The Routledge Companion to Iberian Studies

A remarkable collection of in-depth essays on a vast array of topics relating to Iberian cultures across the ages. Rather than focusing on Spain as an isolated unit, this book encourages readers to view Iberia as a whole-a multifaceted, multicultural entity in which diverse languages, traditions, and histories come into play. Interdisciplinary in concept, it includes essays on politics and art, literature and geography, economics and religion, history and visual culture by acclaimed experts from both sides of the Atlantic. The articles on Irish cultural influences in Spanish are particularly refreshing. The articles on women during different periods of Iberian history help to provide a comprehensive view of Iberian society. Also extremely innovative are the sections on twentieth and twenty-first-century Iberia, which offer not only a new look at the rise of fascism and the civil war, but also groundbreaking work on Spanish film, television and popular literature, including comics. This is a book that all Hispanicists will want to have on their bookshelves. -Professor Barbara Mujica, Georgetown University, USA A timely and engaging exploration of the new mapping of the field. In less than a decade, the debate about the need to shelve monologic and monolithic versions of Hispanism and replace them with a more plural relational approach has taken centre stage. There is growing consensus that the cultural, historical and political complexity of the territory cannot be addressed within traditional disciplinary borders with the old methodological tools. This book is a response to demands to put the reconfiguration of the field into practice. Many of the leading scholars in Iberian Studies have contributed to this monumental collection that demonstrates the justification and rewards of a comparative perspective. It derives some fruitful lessons from the application of the premises of Comparative Literature to the internal differences and tensions in the Peninsula, and to the interaction between forms of cultural production. The most complete picture of the landscape is thus achieved by means of a prismatic composition: the sum of diverse fragments gives us a view of the whole. - Professor Antonio Monegal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain A superbly rich collection of 50 articles by scholars deploying multiple approaches to the diverse cultures of Iberia, medieval to present day. A few samples: a witty history of the Camino de Santiago; articles on translation, medieval, Franco era and present day; on medieval hermeneutics and premodern subjectivity in the Libro de buen amor; on Alvar Nunez and sixteenth-century mapping; on blood (im)purity in Iberia and Iberian colonies; on paintings of the morisco expulsion; rehearsal scenes and the comedia as prompt book for a changing society; on Icarus and Phaethon in Golden Age cultural production; on Enlightenment painting; on women writers--medieval convent voices, Enlightenment Hispano-Irishwomen, Rosalia de Castro, and female detective novels; on the rise and demise of Iberian empires, on civil wars, nation formations, changing political vocabularies, city planning, Basque and Catalan cultures, cinema and graphic novels; and much, much more to savor. In all, an excellent contribution to the several fields of Hispanic studies, and given its interdisciplinary focus, to students and scholars in history, translation studies, art history, theater studies, women's studies, political science and cultural anthropology as well. - Professor Margaret R. Greer, Duke University, USA This impressive book is an essential tool for research in Iberian Studies. The wide range of topics that are dealt with in this Companion constitutes a highly comprehensive view of Iberian history, politics and culture together with literature and visual arts. With contributions written by most prestigious scholars, the Companion offers a complete exploration of key topics from a systematic and historical perspective, providing a comparative foundation for the understanding of a complex reality. The depth of the articles makes it possible to read each contribution both as a coherent part of a whole and as a single work. The variety of topics guarantees the usefulness of this indispensable volume for all readers and researchers in Iberian culture. - Professor Tomas Albaladejo, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain Following Resina's pioneering call for a more transnational understanding of the Iberian condition, these 50 essays, by scholars of different lands and generations, fully succeed at breaking traditional academic barriers and hierarchies: The Companion, organized chronologically from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century, explores, often in comparative fashion, the complex political, cultural-visual/textual-, social and historical tapestry of the Peninsula, unconstrained by language, field, nationality, gender or race. Moreover, the notion of Iberian Studies, born in the era of globalization, is not here another form of compartmentalization, for it necessarily interacts with other studies and their modes of analysis. Media Studies, Afro-Iberian Studies, Visual Studies, and Global studies, among others, become commensurate and indispensable interlocutors. Such equitable dialogue is particularly illuminating when its subjects traverse or confront by definition multiple languages and territories: pilgrimage, nationalism, empire, cartography, emigration/exile and, repeatedly, translation, as much from a foreign language as between national languages. -Professor Luis Fernandez Cifuentes, Harvard University, USA