I recently came across this amazing vintage video on “Family Planning,” produced by Disney in 1968, via Open Culture. Do yourself a favor and take 10 minutes to watch it. In addition to the frivolous use of Donald Duck and the caricature of a “simple,” heterosexual couple who appear clueless as to how babies are made, this short film provides us with a wealth of information regarding attitudes towards reproduction in this particular cultural milieu (USA, late 1960s).

Of course there are a number of things that we can critique, (over)analyze, and comment on in this video – the racialized representations of “man” and the underlying positive-eugenics discourse suggesting population control, for example. However for the purposes of this post I want to limit my discussion to “the silent woman.” In this video she has two functions that caught my attention. First, she is the accessory that allows the “everyday man” to maintain power within both the private (family home) and public spheres. She does not voice an opinion, she stays at/within the home to take care of all their children, and she certainly does not talk about sex or reproduction. This is perhaps her most obvious, and most historically and culturally recognized role.  But her second function in this video is what sparked my interest, given that it connects with my research on feminism and motherhood in 1920s Spain. I also see her as a silent embodiment of scare tactics that encourage women viewers to voluntarily embrace this passive, silent role within their families — all for their own “good.”

Specifically, the subtext of this video shares many similarities with the ideology that informed the research and writing of the well-respected Spanish endocrinologist, Dr. Gregorio Marañón, in the 1920s.  Marañón’s controversial theories regarding intersexuality, masculinity, and femininity, were quite popular with the Spanish readership, and historian Thomas F. Glick has described Marañón as “Spain’s authoritative voice on sexual matters” in the 1920s (see Glick’s informative article, “Sexual Reform, Psychoanalysis, and the Politics of Divorce in Spain in the 1920s and 1930s”). In 1926, Marañón published a collection of essays entitled Tres ensayos sobre la vida sexual (Three essays on sexual life), and the longest of the three was “Maternidad y feminismo”. While not explicitly advocating birth control, the doctor does argue in favor of “maternidad consciente,” a position that made him popular with some feminist-inclined women of the era (including novelist and journalist Carmen de Burgos). Yet much like this Disney video from the 1960s, the motives driving his arguments in favor of limiting reproduction are clearly tinted by patriarchal-glasses(!).

In the Disney video, the male narrator suggests that one of the benefits of limiting births with Family Planning is that the woman will work less and be healthier. At 6:05, we see a blue-gray image of a haggard, exhausted woman taking care of many children while performing all household duties. The narrator explains: “The woman will have too much to do. She will become tired and cross. Her health will suffer.” Appearing benevolent on the surface, this rhetoric harks back to 1920s Spain, in which “conscious maternity” was lauded for its potential to prevent adultery. ADULTERY!?!? Yes, adultery. You know, because if a woman is “tired,” “cross,” or appears older than her age due to birthing and raising many children, she certainly won’t be interested in sex, her husband will not be attracted to her, and thus he will “naturally” be forced to satisfy his sexual needs elsewhere. And what 1960s housewife would want to look like the depressing portrayal of the woman in the video?

Dr. Marañón employs this same tactic in his 1926 essays. The “poetic” lines he used to describe a woman with many children actually made me laugh the first time I read them:
“la madre, envejecida prematuramente, malhumorada, cuando no enferma y tererosa del tálamo […] pierda todo el encanto sexual para el esposo”  / “the mother, prematurely aged, grumpy, when not sick or fearful of the marriage bed [...] loses all sexual appeal to her husband”  (“Maternidad y feminismo” 96)

But this is no laughing matter! If we examine the 1960s Family Planning video, Marañón’s seemingly antiquated words clearly find new life. Even though the woman remains silent throughout the video, it is she who bears the brunt of the Family Planning responsibilities in order to make her husband happy. It is the silent woman who visits the doctor, the health service worker, and the Family Planning clinic (8:00). It is she who will ultimately “take pills” (7:52). In the end, it appears as thought the silent (ok… whispering like a chipmunk) woman convinces her husband to try Family Planning; he embraces her and  casts a loving gaze upon both her and their children (9:00-35).

Considering the ways in which Family Planning and birth control have been discussed in different historical and cultural moments (in both “conservative” and “liberal” spaces), it’s important to recognize that public discussions of birth control are often less about a woman’s right to freely control her body, health, and sexual activity, and more about ways in which others might benefit from female self-discipline. The Disney short – which does not include one female name in the opening credits – is a perfect example. And while this is clearly a “vintage” film, that doesn’t necessarily mean that our current society has moved beyond these critiques. In fact, we might even classify our modern-day media’s obsession with women’s post-pregnancy bodies as a further means of pressuring women to control their reproductive potential, not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of those around them (husbands, public, modeling contracts, etc.).

Remember, ladies:

During my dissertation research, I spent lots of time searching for several, quite obscure short novelas written throughout the 1920s by Spanish anarcho-feminist Federica Montseny. Somehow I came across the website for The International Institute for Social History, located in Amsterdam. The Institute has an impressive archival collection, including books and periodicals, documentation, and audio-visual materials “with a thematic emphasis on social and emancipatory movements.” Check out the collections via the IISH catalog. Or go right to their “highlights,” including virtual exhibitions, labor history resources, and “the item of the day.”

My research centers on women’s movements and strategies of social reform and resistance in 1920s Spain, and the IISH houses collections of two of the most influential Anarchist journals published in Barcelona during this time: La novela libre and La novela ideal. Federica Montseny was one of the few women writers who frequently contributed to these publications. In her autobiography, Montseny confirms that the apparently frivolous, folletín-esque narratives appearing in these journals were in fact powerful ideological vehicles directed at Spanish youth, and at women in particular. The themes were neither traditional nor uncompromised, and boasted elements of libertarian propaganda, anti-clerical sentiments, free love advocacy, and emphasis on social reforms. Here is a sample of a few Spanish titles from this series that caught my attention. What’s not intriguing about prostitutes, desperate desires to flee, and of course women’s constant, all-powerful maternal instinct?

Tres Prostitutas Decentes. by Mariano Gallardo
Barcelona: La Revista Blanca, n.d.

Ansias de volar. by Ángela Graupera.
Barcelona : La Revista Blanca, s.a. – 63 p.
La novela libre; 40

La infinita sed. by Federica Montseny.
Barcelona : La Revista Blanca, s.a. – 32 p. La novela ideal ; 181

Numerous authors penned short fictional novelas for these journals, and many were men; Montseny was not only one of a small group of female authors, but also one of the most prolific contributors. For the goals of my book project, I focus on two of Montseny’s short novelas, “Maternidad” (1925) and “El derecho al hijo” (1928), as part of a larger effort to position her anarcho-feminist understanding of motherhood within the broader context of first-wave feminist activity in Spain. Quite revolutionary for their time, these texts reveal a complex, often philosophical conception of motherhood as a female art form, an individual right, and a powerful vital force that ensures the futures of both the nation, and humanity.

In any case, with the scope of my current research and my teaching responsibilities, I unfortunately do not have the time or resources to obtain and read Tres prostitutas decentes. Bummer! I will have to put it on my list of future academic beach-reads. In the meantime, if any readers are lucky enough to have an electronic copy of this random text, feel free to contact me and share the wealth! 

What fascinating texts or archives have you come across recently that temporarily derailed or redirected your research?

In my (Spanish) Introduction to Textual Analysis course, my students are currently working with two texts in which the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship of Francisco Franco form the historical and cultural background: the play Escuadra hacia la muerte (Alfonso Sastre, 1953) and the film El laberinto del fauno (dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2006).  As a way of discussing the different ways in which this historical context is relevant to both the play and the film, and to begin thinking about what dramatic and cinematographic effects help communicate this atmosphere to us as readers/viewers, I began our class last week with two paintings, created by Spanish artists during the years of the civil war (1936-39):

Picasso’s famous Guernica (1937):

and Salvador Dalí’s lesser-known España (1938):

I intended to use the images for 10-15 minutes as a way of initiating discussion, so I had not prepared lengthy lectures of these particular pieces before class. My students proved to be not only enthusiastic about sharing their interpretations and thoughts on the paintings, but also far more inquisitive than I had anticipated. For Guernica they hit upon all the major themes and imagery that will prove relevant in our upcoming analytic discussions of Sastre’s play and del Toro’s film: lack of color (black and white, dark grays); the interplay of shadows and light; fragmented and mutilated human bodies; the lack of realism, or the abstract depiction of a historical event (the attack on the town of Guernica); agony; desperation; hopelessness; oppression; death; destruction; chaos. They even noted the “broken” bull – traditionally a symbol of Spain – that, despite the painting’s abstract depiction of war, nevertheless implicates the Spanish nation in particular.

However the class had a more difficult time – initially – comprehending Dalí’s portrayal. This was likely due to the fact that most of them had never seen it before, whereas Guernica, in general, had at least entered their field of vision in some way over the course of their Spanish studies (these students have studied Spanish for at least 4-5 years, on average). Once they were able to perceive the double-image that Dalí created – the ghost-like figure of “Mother Spain” looking down upon the destruction and chaos of a Spanish countryside polluted by the battles of war – they had more questions about the painting’s details. Below is a more detailed depiction of the woman’s face and bust that appear amidst the battlefield in this painting – it is often quite difficult to discern this female figure upon the first viewing of the painting:

In order to (try to) better answer their questions, this weekend I found myself shuffling through my nearly 25 books on Surrealism and Salvador Dalí – remembering why I had once been so passionate about these topics. I also realized that this is still one of my favorite books: Salvador Dalí. The Paintings. by Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret (Köln: Taschen, 2002). Interestingly, Descharnes and Néret characterize Dalí’s position regarding the Spanish Civil War as apolitical: “True to his principle of taking no interest in politics, … [Dalí] observed [the war] as an entomologist might observe ants of grasshoppers. To him it was natural history; to Picasso, by contrast, it was a political reality. What Guernica was for Picasso, The Burning Giraffe and Soft Construction with Boiled Beans – Premonition of Civil War were for Dalí” (238).

The Burning Giraffe (Jirafa ardiendo) (1937)

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans – Premonition of Civil War (Construcción blanda con judías hervidas – Premonición de la Guerra Civil) (1936)

But for Dalí, the war was indeed a disturbing reality he could not ignore – his close friend, the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, was murdered at the hands of the Nationalist militia in 1936. And while Dalí’s paintings may not appear to exhibit the same overt social commentary that is clearly visible in Picasso’s Guernica, I would disagree with Descharnes and Néret that the works themselves are apolitical. If we re-examine them, for example, in light of the aforementioned themes my class pointed out in Guernica, we find many – if not all – of the same techniques and representations. The surrealist style, bold colors, and unconventional imagery (and titles!) may mask the precise political and cultural realities, but we must not trivialize the way in which they nevertheless reveal the extent to which the death and destruction of this particular war affected even the most flippant, avant-garde, and typically irreverent of Spanish citizens.

