Haunting Modernity: The Fantastic Short Story in Nineteenth Century Spain
Noel Valis
My dissertation examines the fantastic short stories of canonical authors Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, Benito Pérez Galdós, and Emilia Pardo Bazán as works that are critically engaged with their socio-historical context of nineteenth century Spain. Each of these authors employs the fantastic mode to explore contemorary social phenomena, from urban expansion and reform to religious crisis. The authors under study not only capitalize on the hybrid nature of fantastic literature as a mixture of superstition and positivism to capture the changing social reality that they witnessed, but draw upon the discomfitting nature of fantastic narrative to dramatize the anxieties that such societal transition provoked. Although fantastic writing is often trivialized as frivolous and escapist literature, particularly in the age of such realist masterpieces as _La Regenta or Fortunata y Jacinta,_ the short stories that I study establish the literary mode as particularly well-suited to represent and reflect upon a tumultuous moment in Spanish history.
SPAN 110, Elementary Spanish |
SPAN 120, Elementary Spanish II
SPAN 130, Intermediate Spanish I
SPAN 140, Intermediate Spanish II
GSSP S999, Spanish for Reading
Published paper: “'Mirar tapices flamencos por el revés': Elogio implícito de la traducción en Don Quijote.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 42:3 (Octubre 2008): 483-502.
Conference papers: “A Woman Possessed: How Emilia Pardo Bazán’s 'Possession' Raised Hell in Her Day” presented at the 42nd Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, April 7-10, 2011.
“Haunted Modernity: A Case Study of Galdós's Fantastic Fiction” presented at the 63rd Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, April 15-17, 2010.
“Églogas épicas y comedias trágicas: el elogio del poeta en la ‘Égloga II’ de Garcilaso de la Vega y A Midsummer Night’s Dream de Shakespeare” presented at the 13th Annual Graduate Students’ Conference at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, March 28-29, 2008.
“Pida y recibirá: palabra, poder y fiesta en ¡Écue-Yamba-O! de Alejo Carpentier” presented at the 12th Annual Graduate Students’ Conference at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, March 23-24, 2007.
Graduate Affiliate of the Whitney Humanities Center
Work as a Graduate Career Services Fellow