Description
Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library.Spanish Spaces is a pioneering study that marries contemporary cultural geography with contemporary Spanish culture. The field of cultural geography has grown both extensively and rapidly, as has the field of cultural analysis and debate on Spanish cultural texts; yet despite a convergence in study between cultural geography (and cultural studies more widely) and cultural texts themselves, this has made little impact to date within the area of contemporary Spanish cultural studies. Yet Spain’s varied terrain, with complex negotiations between rural, urban and coastal (negotiations that have on occasion spilled over into political and violent conflict), and perhaps its very lack of a contemporary landscape tradition familiar to British and German cultural studies, offer the opportunity for fresh insights into questions of landscape, space and place. Drawing on case studies from contemporary Spanish film and literature, Davies explores the themes of memory and forgetting, nationalism and terrorism, crime and detection, gender, tourism and immigration, investigating what it means to think of space and places in specifically Spanish terms.
Trade ReviewSpanish Places is an interesting reading around the notion of Spain and its currency as a concept and a national structure. While the selection of works can be debated or a more expanded discussion of regional identities desired, this study offers an innovative look into the discipline of Spanish cultural studies. The multiple works that are discussed to formulate this argument are informative and ultimately an invitation to take into account the role which landscape, geography, place and location play in the imaginary construction of the nation.
Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Volume XCITable of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of illustrations
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Memory: landscapes of the past in Guillermo del Toro's Spanish films
- 3. Forgetting: the landscapes of Gonzalo Torrente Ballester
- 4. Landscape and identities in the Basque County
- 5. Crime scene: landscape and the law of the land
- 6. Crime, scene: investigation: women, detection and the city
- 7. Coasting: tourism and landscape
- 8. Immigration: north (of) Africa
- 9. Conclusion Filmography Bibliography Index