I’ll end here by using this post as yet another platform from which I can share a few of my favorites of Dalí’s double-image paintings. After having read about and studied them for so many years, even traveling to remote Spanish villages to see the originals, I often forget how new and remarkable these paintings can be to others who are discovering them for the first time – especially when these “others” were all born after 1993…! I was amazed, for example, that many of my students had never seen what is arguably one of Dalí’s most popular double-image paintings, Swans Reflecting Elephants:

Swans Reflecting Elephants (Cisnes que se reflejan elefantes) (1937)

Ballerina in a Death’s Head (Bailarina en una calavera) (1939)

Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (Mercado de esclavos con la aparicion del busto invisible de Voltaire) (1940)

What have you recently taught or shared with your class that you were surprised to find out was entirely new to them?

This week I found an excellent short film on the murder of the 17-year-old Spanish prodigy Hildegart Rodríguez at the hands of her mother, Aurora, in Madrid in 1933. The Red Virgin (dir: Sheila Pye, 2012) is a 17-minute representation of Hildegart’s and Aurora’s complicated relationship. The director and the actresses do excellent jobs of capturing the obsessive nature of Aurora, the youth and intellect of Hildegart, and the tensions that surfaced in this mother-daughter relationship. At only 17 minutes, the film is visually suggestive, and at times a bit eerie. I especially appreciated the parallels between the first and last scenes – monologues by Hildegart and Aurora respectively. My only criticism of the film is that it is in English (with Spanish subtitles), even though both lead actresses are native Spanish speakers. The first and final scenes, for example, might be more powerful if the lines were spoken in Spanish, rather than in a sometimes accented-English.

Given that I recently watched El laberinto del fauno for the fourth time since it is part of my Textual Analysis course, I found the casting of Ivana Baquero (Ofelia) as Hildegart and Maribel Verdú (Mercedes) as her mother, Aurora, to be particularly intriguing. My students had analyzed at length the parallels between Mercedes and Ofelia in the film, as well as the relationship between those two particular female characters, so I couldn’t help but think of the the mother-daughter relationship in terms of power dynamics.

In the Spain of the 1930s, many liberal reforms were welcomed by the Second Republic, thus creating an atmosphere in which intellectuals, and the educated public, became more receptive to liberal ideas regarding women’s positions in public life. Women like Margarita Nelken and Federica Montseny even held positions within the government during the 1930s prior to the onset of the Civil War. Despite her youth and the exceptional circumstances of her life and death, Hildegart voiced strong opinions regarding sexual reform and the women’s movement in Spain at this time, and her writings stand out for what appear to be quite daring, polemic titles for the traditionally conservative Spanish public: La rebeldía sexual de la juventud (1931), Profilaxis Anticoncepcional (1931), and ¿Se equivocó Marx? (1932), to name a few. 

For more information on these fascinating women, I highly recommend listening to this excellent podcast (in Spanish) from the Radio Nacional Española, from where I borrowed the title of this post: Documentos RNE – “Aurora Rodríguez y su hija Hildegarte: el asesinato de la mujer moderna.” The narrative goes beyond that of the life and murder of Hildegart and dedicates considerable time to exploring the life and formation of her mother, Aurora. I found Aurora’s eugenic philosophy towards motherhood and reproduction particularly fascinating given my work on women’s attitudes towards maternity in early 20th century Spain. This underlying eugenic discourse is also evident in anarcho-feminist writings, and I have written about Federica Montseny’s subtle incorporation of these principles in many of her fictional narratives (novellas).

Finally, Alison Sinclair’s recent book, Sex and Society in Early Twentieth-Century Spain. Hildegart Rodriguez and the World League of Sexual Reform (Cardiff: U of Wales P, 2007) examines how certain ideas regarding sex reform and eugenics were adapted in Spain during the 1930s. Rather than merely summarizing these ideas, Sinclair concentrates of their “manner of adaptation” in order to better understand those local conditions and customs that made the Spanish nation more receptive to such interests at this particular historical moment (7). She also points to both pathologies of motherhood and to eugenics in her discussion of Aurora and Hildegart, noting that Aurora’s dominance in “engineering” Hildegart’s life was evident from the child’s conception, to her education, to her death: “In both a material sense and in the psychoanalytic understanding of the term, she was the ‘object’ created by her mother” (136-38). It’s a fascinating read overall, and even includes a few reproductions of public health brochures from the 1920s – one of which is decorating the door to my office:

“We don’t ask that you be chaste/pure… but cautious/careful… for better offspring

I’m excited to incorporate The Red Virgin into my literature course next semester, since so far my students have seemed to enjoy analyzing film alongside literary texts. If you have time to watch it, let me know your thoughts!

Translation update – Oct. 28, 2013 — Thanks to the careful attention and comment of one of my readers (Lu Cero), I learned about the “terrible mysoginic message” in the search results “Las mujeres necesitan soluciones, lo hombres también pero al revés”. When I initially wrote this post, I focused mainly on the fact that different results could be obtained simply by searching in different languages; I thought that long phase was a bit odd, but didn’t really investigate it further. Lu Cero tells me: “It’s a “known pun: “Soluciones” backwards is “senoiculos”, or in other words “seno y culos” which means boob and asses.  Thank you for making this non-native speaker aware of this “awful” play on words!

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This recent post, “What People Really Think about Men, Women, and Feminists,” from one of my favorite blogs, Sociological Images, caught my eye for a number or reasons. To start, it was the first I had heard of the United Nations’ campaign to raise awareness for women’s rights. These UN ads creatively incorporate Google searches and the accompanying auto-complete (based on the most popular search phrases) to draw attention to the need for empowering women worldwide. Here is a sample ad:

Secondly, I particularly appreciated Prof. Lisa Wade’s efforts to provide and compare equivalent searches for men. What I found most fascinating about these side-by-side examples was the fact that, in general, the searches for what women “need…, should…, should not…, or cannot” do were very clearly disempowering: women should not work, preach, leave the home, etc.  And while some similar results turned up for men (apparently neither women nor men “can be trusted”!), the male results did not exhibit the same condescending sentiment towards masculinity or men in general. On the contrary, these searches about men further displayed an anti-feminine, even anti-woman, tendency: men should not wear shorts; wear make-up; get married, etc. Thus, the anti-woman sentiment is visible within both search results. Below are Wade’s results for “Women/Men shouldn’t.”

Finally, I was struck by the fact that these were all English-language searches. As a professor of Spanish language and literature at an American institution (and also a native speaker of English), I pay close attention to the vocabulary used by both Spanish and English writers, journalists, and public speakers. Language is one of the most powerful manifestations of cultural values, ideas, and biases. Given that Spanish is the most spoken non-English language in the United States – that is, the second most-used language – and given that the number of Spanish speakers in the US will continue to increase in future decades, it is crucial that we recognize the power of linguistic diversity. This is especially true for educators and scholars who teach at institutions with diverse student populations. Dr. Wade, for example, teaches at Occidental College, a Hispanic-serving institution where about 36% of the surrounding Los Angeles area also speaks Spanish (the percentage is likely higher if we consider heritage speakers and those individuals who understand Spanish, but might not speak it fluently).

Thus, I wondered what a Spanish-language search might reveal about the attitudes towards men and women (and subsequently masculinity and femininity) in different cultural contexts. So I performed the same search in Spanish, at www.google.es – “women/men should; should not; cannot; need…” These results, like Wade’s English results for men, both fascinated and disturbed me. Here is what I found:

Women/Men should…      Las mujeres/Los hombres deben…

Women should: be submissive / shave their pubic hair / use-wear a veil / preach

Men should: Take folic acid / urinate sitting-down / remove hair / remove pubic hair

Women/Men should NOT…      Las mujeres/Los hombres no deben…

Women should not: drive / be enlightened or educated in any form / preach / work

Men should not: cry / cry Pedro Fernandez / cry lyrics / cry Alejandro Fernandez — apparently the idea of men holding back tears has been immortalized in several popular songs, skewing these search results *just a bit*!

Women/Men can’t…      Las mujeres/Los hombres no pueden…

Women cannot: drive / be color-blind / preach / be pastors

Men cannot: do two things at once / be alone / solve this / have female friends

Women/Men need…      Las mujeres/Los hombres necesitan…

Women need: to feel desired / solutions / solutions, men also but the other way around / to sleep more

Men need: to distance themselves; move away / their space / women / calcium

After performing these searches and organizing my own results, these are the things that I found most intriguing:

1. In the Spanish language searches, the negative, disempowering, connotations in searches on women tended to appear in religious contexts (preaching; being a pastor).  Since these words appears in both the should and should not categories, we might take this as a sign that traditional gender roles within the church are being challenged or reconsidered.
2. The anti-woman sentiment that we observe in both the “men” and “women” English searches does not appear to be quite as overt in the Spanish examples. While it is certainly still visible (“women should not drive/work/be educated”), the attitude that comes across in the Spanish searches is more consistent with machismo - the celebration of dominant, typically masculine traits associated with men as superior, and the corresponding labeling as inferior of passive, typically feminine traits associated with women. Academic studies aside, machismo is characterized by a strong sense of (often exaggerated) masculine pride. In this context, men should not cry or show too much affection, and women are expected to be quiet, submissive care-givers. While I’m certainly not suggesting that these types of results are in any way “better,” or that machismo is a justifiable, legitimate gender ideology, I do think it’s important to recognize that the Spanish-language search search results reveal assumptions about men and women that are more closely related to notions of masculinity and femininity than to men and women directly. In my estimation, the Spanish search-results might be classified as more anti-feminine than anti-woman.
3. Concerns about health and well-being factored into these searches – calcium, folic acid, more sleep… color-blindness(?)… hair removal(?). I’m not sure what this might imply.
4. Spanish speakers are much more concerned about the appearance and/or existence of men’s and women’s pubic hair…!!!!

So what can we take from these samples? We clearly cannot make definitive conclusions or generalizations about any population based on these fill-in-the-blank Google searches… and I’m not suggesting that we do. In fact, perhaps the entire exercise is simply a silly game of internet-chance, as many of Sociological Images’ commentators were quick to point out. We can have “fun” playing with Google’s auto-complete for all sorts of phrases – even our own names! Regardless, in this context of feminism and women’s rights, I strongly believe that it is worth contemplating the different results obtained from different language searches, especially when searching for the same concept. A one-to-one translation does not turn up the same one-to-one search results. The implications of this disparity are fascinating for what they reveal about language as a unique and powerful manifestation of diverse cultural values. Moreover, if students rely on the internet to supplement a classroom assignment, for example, bilingual students might come to class with entirely different understandings or conclusions regarding the topic at hand, since top search results clearly vary across languages.

As a final exercise, I also performed Wade’s searches for “Feminists” in Spanish. The search results for “Feminists are…” were the most depressing by far:

“Feminists are…     Las feministas son…”

Feminists are: Ugly / Feminists until they’re married / bitter / “hembristas” – think women are better than, superior to men

Clearly, there is still a need for feminism – and the need to dispel stereotypes about feminists and feminism – in both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking cultures!

