Böcker i Hispanic Studies: Culture and Ideas-serien

Historical and literary works from the Spanish Golden Age offer a wealth of information about the Spanish view of the conflict in the Netherlands during the Dutch Revolt and the ensuing Eighty Years¿ War (1568-1648). The war in the cold north was to become a fixed component in the lives of the Spaniards of the Golden Age for many years. This book reconstructs the images that the Spanish had of the Netherlands and its inhabitants. These images are inextricably intertwined with the picture that the Spanish constructed of themselves as participants in the conflict. This book follows the developments of these images from the construction of an image of the enemy that reached a climax between 1621 and 1648 and then gradually faded away. Which images and representations circulated the most, and where did they come from? Which rhetoric was used to present them to the public, and in which genres and contexts were they disseminated and preserved? On the basis of a varied collection of sources, war chronicles and plays, as well as pamphlets, poems, historical works and prose writings, the author illustrates the appearance of the Netherlands through Spanish eyes during the course of the Eighty Years¿ War.

This book is an edited volume of eleven specially-commissioned essays by a range of established and emerging UK-based Hispanists, which assess recent developments in the disciplines falling under the umbrella of ¿Iberian Studies¿. These essays, which cover a wide range of time periods and geographical areas, but are united by the common question of what it means to ¿Read Iberiä, offer an invigorating critique of many of the critical assumptions shaping the study of Iberian languages and literatures. This volume offers a timely intervention into the debate about the current repositioning of language/literature disciplines within the UK university. Its intellectual starting point is the need for a committed and incisive re-evaluation of the role of literature and the way we teach and research it. The contributors address this issue from a diverse range of linguistic, cultural and theoretical backgrounds, drawing on both familiar and not-so-familiar texts and authors to question common reference points and critical assumptions. The volume offers not only a new and invigorating space for reimagining Iberian Studies from within, but also ¿ through its commitment to interdisciplinary debate ¿ an opportunity to raise the profile of Iberian Studies outside the community of academic Hispanists.

In the 1580s, almost a century after Christopher Columbus first set foot in the New World, England could not make any substantial claim to the rich territories there. Less than a century later, England had not only founded an overseas empire but had also managed to challenge her most powerful rivals in the international arena. But before any material success accompanied English New World enterprises, a major campaign of promotion was launched with the clear objective of persuading Englishmen that intervention in the Americas was not only desirable for the national economy but even paramount for their survival as a new and powerful Protestant nation-state. In this book the author explores the metaphors that dominate England¿s discourse on the New World in her attempt to conceptualize it and make it ready for immediate consumption. The creators of England¿s proto-colonial discourse were forced to make use of their rivals¿ prior experience at the same time they tried to present England as radically different, thus conferring legitimacy to English claims over territories that were already occupied. One of the most outstanding consequences of this ideological contest is the emergence of an English national self not only in opposition to the American natives they try to colonise, but also, and more importantly, in contrast to other nations that had been traditionally considered culturally similar.

From Revolution to Migration

Includes a selection of the papers given during the international conference Patagonia: Myths and Realities, which was organised through the Centre of Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester.

This book focuses on the novel Paradiso of Cuban author José Lezama Lima (1910-1976), and in particular on the protagonist José Cemí. It examines the development of Cemí according to the three distinct phases detailed by Lezama: the ¿placentariö world of family protection, the awakening to the exterior world and the subsequent friendships made, and the eventual encounters with Oppiano Licario. Cemí¿s progression, and his growing ability to interpret and create texts, is analysed as analogous to the reader¿s progression through the novel. In this respect, both the reader and Cemí are obliged to interpret the complex symbolism according to interpretative skills acquired from the text itself. In a similar fashion, the connection between Cemí¿s ¿guide¿ Licario, and the author Lezama is investigated. By exploring these connections between reader and protagonist, author and character, the author of this work suggests a radical and hitherto unexplored approach to the text of Lezama.