Almudena Grandes's El corazón helado by Lorraine Ryan

Section II: The Reconfiguration of Hegemonic Masculinity

Chapter Six: Who’s Your Daddy? by Jorge Pérez

Chapter Seven: Dwarves, Bullfighters, and Other Disenchanted Masculinities in Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves by Nina Molinaro

Chapter Eight: The Recession in Contemporary Spanish Cinema by Alicia Castillo Villanueva

Chapter Nine: ReinFORCEment of Masculinity through Violence by Victoria L. Ketz

Chapter Ten: Transnational Telenovela and Modern Masculinities by Paul Julian Smith

Section III: Regional Emergent Masculinities

Chapter Eleven: Muslim Masculinities in the Spaces of Najat El Hachmi’s El último patriarca by María DiFrancesco

Chapter Twelve: Declining Hypermasculinity in Texts by Catalan-Moroccan Authors by Miquel Pomar

Chapter Thirteen: Soundtrack of a Generation by Maria Van Liew

Chapter Fourteen: Spanish Fathers, Basque Sons by H. Rosi Song

Chapter Fifteen: Hegemonic Masculinities and Staged Authenticity in Ocho apellidos vascos by Alfredo Martínez Expósito

Chapter Sixteen: Identifying the Male: Language, Humor, and Gender Performance in Companyia T de Teatre’s Homes! by Nina Namaste

Index

Ana Corbalán is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Alabama. She holds her Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her books include El cuerpo transgresor en la narrativa española contemporánea (Libertarias, 2009) and Memorias fragmentadas: Mirada transatlántica a la resistencia femenina contra las dictaduras, which is forthcoming with Iberoamericana/Vervuert in 2015.

Lorraine Ryan is a Birmingham Fellow in the University of Birmingham, UK. She has published on the sociology of memory and representation of memory, gender and spatiality in contemporary Spanish culture in journals such as Hispania, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, and Memory Studies.