What else do you notice about the Spanish search results, that I haven’t addressed? What about French, Italian, Chinese, Arabic results? What might the similarities and differences in these searches reveal about the attitudes, values, or trends towards men and women, and towards masculinity and femininity, in each of these cultures?

As early twentieth-century cities were experiencing rapid modernization, many intellectuals dedicated space in their writing to praising or critiquing not only these urban landscapes, but also the new mentality and behavior that they required of inhabitants. These themes were especially visible in the work of Avant-Garde artists and writers in 1900-30s Spain.  Ramon Gomez de la Serna, for example, was known for his playful skepticism and often ambivalent attitude towards Spain’s embrace of the modern (I wrote a short article in Spanish on the manifestation of this concept in his novela “La hiperestésica”). Given that this protean atmosphere informs the cultural background of much of my current research, a short video of 1920s New York City that I found via a recent New York Times article, “Listening to the Roar of 1920s New York,” immediately caught my attention. The film that accompanies the article is especially unique, since it was created to capture the noises and sounds of the street, rather than the visual splendor of new City sights. The article also explains the impetus behind the Noise Abatement Committee of New York’s decision to record city sounds by attaching microphones to a roving truck: They were concerned over how the high noise-levels might affect residents’ health.  (Click the image below to open a new window and watch listen to the 2-minute video):

Video – Noise in NYC 1920s

This same article let me to “The Roaring Twenties” project created by Professor Emily Thompson, historian of sound, technology, and cultures of listening at Princeton University. This fantastic online resource epitomizes the creative and far-reaching possibilities of Digital Humanities scholarship and offers a wealth of unique material for teachers and scholars of history, literature, and a variety of disciplines that welcome interdisciplinary approaches to research. As Thompson points out, concerns with noise levels and distracting sounds were certainly not unique to the twenties… nor to New York City or American Culture.

Thompson asserts in her Introduction that studying aural history is not merely about sound, but about our becoming attuned to “sonic culture” by developing a mode of listening that requires an adjustment of “our modern ears to the pitch of the past.” Yet what I find fascinating is the fact that individual imaginations will nevertheless create a unique “soundtrack” for a given image. Moreover, the inability to incorporate authentic sounds from our (present) lived experiences into our imagination of a past era makes it difficult to identify the aural milieu with precision. Take, for example, the following gorgeous images of 1920s Madrid: What noises would we hear in a 1920s carnival or amusement park that we would never hear today (and vice-versa)? How does the technology used for rides, games, and attractions not only create unique visual experiences, but distinctive sounds? No loudspeakers… no computerized music or voices…

Carnival – Glorieta Atocha, Madrid, 1920s

And in the Puerta del sol of the 1930s, what exactly does a Model-T driving on an un- or semi-paved road sound like?  What noises are present when the flow of street traffic lacks the direction of stoplights and the organization of painted lanes or traffic circles? There are certainly fewer automobiles, yet there are many more trolley cars and cables… pedestrians seem to amble about amongst the traffic, rather than keeping to the sidewalks or “crosswalks”…

Puerta del sol – Madrid, 1930

In general, out ability to produce an authentic sense of this past atmosphere is essentially impossible within the added use of film or recordings. Vintage photographs are noteworthy for the way in which they challenge our modern-day visual perceptions, but we rarely consider the sounds and noises that would also be present if we were actually witnessing such an event. How might we imagine the sounds, smells, and sensations that would form part of the experience in its entirety? The “Roaring 20s Project” invites us to consider these aspects of history that

Returning to the state of urban residents’ mental health and how it might be affected by the rapid pace of modern city life, I could not help but think of  Georg Simmell’s well-known essay, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903), which I read several times in graduate classes. Simmell described what he called the blasé attitude adopted by metropolitan citizens in response to the increasing number of external stimuli in modern life. He argues that such an attitude is absent in those residing in “more peaceful and more stable” rural environments, and thus the blasé individual is the by-product of modern, urban life. Simmell identifies the essence of this “psychic phenomenon” of the city as:

…an indifference toward the distinctions between things. Not in the sense that they are not perceived, as is the case of mental dullness, but rather that the meaning and the value of the distinctions [...] are experienced as meaningless. They appear to the blasé person in a homogeneous, flat and grey colour with no one of them worthy of being preferred to another (14).

Of course, like any good academic, I immediately related these century-old, rather profound philosophical observations to… Anchorman:

Poor Brick Tamland just cannot adapt… He lacks the ability to behave indifferently, and thus his constant attention to the distinctions between noises, arguments, and other external stimuli surrounding him provokes his mental torment. He’d be much calmer – yet much less interesting! (an important consequence of this modern phenomenon) – if he were able to adopt a blasé attitude in the workplace. And who among us today has not tried to shield ourselves from the stressful, incessant, often overwhelming sights and sounds in our own 21st century lives? I would argue that our modern day blasé attitude now consists of smart phones, iPhones, and headphones. In fact, we tend to be so caught up in our own personal (often self-created) worlds that we rarely interact with others in public, whether at coffee shops, on public transportation, or even waiting in line at the store. Thus I found the New York Time’s article and Thompson’s aural history project to be unique for their celebration of a century’s worth of LOUD NOISES and their contribution to and affects on cultural and social progress.

What are some modern-day sounds, sights, or interactions that “affect your health”? How to you adopt a modern-day blasé attitude to compensate for these disturbances?

Over the weekend, while attempting to get into the holiday spirit by setting up my table-top fiber-optic Christmas tree, baking cookies, and watching the snow fall in sub-zero temperatures, I discovered that one of my favorite Spanish artists, Salvador Dalí, designed 19 unique Christmas cards between 1958-1976 for the Barcelona-based company Hoechst Ibérica. While I knew that Dalí had created artwork for advertisements (Bryan’s Hosiery) and magazine covers during the mid-20th century, I had never seen his unique portrayals of Christmas. So like any good academic on winter break, I put off my Spring syllabus-planning to do some frivolous investigating.

One of the earliest Dalinian images used for commercializing the holiday season was actually a sketch for a cover of Vogue magazine in 1946. This image (below) exhibits  tell-tale characteristics of Dalí’s surrealist style, including the barren, expansive landscape and the incorporation of double-images (which also characterize his depiction of the Spanish Civil War). In this particular piece, the architectural elements supporting the symmetrical Christmas trees exhibit feminine facial features, a tactic that adds a fitting flare to the cover of a fashion magazine. This more popular image is still re-printed and available as a specialty Christmas card today.

Noel, 1948 – Study for a cover of VOGUE

This early 1948 rendition of a “Christmas” landscape, however, is but one of Dalí’s efforts to illustrate the holiday season. In 1958 he created the first of his eventual 19 greeting cards for Hoeschts, and the publishing company would annually send these artsy holiday cards to doctors and pharmacists throughout Spain. Importantly, Dalí’s renditions did not incorporate traditional Mediterranean, Catholic Christmas imagery such as the Nativity scene or the Reyes magos (Wise men), but rather they appropriated more American and Central European elements, such as the Christmas Tree. The “árbol santo” is in fact a constant element in these 19 illustrations, and Dalí occasionally converted the Christmas Tree into an allegorical depiction of the years events or infused it with distinctive elements of Spanish culture. Below is the first card in the series:

Felicitacion de Navidad – 1958

In 1960 and 1961, the Christmas Tree is at once unconventional and also decidedly Spanish. Both of these cards invoke classic masterpieces of Spanish art and literature. In 1960, the trunk and upper branches of the Christmas tree form the outline of Cervantes’ famous caballero andante, Don Quijote de la Mancha (as Dalí imagined him)…

Felicitación de Navidad, 1960 (con Don Quijote de la Mancha)

… and in 1961 Dalí pays homage to Diego Velázquez’s 1656 masterpiece, Las meninas:

Felicitación de Navidad, 1961 (con la infanta Margarita de “Las meninas”)

The majority of Dalí’s cards contain a short, hand-written greeting or description penned by the surrealist painter himself (though these are difficult to find online). On the 1962 card below, for example, Dalí celebrates space exploration and scientific advances by labeling his portrayal “el primer Christmas astronáutico“. The holiday, it seems, was not the main focus of this year’s card, and the tree is barely visible at first glance.

Felicitación de Navidad, 1962 (…el primer Christmas astronautico)

While Dalí’s holiday artwork may have found an audience in Spain, his designs were met with much less enthusiasm in the United States. Despite the relative success of his Vogue covers and hosiery advertisements in the 1940s, Dalí could not entirely win over America’s largest greeting card company, Hallmark, or the 1950s public who supported it. By the early 1950s, Hallmark had become such a culturally relevant force in the US that it was an attractive creative partner for many high-profile artists, even actors (See Patrick Regan’s Hallmark: A Century of Caring). Norman Rockwell was (is) undoubtedly among the most well-known of mid-century American artists, and the iconic illustrator created 32 traditional Christmas designs for Hallmark between 1948 and 1957. Even today, many of his designs are widely recognized and still reproduced, as they represent a classic portrayal of Christmas as a jolly, magical, and quintessentially “American” holiday.

Rockwell’s recognizable Christmas illustrations still appear on greeting cards today, over 60 years after their debut.

But Salvador Dalí also lent his talents to Hallmark in 1958.  Yet unlike Rockwell’s wholesome, familiar americana illustrations, Dalí’s “surrealist take on Christmas proved a bit too avant garde for the average greeting card buyer” (Regan 97). You can read a short newspaper article about “The Dali Christmas Story” and Hallmark’s tepid reaction in a 1981 issue of the St. Petersburg Evening Independent.  Below, for example, is Dalí’s depiction of the Nativity scene, created specifically for Hallmark:

Nativity Scene by Dali (1959 – Hallmark)

While I can’t say that the rejection of Dalí’s surrealist, abstract take on Christmas in 1950s America is entirely surprising, I am disappointed that I haven’t seen these images before. They seem to be part of special exhibitions, appearing in Barcelona’s CaixaForum in 2006, and in Dalí’s Teatro-Museo in Figueres in 2008, but I’m not sure where they are displayed or housed today. I spent a considerable amount of time lost in the depths of the internet trying to amass a collection of these designs, and below are some of my favorites (well, pretty much the only images I could find via a few hours with GoogleImages…).

Enjoy!

Felicitación de Navidad, Dali, 1964

Felicitación de Navidad, Dali, 1968

Felicitación de Navidad, Dali, 1968

Felicitación de Navidad, Dali, 1971

Felicitación de Navidad, Dali, 1970 — The note accompanying this image appears below

Navidad, Dali, 1970 – Text: I can make out the English phrase “Flower Power” in quotation marks, and I believe the first words are “Las campanas,” or “The bells.” Anyone with better eyes want to help?

Felicitación de Navidad, Dali, 1974

If it weren’t for digital cameras, photo editing software, and one-hour made-to-order holiday photo cards allowing us to brag about our own lives and accomplishments in the name of reconnecting with friends and relatives, perhaps we might exchange more artistic renditions of the Holiday Season today. When exactly did the holiday “greeting card tradition” transform into the creation of “personal photo montages”?

