Description
Book SynopsisBarbara Fuchs examines the paradoxes in the construction of Spain in relation to its Moorish heritage through an analysis of Spanish literature, costume, language, architecture, and chivalric practices from 1492 to 1609.
Trade Review"Fuchs has drawn from a wide array of sources to produce a rich, well-researched, and absorbing book that crosses disciplinary boundaries.
Exotic Nation is a first-rate contribution to the field of early modern studies." *
Sixteenth Century Journal *
"Barbara Fuchs gives us a lively and illuminating look into the many ways in which Moorishness remained a vivid presence in early modern Spanish culture. Theoretically sophisticated, but rooted in the careful examination of the texts of quotidian life,
Exotic Nation takes the reader beyond Orientalism into a profound rethinking of the relationship of early modern Spain to other European nations and of the role of Jewish, African, and Moorish elements in Spain's own self-construction. Essential reading for anyone interested in the ways in which excluded others can become central to a nation's most profound understandings and representations of itself in the everyday domains of architecture, popular literature, dress, and festivity,
Exotic Nation is a beautifully written and lucidly argued book on a topic of great importance." * Jean E. Howard, Columbia University *
"Fuchs admirably achieves her ambitious dual goal: to elucidate the paradoxical uses of Moorishness in the early modern construction of Spanish national identity, both internally, by Spaniards themselves, and externally, by other Europeans. Her thesis that Spain's Moorishness is both quotidian and exotic is quite dazzling.
Exotic Nation will have a major impact on studies of early modern Spain." * Barbara Weissberger, author of
Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power *
Table of Contents1. The Quotidian and the Exotic
2. In Memory of Moors: History, Maurophilia, and the Built Vernacular
3. The Moorish Fashion
4. Playing the Moor
5. The Spanish Race
Postscript Moorish Commonplaces
Notes
Bibliography
Index