What Christmas/Holiday/New Year’s designs or artwork are your personal favorites? And what popular artists or actors would make intriguing Holiday Card Designers today? (actually, that’s a scary thought!)

Now that February is suddenly here, the Spring 2014 semester is officially underway and I am finally organized (well, for the most part!). For me, the most exciting part about this new semester is that I’m teaching a course I designed, based largely on my main areas of expertise and research: representations of marriage and motherhood in 20th century Spanish literature (Refashioning the Self: Hispanic Women’s Literature in the 20th Century). As this course is Transatlantic in nature, I am using it as an opportunity to expand my research and establish more explicit connections between Spanish, Latin American, and Latino narratives and films. Since we’re now in the third week of the semester and my students have been completing their readings, actively participating in class discussions, and coming to class with excellent questions and observations that make me reconsider some of my own previous interpretations, I thought It would be fun to share some of my lesson plans and student reactions on my blog. I hope this will be the first of a series of posts in which I will briefly outline the class readings, include a few brilliant (anonymous) student comments, and provide links to materials I used or created at the end of the post.

The first two weeks of my seminar are dedicated to understanding popular cultural representations and paradigms of womanhood in the Hispanic world. The first readings were selections of Fray Luis de León’s conduct manual, La perfecta casada (The perfect wife). Written in Spain in 1583 for his recently engaged cousin, León penned this “instructional” manual for newly-wed or recently-engaged women based on the Biblical depiction of the perfect wife in Proverbs 31 (Proverbios 31).  By starting with this text, my goals were for students to recognize the ways in which this seemingly antiquated rhetoric did in fact contain a positive evaluation, and even a celebration, of women’s domestic roles as wives and mothers – especially in 1583 Spain.  León praised married women for their abilities to balance diverse responsibilities to their husbands, their children, their home, and to God. In this context, he also emphasized a woman’s position as “la compañera del hombre” and criticized men who behaved as “leones” (lions), treating their wives as if they were slaves. For the time period, this was a clear defense of women’s supposedly subordinate roles. Moreover, León’s hyperbolic celebration of the “perfect wife” (and the corresponding condemnation of “la mala”(!)) strengthened the appeal of this domestic model of womanhood for centuries, and his text even enjoyed a resurgence in late 19th- and early 20th-century Spain and Latin America. Below, for example, is an advertisement from 1930s Spain promoting La perfecta casada as an exquisite gift for the 20th century newlywed, or recently engaged young woman (“novia”):

La perfecta casada in the twentieth century

But the prevalence of the manual’s guiding tenets throughout the twentieth-century, and even into the present-day, begins to create problems for women in the context of equal rights, economic freedom, and individual agency in modern societies.  Rather than read the entire, rather verbose text, my class read the prologue and a few select chapters that I took some time to edit (you can view the PDF I created at the end of this post). We concentrated on three main points that León repeatedly emphasized:

(1) a “perfect wife” should remain silent and refrain from discussing business matters,
(2) a “perfect wife”should stay in the home and avoid going out in public, and
(3) a ”perfect wife” will not only give birth to, breastfeed, raise, and educate her children (she will never employ a wet-nurse or otherwise “outsource” this labor).

The images and comparisons he uses to illustrate these points are… descriptive, to say the least. He compares a woman out of the home to a fish out of water; Women who speak up about business matters are tigers, lions, or scorpions; A woman who employs a wet-nurse commits an “ugly” sort of adultery against her husband. The section on the use of wet-nurses is especially revealing, particularly for the way in which class divisions and prejudices become apparent (Wet-nurses were often servants, employed by upper-class women; León categorizes them as untrustworthy, conniving, and even drunkards who pose potential treats to the children they help raise). One of my students observed that this chapter on childcare portrays a woman’s body as belonging to everyone else – her husband, her children, and by extension, God. Her body is used to fulfill her “duties,” not as a means of self-realization; there is no indication that these “maternal duties” might be voluntary – she is destined to give birth to children and likewise destined to feed, raise, and educate them. Anything less renders her “imperfect” and even a threat to her family.

After discussing these points, I provided the class with the illustrated “Guide of the Good Wife / Guía de la buena esposa,” a Spanish text produced in 1953 during the Franco dictatorship.  The subtitle reads, “11 reglas para mantener a tu marido feliz,” or “11 rules to keep your husband happy.” What is most fascinating about these illustrations and captions, at least from a modern-day perspective, is the fact that these 11 rules were created by a woman – Pilar Primo de Rivera – for the Sección Femenina.  As the Falange’s women’s organization, the Sección Femenina’s goals revolved around instructing women in Francoist patriotic, religious (Catholic), and social values. Women were to remain subordinate to men, concerning themselves only with marriage, children and housework. While I’m not certain that this particular illustrated text came directly from Rivera (who, it’s worth noting, never married!), it certainly demonstrates the Sección Femenina’s propaganda. While the instructions in the guide are not explicitly based on León’s text, many of the same key elements appear – this time in the form of short commands accompanied by pictures of contented wives happily performing their domestic chores (well, orders):

Guia de la buena esposa, Spain, 20th century

One of my students intelligently pointed out that the command forms make the text appear to be a “Woman’s Ten Commandments” (well, eleven!). She was right to note the appeal of this “narrative” structure, as much for communicating orders to the subordinate subject as for affirming the authority of the “higher” power (God/husband). This leads to one of the differences my students noted between the 1583 celebration of the “perfect wife” and the 1953 guide. In the sixteenth century, Fray Luis encouraged women to perform their domestic duties in order to obtain and ensure the love and respect of GOD, their husbands, and their children. There were rewards awaiting women who performed their duties well. In the modern version, however, the goals not only revolve almost exclusively around pleasing the husband, but there is absolutely no implication that the wife will be rewarded or appreciated for her labors. Is this husband lavishing praise on his wife while he reads the paper? When he stays out all night? Are the children adoring their mother while she mends their clothing? It doesn’t appear so…. In fact, this version appears even more oppressive to women than the sixteenth century text – here, they defer to their husbands; ignore their own needs; and acknowledge the triviality of their own lives.

… but I REALLY REALLY want to know more about “La guia de la buena esposa!”

Ok, ok… For my readers who don’t speak Spanish, below is an English summary of the 11 rules from La guia de la buena esposa.  This was quite the exercise, and it reminded me why I didn’t choose a career in translation! It’s also worth noting that the first image in the last row explains, “A good wife always knows her place.”

(1) Have dinner ready – Take time to prepare a delicious dinner for his return. This is a way of letting him know you have been thinking of him and that you worry about his needs. The majority of men are hungry when they return home.
(2) Appear beautiful (make yourself beautiful) – Rest for five minutes before his arrival so that he finds you fresh and gleaming. Re-touch your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and look your best for him. Remember that he has had a difficult day and has only dealt with men at work.
(3) Be sweet and interesting – His boring day of work might need to improve. You should do everything possible to improve it – one of your obligations is to distract him.
(4) Tidy your home – It should appear impeccable. Make a final round around the main areas of the home just before your husband arrives home. Pick up school books, toys, etc. And dust the tables.
(5) Make him feel he’s in paradise – During the coldest months of the year you should prepare the fire before he arrives. Your husband will feel like he’s arrived in a paradise of rest and order; this will raise your spirits as well. Overall, ensuring his comfort will give you enormous personal satisfaction. [notice the martini glass she's carrying!]
(6) Prepare the children – Brush their hair, wash their hands, and change their clothes. They are your little treasures and he will want to see them “shining.”
(7) Minimize noise – When he arrives home, turn off the washer, dryer, and vacuum and try to keep the kids quiet. Think about all the noise he has had to deal with during his long day at the office.
(8) Make sure he sees you happy – Give him a great smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him. Your happiness is the best reward for his daily efforts.
(9) Listen to him – You might have a dozen important things to tell him, but when he arrives home it is not the best moment to say them. Let him speak first; remember that his issues are more important than yours.
(10) Put yourself in his shoes – Don’t complain if he arrives late, if he goes out to have fun without you, or even if he doesn’t return home all night. Try to understand his world of obligations. Try to understand his world of stress and responsibilities and his true need to be relaxed at home.
(11) Don’t complain – Don’t overwhelm him with insignificant problems. Whatever your problem, it is a small detail compared to what he must deal with.
(Extra!) Make him feel at ease – Let him get comfortable in a chair or take refuge in the bedroom. Have a hot drink ready for him. Fluff his pillow and offer to take off his shoes.

I think #10 is my “favorite”. Of maybe the “extra-special-bonus” round in which the wife will fluff his pillow….

Sure, you may say, of course we can observe these rather antiquated ideas in the notoriously anti-feminist goals of Francoist Spain, or in the 1930s magazine ads that likely served as a subtle counter-discourse to the rhetoric of First-Wave Feminism that was finally beginning to catch on in Spain. Certainly we have moved beyond such essentialist representations of femininity…..

21st century “Perfecta casada”??

Behold! A present-day, 2013 iteration: “El manual catolico para sumisas” (The Catholic Manual for Submissive Women) - Cásate y sé sumisa (Get Married and Be Submissive). This book was written by an Italian journalist, Costanza Miriano, and published in Spain by a publishing house created by the controversial, ultra-conservative archbishop of Granada, Francisco Javier Martinez. The book is structured in the form of letters that Miriano writes to her friends in which she reflects on her experiences as a wife and mother. She bases much of her advice on Saint Paul: “You must learn to be submissive… submission is a gift” she repeats.  Just as Fray Luis de Leon cited Proverbs as his authority in 1583, so Miriano cites another book of the Bible in 2013. While the text is clearly directed at a very particular, narrow audience – Catholic housewives – I nevertheless find such modern adaptations of Early Modern texts and philosophies to be fascinating

Finally, as I pointed out to my students, attempts to entice women into lives of domesticity are not unique to Spain or Latin America. American women receive similar messages through media consumption on a daily basis. While not directly related to the texts we read, of my favorite ways to demonstrate the similarities of the underlying messages is to find examples that relate to students’ own lives and experiences. For this class, I went to some of my favorite short videos created by comedian and writer Sarah Haskins. Over the past few years, Haskins created a series of satirical videos illustrating the absurd marketing tactics aimed at women: “Target Women.“ A few that consistently make me laugh (cry?) include “Yogurt,” “Jewelry,” and “Birth Control” – especially Birth Control!  During the last 5 minutes of class, we watched the video that skewers cleaning commercials for portraying housework not as a chore or duty, but as a rewarding, escapist romance for working moms and housewives alike. I selected this particular video given that both La perfecta casada (1583) and La guia de la buena esposa (1953) emphasize that it is a woman’s/wife’s responsibility (not the man’s/husband’s) to clean and care for the home.

While the tone of these videos is clearly humorous, the constructs they highlight should be considered with critical thought. I encourage my students to think of present-day media – television programs, movies, advertisements, opinion pieces, news articles, and of course blog posts – as LITERATURE. They should apply the same skills of textual and critical analysis to these “texts” as they do in class with novels, poems, or short stories. As these videos point out, modern media encourages women to protect their families and take pride in a clean house – not exactly a terrible message, but does it really need to be gendered?!?!? Men are certainly as capable of cleaning a home and protecting their families, yet we rarely, if ever, see such products marketed to men – or even to both men and women. In fact, Sociological Images creates and maintains Pinterest boards dedicated to precisely these topics, and among them is a board on “Gendered Housework and Parenting“. The images posted to this board focus on the ways that “Pop Culture portrays housework and childcare as almost exclusively women’s responsibility.” Just as one of my students commented in our class that “we don’t generally see Guides for perfect husbands,” neither do we see married men performing domestic responsibilities. While this may be changing, non-gendered representations are a long way from normalization – and Target Women addressed this phenomenon in the video “Doofy Husbands.”

Overall, I think my students understood the way in which Spanish women have been historically defined by domesticity and how literature works as a powerful manifestation of cultural values. They also considered the historical and cultural contexts of these manuals in order to better evaluate and examine the implications of such long-lasting gendered ideologies. The roots of the separate spheres dichotomy so often observed in modern literature, for example, are clearly illustrated in La perfecta casada. But unlike 16th-century Spain, modern societies afford women many opportunities in the public sphere (work; wages; education; political involvement), and thus the private sphere can become restrictive. In my opinion, adequately understanding and analyzing the long history of such ideas will go a long way towards building more constructive interpretations and critiques of modern literature – and media!

Have you taught early modern texts in low-level literature courses? How do you connect those themes to students’ own lives and experiences?

Resources:

• A copy of my edited version of La perfecta casada – I used the open-access version from the Cervantes Virtual library, then created this document for use in a low 300-level Spanish literature seminar: Perfecta casada_Fray Luis
• Here is the accompanying reading guide: Perfecta casada_Fray Luis_tarea
• Course syllabus: SPN 295_Syllabus_SP14_ReFashioning the Self

One of the first novels to spark my interest in early twentieth-century Spanish women’s literature was Carmen de Burgos’ La rampa (1917). As an urban novel, the narrative explores the effects of modernity not only on the residents of and spaces within Madrid as a metropolitan city, but on the individual women who attempted to navigate – and indeed survive – in this stifling, yet transformative atmosphere. In her novelistic portrayal of life in Madrid, Burgos delves into many themes that were also explored by male authors at this time: the possibilities and challenges of modern spaces; the novelty of places and things we now take for granted; the overwhelming sensation of life moving at an increasingly rapid pace; and the paradoxical new psychology in which the individual feels anonymous and lonely amongst an ever-increasing population of strangers. As an independent woman living and working in Madrid, Burgos paid much more attention to the implications of gender in the city than did her male contemporaries. She specifically dedicated La rampa, for example, to the numerous struggling women who hoped to establish independent, modern lifestyles of their own:

A toda esa multitud de mujeres desvalidas y desorientadas, que han venido a mí, preguntándome qué camino podrían tomar, y me han hecho sentir su tragedia.

To the multitude of defenseless and disoriented women who have come to me, asking me what path they should take, and have made me feel [sorry for] their tragedy.

Originally published in 1917, La rampa contains over 200 pages; you can access the full text as a PDF through Cervantes Virtual. I recently discovered that an abridged version was also published in 1921 – a short 30-page “novela” appearing in the popular literary magazine Los Contemporáneos. I tracked it down and requested a copy via Inter-Library Loan, and I was ecstatic to see that all chapters on Madrid’s Maternity Ward had been included in this second printing. I say “ecstatic” because this is the theme on which I centered my own article, and because literary representations of maternity and motherhood form the bases of my current projects.  I’m looking forward to working on an article in the coming weeks that deals specifically with these two different versions of the same novel – especially now that I have worked with my students at length on the shorter novela. It is quite telling to examine which elements of the text were  included or discarded in this second addition. Additionally, the contrasting covers suggest on the one hand that the novels may have been marketed to distinct readerships and, on the other hand – if one were to judge a book by its cover – we might surmise (incorrectly) that the subject matter or narrative trajectory would be different:

According to the newest edition of “La rampa” (Stockcero 2006), this cover graced the earliest editions of the novel.

Cover of “La rampa” published in 1921 for the popular literary magazine “Los contemporaneos”. The short length of this version, as well as the affordable price, likely made it quite popular with upper- or even middle-class women.

In my current seminar on 20th century Spanish and Latin American women’s literature,  this shorter version of La rampa was the first piece of fiction the class read after having studied various “paradigms of womanhood” that informed female identity in the Hispanic world (the longer version would have taken too long to read at this level). I was quite excited to gain new insights into this novel by discussing it with eighteen young minds that would certainly bring their own unique, often surprising, interpretations and reactions. I have to say – I was not disappointed!  I dedicated three class sessions to the novel, and I created reading guides and discussion questions that students prepared prior to each class. I also assigned the class’s first long essay of 700-900 words, or about 3 pages, on this text. This final assignment is what I plan to share in this post (I will also include PDFs of my assignments at the end, just as I did in my previous post on teaching La perfecta casada. 

My assignment for the paper was the following (condensed and translated from Spanish):

• Examine the way in which the novel criticizes different institutions and social expectations targeting modern women. Consider our discussions of traditional paradigms of Spanish womanhood and decide if La rampa re-imagines, criticizes, or reinforces these traditional feminine identities. Are alternative female identities (im)possible?
• This paper must be based on a close literary or textual analysis, not on external research. The thesis should clearly state both the message (criticism) you perceive and the way in which it was successfully (or unsuccessfully) transmitted to readers. I suggest you limit your focus by concentrating on only one theme, such as female labor, motherhood, or marriage.

One additional component of the assignment was to include an image or photograph that students felt represented an aspect of either their paper (thesis) or of the novel or time period in general. I wanted them to be creative with this, as I believe images are extremely powerful in both conveying and affecting our personal interpretations. I always try to incorporate art, or some visual element, into my literature classes. During our final class period working with La rampa, for example, I showed students the two different covers (above) and they offered their thoughts on what each portada might have communicated. Now, as the professor grading all of their papers, I must say I am thoroughly enjoying the creative titles and accompanying images. Somehow, this simple visual addition makes the grading process almost enjoyable. I similarly like to imagine my students eagerly and enthusiastically embarking on the refreshingly “fun,” non-labor intensive task of finding a unique yet pertinent image for the essay they just dedicated so much time to carefully writing and revising (ha!?)… or spending 30 seconds typing their title into “google images”. In any case, this is the first semester I have decided to make the inclusion of an image a requirement on essays (all four of them), and so far I’m happy with the results.

Below are a few of my favorite titles and images – all of them were great, ranging from images of Carmen de Burgos, to different physical “ramps” and staircases representing the metaphorical title, to various depictions of stressed-out “modern” women during various decades of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. If any of you have read La rampa,  you will likely appreciate my class’s selections as much as I do – feel free to share your thoughts. If you have not read the text, I’m sure you will still enjoy these title-image juxtapositions… mini works-of-art in and of themselves… Enjoy the “gallery.”

Condenada a sufrir, La rampa (Condemned to suffer)

¿Dos esferas de género o un mundo de opresión? (Two gendered spheres or a world of oppression?)

El doble rasero: la perpetuación del maltratamiento de las mujeres en el siglo XX – La rampa (The Double-Standard: The Perpetuation of the Mistreatment of Women in the 20th Century)

El poder de la maternidad en La rampa (The power of maternity [motherhood] in La rampa)

El rechazo de la mujer doméstica – La rampa (The Rejection of the Domestic Woman)

El tema de la maternidad y sus realidades como advertencia a las mujeres (The Theme of Maternity and Its Realities as a Warning to Women)

Los variables de la felicidad en La rampa (Variables of Happiness)

La caída de Isabel en La rampa (The Fall of Isabel)

The above is a 1901 painting by Picasso. Somehow in my research on maternity and motherhood during this time period, I had never come across this painting (and if I did, I had never paid it much attention!). So I’m grateful to this student for sharing it. I was curious about this portrait so I did a bit of research googling; I found it on a great site dedicated to images of mothers and breastfeeding in art – Such representations were frequent during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a means of enticing women to both become mothers and to breastfeed their own children.

The next images are two of my favorites, simply because they both relate to their titles in relevant ways, and they also really made me smile! And based on these students’ likely search terms… I’m not sure I even want to imagine the resulting “google image” pages.

La mujer: Abarcando la maternidad y la sexualidad en La rampa (Woman: Taking on Maternity [motherhood] and Sexuality in La rampa)

La maternidad y el ciclo de la desigualdad en La rampa (Maternity [motherhood] and the Cycle of Inequality in La rampa)

So now that I have read through the essays and written a “fun” blog post about them – time to get to work on grading!

What “fun” or creative assignment have you given your students? And did they share your sentiments regarding the enjoyable nature of this task?

Resources: Below are PDFs of the assignments I created for “La rampa” – all are in Spanish. The first document contains discussion questions and homework for three, 75-minute classes; The second contains the essay topic and instructions; The third is the print-out with the two different book covers that we used in class.
Homework: La rampa_todas las tareas
Essay: La rampa_Ensayo 1
Cover art: La rampa_covers

Lately I’ve been writing recommendation letters and filling out language evaluation forms for many of my students who are planning to study abroad during the upcoming academic year. Costa Rica… Ecuador… Argentina… Spain… with each request I find myself wishing I were an undergraduate again so that I could spend an entire semester abroad. Somehow it has been 10 years since my semester in Spain (how does time go so fast?!?) and, while I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to spend an extended period of time abroad studying or working in the near future, I will finally have the opportunity to return to Spain this summer for a conference in Santiago de Compostela. The Asociación Hispánica de Humanidades VII Congreso Internacional will take place at the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Facultad de Filología, June 26-28, and I am hoping to spend an extra week in Madrid prior to the conference.  In any case, both my jealously of my students’ travel opportunities and my upcoming summer plans in Spain are making me quite nostalgic for my own study abroad experience. So this week I am going to “re-live” it by sharing one of my study abroad highlights: the research I conducted for my undergraduate thesis, “Teaching Language through Culture: A Thematic Unit on Salvador Dalí.”

First, I will preface this post by emphasizing that this was undergraduate “research,” and my understanding of what constitutes research has certainly transformed over the past decade (grad school tends to have that effect, even on an over-achieving undergrad!). For my project, rather than poring over archives or writing away in the library, most of my research time was spent traveling to different towns and museums, taking pictures with my brand new, super-high-tech 3.2 megapixel digital camera, and collecting books, pamphlets, and other realia that might inspire a lesson plan or classroom activity. I was studying for degrees in Spanish and Secondary Education at the time, so my goal was to create an original thematic unit (envisioned as a mini-textbook chapter) that would teach Spanish vocabulary and grammar through a single cultural element: Salvador Dalí. I chose Dalí, my favorite artist at the time, because I thought building creative lessons around his surrealist art and connections to the avant-garde cultural scene of pre-Civil War Spain would capture the attention of even the most apathetic of Spanish language students. I knew that my future high school language classrooms would certainly contain a few disinterested teenagers studying Spanish out of obligation or requirement. To the credit of my 22-year-old self, I have since found this “hypothesis” about how to capture student interest to be correct, both at high school and university levels: Incorporating Dalí’s paintings into my language or literature courses has generated quite dynamic class discussions that include even the shyest, or least enthusiastic, of my students.  One of my most popular blog posts is on my experience bringing Salvador Dalí’s Spanish Civil War paintings and double-images into my course on Textual Analysis, so I thought adding another Dalí piece to my blogging repertoire would be worthwhile.

Teatro-Museo Dali, located in the artist’s hometown of Figueras, Spain. Dali designed this building to be the “most surreal object in the world,” and he chose to be buried in the museum’s crypt.

During my semester in Spain back in 2004, I visited what tourist guides refer to as the “Triángulo de Dalí” in Cataluña (the northeast region of Spain, surrounding Barcelona and bordering France).  Over five days, I set out from Barcelona to visit three small towns within about 2 hours of the city, each of which contains a former residence of, or museum dedicated to, Salvador Dalí:  Figueras, Cadaqués (Portlligat), and Púbol. If you ever travel to Spain and have the opportunity to visit any of these towns, I highly recommend each and every one. While I thoroughly enjoy the Teatro-Museo Dalí in the artist’s hometown of Figueras (above), having visited the museum on two separate occasions, my favorite location from this “triangle” is the town of Cadaqués, a small fishing village located on the Costa Brava. Portlligat, just a short walk up the coast from the town, is where you can visit Dalí’s former residence and studio. It has since been converted into a museum, the Casa-Museo Dalí (below), and today you can wander through the labyrinthine passageways viewing the artist’s former studio and living quarters. For more information about this museum, and each of the museums in Figueras and Púbol, you can skim through the official website of the Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí, in Spanish, English, or Catalan.

Casa-museo Dali, Cadaques

One of the things I enjoyed the most in Cadaqués (in addition to the actual museum-residence) was the veritable “camino de Dalí” created by both the town and the Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí. Similar to a nature hike in a state or national park, sporadically placed signposts dot the coastal pathways, and each contains a reproduction of one of Dalí’s paintings. These displays are located precisely at the location that appears in, or inspired, each piece. Below are photographs I took of three of these artistic signposts that dot the village. The first displays one of Dalí’s earlier, more abstract surrealist paintings; the pebbled beach of Cadaqués and the rocky Costa Brava make up the background. In this painting, you can also see the triangular rock jutting through the surface of the water (more on this geographical feature below). This signpost, posted on the beach facing the water, allows the viewer to compare the actual view of the beach and sea with the portrayal of this same landscape in this particular painting.

The second example below displays an impressionist-style painting of the picturesque village, the bay, and several fishing boats. If you look on the right-hand side of both the painting and my photograph, you can see the tall white building in the foreground of both images. This makes it apparent the way in which great care has been taken to display these pieces of art in the precise locations that inspired Dalí.

Finally, the third example below is yet another scene of the whitewashed village. This time, however, the town and mountains are far in the background and the bay and fishing boats occupy the central focus of the painting.

If you enjoy photography, art, and/or travel, I highly recommend checking out this book, one of my favorites purchased in Spain: Dalí: El triángulo de l’empordà. Even if you cannot read Spanish, it will be worth your time to skim through the fantastic photography and archival materials that trace the influence of these three Catalonian towns – the three “vertices” of the “Triángulo de Dalí” – on Salvador Dalí’s artistic production, life, and relationships. The book demonstrates how the Catalonian countryside and the Costa Brava impacted Dalí’s work, and there are several side-by-side juxtapositions of the spaces and natural geographic features that have been immortalized in his paintings. Below is an example from my copy of the book:

Sample pages from the book “Dalí: El triángulo de l’emporda”. On the left is a photograph of Cadaques taken around 2000; to the right is a painting of this same portion of the village painted by Dali prior to 1920.

After reading this text, I began to pay especially close attention to the landscapes of my favorite paintings by Dalí.  Below are a few of my photographs from Cadaqués and Portlligat, taken in 2004, alongside some of Dalí’s paintings that contain the same locations, buildings, landscapes, or other geographical features. I have divided the paintings below into two sets. The first are those that contain a depiction of the rock formation “Cucurucuc,” which is visible from any point of the beach in Cadaqués. The second grouping contains paintings with backgrounds that exhibit the contrasting coastal landscape – the calm, smooth waters of the bay against the rugged, rocky coastline at Portlligat.

The rock formation “Cucurucuc”

View of “Cucurucu” from the central beach of Cadaques

A more distant view of “Cucurucu” from a hill within the village

In Dalí: El triángulo de l’empordà, Sebastian Roig describes the “islote Cucurucuc” as one of the most magnetic of the Bay of Cadaqués, similar to a rhinoceros’s horn rising out of the water; In his paintings, Dalí converted this rock formation into an energetic symbol of the Mediterranean (Roig 118). This geographic feature is apparent in the background of several Dalí paintings, including my own personal favorite, “Dream caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening.”

Sueño causado por el vuelo de una abeja alrededor de una granada un segundo antes de despertar [Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second before Awakening] (1944)

Figura rinocerontica del ilisos de fidias [Figure Of Phidias Ilissus Rhino] (1954)

El asno putrefacto [The Rotten Ass] (1928)

La armonía de las esferas [Harmony of Spheres] (1978)

The Bay and Costa Brava

The tell-tale characteristic of the coastline at Cadaqués and Portlligat is the stark contrast between the smooth lines of the calm Mediterranean waters and the jagged outline of the rocky coast. Below are two photographs I took when I visited the Casa-Museo Dalí - the first was taken just outside the entrance of the museum, the second from the hill behind the home as I walked back to Cadaqués.

View of the bay from Dali’s studio and former residence, today the Casa-Museo Dali.

My photograph of the Casa-Museo Dali, Port Lligat, Cadaques

“The Persistence of Memory” (below) is arguably Dali’s most famous surrealist painting, and it also provides an excellent example of how the painter incorporated this particular coastal landscape into both realistic and abstract (surrealist) paintings. It also appears in the ghostly Christmas Cards Dalí designed in 1971. Below are several more paintings that exhibit this typical “Dalinian landscape”.

La persistencia de la memoria [The Persistence of Memory] (1931)

La Madonna de Port Lligat [The Madonna of Port Lligat] (1950)

San Juan de la Cruz [St. John of the Cross] (1951)

Cisnes que reflejan elefantes [Swans Reflecting Elephants] (1937)

Leda atómica [Atomic Leda] (1949)

Overall, visiting the spaces, buildings, and towns that appear in the works of art I most enjoy – whether they are paintings, literary texts, or film – and then incorporating these elements into my lesson plans are two of my favorite things about being a Spanish Professor. In the future, I am hoping to design a short-term study abroad experience around Spanish painters, writers, and architects, and this “Triángulo de Dalí” will definitely appear on my itinerary!

Have you taken students to any of Dalí’s museums in Spain (or to The Dali Musuem in St. Petersburg, FL)? What have been your favorite research- or teaching-related trips?

I’m very excited to have written a guest post for one of my favorite blogs, Nursing Clio. For this piece, I re-visited my very first blog post in which I critiqued, with a sort of “literary analysis” approach, the function of the “silent woman” in a short, Disney-produced 1968 Family Planning film.  For the historians at Nursing Clio, I expanded on the historical context of the creation and production of this film, and I also elaborated on how and why I made connections between a 1960s American production and 1920s medical and (pseudo)scientific research in Spain.

PRETTY WOMEN USE BIRTH CONTROL

I recently came across this amazing vintage video, “Family Planning,” produced by Disney in 1968. Do yourself a favor and take 10 minutes to watch it. In addition to the frivolous use of Donald Duck and the caricature of a “simple” heterosexual couple who appear clueless as to how babies are made, this short film provides us with a wealth of information regarding attitudes towards reproduction in the U.S., and abroad, during the late 1960s. After doing a bit of research, for example, I found out… [read the full post at over at Nursing Clio].

A few weeks ago, students in my Hispanic Women’s Literature course turned in their first paper on Carmen de Burgos’ La rampa. Part of their assignment was to include an image with their essay. One student selected the following painting, a 1905 portrait by Picasso:

“Maternidad”, Picasso (1905)

Since I was not familiar with this particular painting, despite the fact that my research on women’s literary representations of motherhood and maternity in early 20th century Spain is related both historically and thematically, I decided to do a bit of investigating. As I began searching for information, I discovered that Picasso had in fact created numerous paintings entitled “Maternidad” – a quick Google-image search was all I needed!  In addition to various renditions of “Maternidad” (Maternity or Motherhood, in English), Picasso also created a number of paintings that depict mothers with their children, several of which are titled “Madre e hijo” (Mother and Child). While I had seen many of these before, I had not considered how they might relate to my research on early 20th century Spanish literature, and I now find myself more closely examining Picasso’s appropriation and depiction of maternal themes. I had already studied the mother-child relationship that appears in, and is in fact thematically central to, one of his most famous pieces, Guernica, created just after the onset of the Spanish Civil War. Unlike some of his more classic and tender renditions of maternity, the mother-child relationship in Guernica is fraught with agony, suffering, and death. It thus serves not merely to demonstrate, but to amplify and critique the extreme horrors and senselessness that war brings to an innocent populace:

“Guernica”, detail (madre e hijo / mother and child), Picasso (1937)

This maternal representation in Guernica is the result of numerous studies, and some art historians have interpreted the mother figure metaphorically as representative of certain political and national powers in times of war. The stylistic discrepancy between Picasso’s 1905 and 1937 portrayal of maternal devotion is fascinating from both personal and historical perspectives. Yet a contrast between these two samples alone does not adequately characterize Picasso’s treatment of maternal themes in the early 20^th century, and in fact runs contrary to the more general trajectory identified by some scholars. Below are some examples of the treatment of maternity and motherhood in Picasso’s oeuvre. This is by no means a comprehensive analysis, but rather a “springboard” of sorts from which I have just begun to investigate the possible parallels between the literary themes I study and their appearance in contemporary artwork.

In his 2005 article - ”La representación de lo materno en Pablo Picasso y Soledad Puértolas” – Pablo Pintado-Casas argues that Picasso’s treatment of maternal themes in his paintings is marked by a strong autobiographical impulse that singularly affects the manner of representation. That is, earlier paintings depict a mother figure that reflects sadness, melancholy, and poverty, similar to the other subjects that appear in his “Blue Period” (Época o periodo azul), 1900-1904 (p. 112). Such portrayals also hark back to Emile Zola and Naturalist impulses of the late nineteenth century. In the Blue Period, maternity and motherhood are in fact frequent subjects, and the life-giving mother figure is paradoxically placed in a dark, blue-gray context that evokes death, illness, and suffering. The accessible introductory text, Essential Picasso, identifies Picasso’s series of “Madonnas” during this time as a prime example of his penchant for combining themes of religion and poverty: “The almost monochromatic use of blue in this period, and its traditional association with the Madonna, are superbly combined to produce a set of haunting, almost ghostly images” (p. 26). Below are a few samples:

“Maternidad” (Mother and Child), Picasso (1901)

“Maternidad, madre e hijo” (Maternity, mother and child), Picasso (1903) [wikipedia]

“Madre e hijo”, Picasso (1905)

After seeing these variations on the maternal experience, I think they would serve as evocative complements to Carmen de Burgos’ La rampa in on of my future literature courses, as the novel deals extensively with the harsh realities of maternity for a poor, working-class woman in urban Madrid. Returning to Picasso, this dark “Blue Period” was immediately followed by the “Rose Period” (Época o periodo rosa) from 1904-1906, during which time the artist completed the painting that I included at the top of this post (“Maternidad,” 1905). The Rose period is marked by brighter shades of orange and pink, as well as by subtle lines of expressionism. Picasso’s tendency to render marginalized individuals or social outcasts as worthy artistic subjects is evident by the ubiquitous appearances of circus performers, individuals who were dedicated to their art (performance), yet were frequently mocked by society. Below are examples of mothers, and their and children, in this context:

“Madre e hijo saltimbanquis” (Mother and Child Acrobats), Picasso (1905).

“Familia de acróbats con mono” (Family of acrobats, with monkey), Picasso (1905)

Returning to the aforementioned article, Pintado-Casas points to 1919-1921 as years that mark a transition in the trajectory of maternal themes in Picasso’s work. He attributes this shift not only to the fact that Picasso traveled throughout Italy and Greece studying neoclassicism and the Italian Renaissance, but that he also became a father (p. 111). The experience of fatherhood especially prompted him to contemplate and approach maternity and motherhood from a new vantage point (p. 113).  Picasso’s later depictions of mothers and children reveal a more intimate perspective that admires and glorifies maternity and motherhood. The Art Institute of Chicago agrees with Pintado-Casas’ observations, and also notes that, unlike those frail and anguished figures of the Blue Period, these classical-period figures are “majestic in proportion and feeling“. Picasso produced at least 12 works on the Mother-Child subject between 1921-23:

“Madre e hijo” (Mother and Child), Picasso (1921) [Art Institute of Chicago]

“Madre e hijo” (Mother and Child), Picasso (1921) [pictify]

“Mother and Child”, Picasso (1922)

While the Pintado-Casas’ article and the observations of The Chicago Art Institute provide neatly organized, easily-identifiable categories, there are in fact several works that do not quite fit within these timelines. Here are a few more samples of Picasso’s paintings on “Maternidad” that defy, to some extent, that useful, but perhaps over-simplified, trajectory of the evolution of this theme his work.

“Maternity en el campo” (Mother and Child in the countryside), Picasso (1901)

As part of the Blue Period, the above painting evokes the imagery of the “Madonna and Child” with the darker, blue and gray hues and the rural landscape. Yet the contrasting colors of the bucolic background – complete with greens, oranges, and pinks, gives the painting a brighter overall appearance. This distances the piece from the melancholic, pessimistic depictions of poverty from 1900-1904 and approaches the lighter tones and optimism expressed in the Rose Period.

“Maternidad” (Maternity) Picasso (1963)

“Maternidad con manzana”, Picasso (1971)

What are your favorite pieces of art depicting motherhood, maternity, and/or mothers and their children?  What other versions of Picasso’s numerous takes on the subject do you prefer?

Resources and works cited:
Payne, Laura. Essential Picasso. Introduction by Dr. Julia Kelly. Bath, UK: Dempsey Parr; Parragon, 2000.

Pintado-Casas, Pablo. “La representación de lo materno en Pablo Picasso y Soledad Puértolas.” Letras Femeninas 31.1 (2005): 107-115. [JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23021520].

Wischnitzer, Rachel. “Picasso’s ‘Guernica’. A Matter of Metaphor.” Artibus et Historiae 6.12 (1985): 153-72.
[JSTOR:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483241].

“I shall do as you request, and tell you everything about myself [...] You may like me, but I am not alive.” –Hildegarte, played by Ivana Baquero in The Red Virgin

“I will do as you ask and tell you everything about myself. My name is Aurora Rodriguez and you will not like me. I killed my daughter…”  –Aurora, played by Maribel Verdú in The Red Virgin

The Red Virgin – La virgen roja (dir. Sheila Pye, 2012)

In 1933, Aurora Rodriguez Carballeira murdered her 18-year old daughter Hildegart Rodriguez (1914-1933) in their Madrid residence. The senseless assassination sparked outrage and scandal within the intellectual community, as the young Hildegart had become a prominent public figure in Spain and a vocal advocate of modern sexual reform in Western Europe. Aurora had “created” Hildegart as a eugenic experiment, and she exerted extreme control over her daughter’s education and public persona. It is said that Hildegart could read and write by the age of 3; she could speak several languages by the time she was 6 years old; and she became a lawyer by the age of 17. Moreover, despite her youth, Hildegart communicated with some of the most well-known doctors, researchers, and intellectuals of her era, engaging with a variety of topics pertaining to sexual reform and human sexuality. Spain’s Dr. Gregorio Marañon, Britain’s Havelock Ellis, and the US’s Margaret Sanger were among the internationally respected figures with whom Hildegart corresponded.  The short film, The Red Virgin (dir. Sheila Pye, 2012), depicts the tragic, Frankensteinian tale of this ill-fated mother-daughter pair, imbuing the narrative with symbolic and suggestive imagery.

Aurora (mother) and Hildegart (daughter) Rodriguez – photo 1920-1930

Last fall I wrote a short post about this film and the documentary-style Spanish podcast (from the Radio Nacional Española) that details the biography of the Aurora as well as the historical context of Hildegart’s life and death. The English title of the podcast is “Aurora Rodríguez y su hija Hildegarte: The assassination of the modern woman”. I planned to incorporate both The Red Virgin and the podcast into my literature seminar this semester and, now that I have done so, I wanted to share my teaching experience and my students’ projects. This will be the third in my series of posts detailing the materials, resources, and lesson plans I created for use in a 300-level Spanish literature seminar. At the end of this post are the necessary links and documents (Word files) for adapting this particular topic to a course-plan or lesson of your own.

Overall, my students reacted quite positively to both the film and podcast. They had a bit of difficulty with the podcast, which I had anticipated, but they were able to grasp the most important details with the guide I had provided. Even though a few may have struggled with comprehension, I definitely think it was a worthwhile exercise as it required them to listen to a rather fast-paced Spanish program that contained advanced grammar structures and academic vocabulary.  Regarding the film, one of the scenes that generated the most discussion was that in which Aurora (the mother) is dressed as a bullfighter (matador; torero), while Hildegart (her daughter) functions as a stand-in for the victimized bull. Several students discussed the symbolism of this scene in their final essays.

Aurora as the bullfighter (matador) – The Red Virgin

Hildegart as a bull (toro) – The Red Virgin

For the essay on this film, I required my class to first analyze the film’s presentation of either maternity/motherhood or female sexuality (2/3 of the paper), and to then provide their critical reaction or evaluation (1/3 of the paper). I made it clear that they should not merely discuss whether or not they liked/disliked the film, but that they should provide a thoughtful critical commentary.  I suggested they compare the message or themes within the film to those they observed in other texts from the course, or perhaps discuss the film’s success (or failure) in communicating a particular message. Below are a few of the titles of my students’ essays and – just as I did with my assignment on Carmen de Burgos’s La rampa – I required them to select an image to accompany their work:

“El poder de la madre en The Red Virgin“ [The Power of the Mother  / The Mother's Power in The Red Virgin] – This paper proposes that the film represents motherhood as a role that affords women an enormous amount of power and influence over their children and, by extension, the future of their society and/or nation. The thesis is supported through analyses of the parallel scenes at the beginning and end of the film, the wardrobe, and carefully selected close-up shots.

El poder de la madre

“La mancha de la maternidad” [The Stain of Motherhood/Maternity] – This essay discusses the absence of maternal love and devotion that characterized Aurora’s relationship with her daughter, Hildegart.  The paper proposes that the calculating, controlling, and cold nature of Aurora’s maternal philosophy essentially stains the idyllic image of motherhood that Spanish culture strove to maintain. The thesis is supported by noting the irony in the first scene titled “Amor” (a scene in which little maternal love is demonstrated), and by analyzing the changes in color and lighting in the parallel first and last scenes.

“La mancha de la maternidad”

“La maternidad: Un analisis sobre la esclavitud [Motherhood/Maternity: An analysis of slavery] – This essay argues that Aurora’s controlling motherhood is presented first as the ownership of property, and later as an oppressive relationship that mirrors the master-slave dynamic. Upon examining this dynamic and the obsession with controlling one’s property, the paper suggests that such a mother-child power-play can lead to a specifically feminine (maternal) illness.

Mother and Child (Madonna) – Egon Schiele

“La sexualidad femenina: no todo es blanco o negro” [Feminine Sexuality: Not Everything is Black or White] – This paper analyzes the ambiguous sexual undertones of the film in order to argue that Spanish society’s negative view of sexually active women contributes to a dangerous identity conflict that causes the repression of female sexuality. This enforced repression becomes dangerous for both individual women and for society in general. The essay discusses how The Red Virgin presents sexuality through interpretations of the symbolic colors of the wardrobe and analyses of the various shifts between close-, medium-, and long-shots.

Two Tahitian Women by Paul Gauguin (1899)

“Su madre, su dueño” [Her Mother, Her Owner] – This essay focuses on the way in which motherhood has been historically valued as a virtuous service (“oficio santo”) to the family, community, and nation. It proposes, however, that The Red Virgin critiques the power dynamic and subsequent abuse of power that may result in mother-child relationships. The thesis is supported with analyses of the camera angles, the position of the characters within different scenes/shots, and the symbolism of the caged canary.

Su madre su dueño

How have you incorporated online materials into your classes? Have students reacted favorably to listening to a podcast or watching an online film rather than reading traditional articles or books? What online resources have you found to be the most useful and user-friendly?

Resources:
(1) Film: The Red Virgin (dir. Sheila Pye, 2012): http://vimeo.com/62044318
(2) Podcast: “Aurora Rodríguez y su hija Hildegarte: el asesinato de la mujer moderna.” from la Radio Nacional Española: Documentos RNE
(3) Homework and class discussion questions for the podcast and the film: Asesinato de la mujer moderna_tarea
(4) Essay topic – Analysis of and critical reaction to the film: Essay_La virgen roja
(5) Syllabus (Spring 2014, Grinnell College) - “Refashioning the Self: Hispanic Women’s Literature of the 20th Century” SPN 295_Syllabus_SP14_ReFashioning the Self

This post is admittedly a slightly odd compilation of images and ideas – It seems that over the past several months I’ve been researching or teaching about murderous mothers in literature, film, history, and popular culture: from the assassination of Hildegart, to “La Llorona” (on which I will base my next teaching-related post), to infanticidal mothers in 19th-20th century Italy, I’ve been intrigued by these texts not merely for their fascinating portrayals of twisted and manipulative maternity, but for the images they employ in order to communicate what we regard as an aberrant act.  From the symbolic and cinematic (bullfighter) to the ghostly and horrific (Halloween costume), there are numerous examples of the murderous-mother in contemporary art and popular culture.

Murderous mother, Aurora, depicted as a bullfighter (matador) about to deal the final blow to the bull – The Red Virgin (film)

La Llorona – Halloween costume in Orlando, FL (2013) Source: Azteca noticias http://www.aztecanoticias.com.mx/notas/entretenimiento/164369/la-llorona-llegara-en-halloween-a-orlando

For the article I am currently working on, I revisited a book chapter on infanticide that I had read during my first year as a PhD student nearly six years ago (before I had any clue as to what I would end up researching for my dissertation). “An Unwritable Law of Maternal Love: The Infanticide Debate” is the fifth chapter of Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg’s book The Pinocchio Effect: On Making Italians. Here, Stewart-Steinberg traces the history of the discourse of the infanticidal mother to determine this female figure’s impact on more general notions of Italian motherhood between the 1860s (the creation of the Italian national state) and the 1920s (the collapse of the liberal government and the rise of fascism). As a result of her research, Stewart-Steinberg asserts that infanticide came to be figured during this time as:

“the female crime par excellence and as an immensely productive model for establishing connections between subjectivity, legal responsibility, and sexuality. The power of these connections proved instrumental both in removing the discourse of infanticide from earlier theories that rendered it a crime against nature and in proving that all maternity, when left to its own devices, tended to exhibit dangerous antisocial behavior that therefore required expert intervention“ (185).

Thus, rather than falling within the discourses of legality and human rights, infanticide became more closely associated with defining, regulating, and criminalizing female, that is, maternal, behavior. What I find noteworthy about these observations is that they recognize the (ever increasing!) pathologizing of motherhood that not only places a great deal of pressure on women, but also makes mothers susceptible to extreme forms of control, surveillance, and scrutiny. In seventeenth and eighteenth century Italy, for example, infanticide was understood as a by-product of the rigid honor code that governed female behavior and sexuality – the infant child was the “evidence” that a woman had transgressed the boundaries that her society and culture had created for her. For Stewart-Steinberg, the infanticide debate in Italy was distinguished from that in other countries by the hegemonic role of the Catholic Church and the subsequent obsession with female honor (sexual purity) that, by extension, defined familial honor. Thus, an unmarried mother was forced to conceal her pregnancy, perhaps deposit the infant in a Church or Convent turnstile (“baby hatch“), and even rescind her maternal duties (189).

What a “baby hatch” on the side of a Church or convent might have looked like. This site, “Les enfants Troves,” provides information on the history of these devices in France: http://www.archivosgenbriand.com/chron_obliv_fr.html

As odd as it may seem to us today, Stewart-Steinberg suggests that “female honor” became the distinguishing factor in Italian infanticide debates: “Only ‘honest’ or honorable women committed infanticide, while the category of common homicide was to be reserved for dishonorable women” (197). This chapter goes on to discuss the “liberalizing” of infanticidal laws (aka, more lenient charges and punishments), infanticide in literature, Cesare Lombroso, and criminality – I highly recommend it if you are at all interested in these topics, either in an Italian or Western European context.

Coincidentally, after reading this chapter on infanticide, I found the below illustration of a murderous mother, accompanied by what appears to be an early modern rendition of the devil, by way of The British Library‘s collection of images, over 1 million of which are now available free in the Public Domain. Well, coincidentally might apply best to the fact that I found out about the free images after re-reading that chapter… then deliberately searched (a bit nervously) for “infanticide”!

A pittilesse Mother. That most unnaturally at one time murthe[red] two of her owne Children at Acton … uppon holy thursday last 1616, the ninth of May. Beeing a gentlewoman named M. Vincent … With her Examination, Confession and true discovery of all t[he] proceedings … Whereunto is added Andersons Repentance w[ho] was executed … the 18 of May 16[16]. [Image from: The British Library]

Saturno devorando a su hijo (Saturn Devouring His Son) – Francisco Goya (1819-1823), Museo del Prado

The above portrayal of infanticide is understood through the lens of mythology, and thus the viewer does not tend to judge Saturn in the same fashion as the aforementioned “pittilesse” mother of the early modern sketch.  Moreover, a father ["god"] killing his child ["son"] does not provoke the same shocking impact in [Christian] cultures that venerate maternal love as an innate, even sacred force, and accept that paternal love is all-powerful, even to the point of violence or destruction. The figures in Goya’s portrait resemble humans, certainly, but yet they remain “safely” distanced from us due to the exaggerated, distorted shapes of the bodies, as well as the dark colors that obscure the background (time and place). While Goya’s painting is at once grotesque, mythic, and macabre, I find Peter Paul Ruben‘s rendition (which some art historians believe was Goya’s inspiration) to be a bit more disturbing. Here, despite the representation of the same myth, Saturn and his son embody very human(-like) figures, and the detailed facial expressions, hair, and blood – each of which are highlighted with bright, contrasting colors – provoke visceral reactions of both repugnance and fascination.

“Saturn, Jupiter’s Father, Devours One of His Sons, Neptune” by Peter Paul Rubens (1636-38)

Though I was unable to find many “classical” renditions of infanticidal mothers in my brief search, I did learn a bit more about this portrait of Medea, poised to kill her children. Importantly, the narrative behind this image is one of vengeance. According to Euripides’ Greek tragedy Medea, this mother commits filicide as a means of avenging her husband’s betrayal.

Médée furieuse (Medea About to Kill her Children) by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix, 1862

I think this is an appropriate place to end before my next post on “La Llorona” since, like Medea, she purportedly murdered her children out of vengeance. Versions of this Mexican (Mexican-American and Latin American) legend describe a beautiful mestizo woman who drowned her children in the river (arroyo) when her lover abandoned her to marry another woman. Plus, now that I feel slightly productive after writing a short blog post, I can return to my article with (hopefully) a fresh perspective and “cured” writer’s block!

Do you know of other paintings and works of art (classical or modern) that depict maternal infanticide or filicide? What are other examples of infanticide in post-20th century literature and art?

Bibliography:
Stewart-Steinberg, Suzanne. The Pinocchio Effect: On Making Italians, 1860-1920. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. [Chapter 5, "An Unwritable Law of Maternal Love: The Infanticide Debate." p. 184-228.]

I’m currently working on an article that revolves around theories of corporeality and the body, so I’ve been reading a range of feminist interpretations of the subject: Elizabeth Grosz‘s challenge to mind/body dualism by way of the Moebius strip paradigm; Susan Bordo and the body as a “cultural plastic”; and Iris Marion Young‘s articles on distinctly female body experiences, to name a few. As far as the body in literature and art, I have found numerous articles, books, and anthologies that delve into the complexities of the female body when represented by men vs. women in various mediums. For example,  feminist critics have pointed out that, even though man does not “inhabit” the female body, he has nevertheless exerted control over its representation in cultural history. Even the most cursory investigation of canonical Western artists proves this statement true: Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Rubens, Goya, Picasso…. Contemporary women artists must grapple with the subject-as-object paradox: “The meaning of the work relies on the paradox of woman as subject and object; viewers must at once be aware of the central figure as an object seen (of the dangerous and unpleasant objectification of woman) and as a subject who sees, a creative female agent, an artist” (Meskimmon 75).

In any case, combine this current project with the fact that my post on Salvador Dalí’s double images has been getting a lot of traffic lately and you have my newest Dalí-inspired piece: Nude Skulls and Double-Images… Spanish professor #clickbait?

Here is an example of what I’m referring to:

“In Voluptas Mors” (“Voluptuous/Desirable Death”) Women forming a human skull for Salvador Dali’s photo-shoot

Dalí worked on this project with American photographer Philippe Halsman in 1951; the pair had collaborated on several other projects throughout the 1940s since their initial meeting in 1941. “In Voluptas Mors” (Voluptuous, or Desirable Death), the title given to this skull composed of seven nude women, apparently took over three hours to arrange. There are some fabulous articles and blog posts that discuss Dalí’s and Halsman’s “nude-skull” venture. Metamorphic Skull Illusions includes two of Dalí’s renditions of a skull made of human figures (the above photograph and a painting), as well as numerous other examples of sketches that contain double-image-skulls from different time periods all around the world. Dalí’s Skull Illusion Still Inspires details the way in which this particular visual has inspired tattoos, movie posters, magazine covers, and a variety of artistic endeavors. Finally, this site details the making of the image, including photographs like the one below that were taken from different angles as the models were positioned in their precise locations:

The making of “In Voluptas Mors” (Dali and Halsman, 1951)

Since there seems to be a wealth of information regarding the creation of this specific image available online, I was curios as to whether Dalí produced any similar projects, with the human form morphing into a skull. I knew he had done variations with portraits and “Disappearing busts…”, but a human skull creates a markedly distinct aura. Consulting one of my favorite books, Salvador Dalí. The Paintings, which contains nearly 1700 paintings, sketches, studies, and photographs of Dalí’s vast artistic output, I found several other examples of skulls created from the female form – granted, this time they aren’t “nudes”! Two paintings in particular caught my attention for their descriptors: “For the campaign against venereal disease” (the first is the “study” and the second is the final painting):

Study, “Soldier take warning” – for the campaign against venereal disease (Salvador Dali, 1942)

“Untitled” – for the campaign against venereal disease (Salvador Dali, 1942)

During his time in the U.S., Dalí’s work was often commissioned by different companies or organizations – I wrote about his unsuccessful Hallmark Christmas cards last year. These posters are another example. I wasn’t able to find much historically sound information regarding these images or who commissioned them online, and I’ll have to wait until the current semester ends to delve deeper into this history. I did, however, find a fascinating dissertation on Dalí’s decade-long stint in the United States during the 1940s that dedicates an entire chapter to the depiction of the human body in paintings such as these.

In her dissertation, A Spaniard in New York: Salvador Dalí and the Ruins of Modernity (1940-49), Gisela M. Carbonell-Coll argues that in Dalí’s 1940s paintings, “the partial body – its fragmentation and dismemberment – not only refers the viewer to the obvious consequences of the war but it is also used as a metaphor for its own decay as a result of venereal disease” (11). For Carbonell-Coll, the gender of these bodies is not their distinguishing characteristic –  their status as incomplete, decaying and morphing bodies takes precedence (116).  Thus, she omits feminine and masculine attributes when analyzing these images – noting that both male and female bodies appear fragmented and dismembered during this time – and opts instead to value them as “products of the socio-cultural output of the wartime years in America and the artist’s promotion as an artistic provocateur in this context” (117).  The notion that the body (male and female) is “charged with political meaning” is significant (122), yet I disagree with the proposition that gender is of little significance in these paintings on venereal disease. If we consider the title of the study – “Soldier take warning” – as well as the juxtaposition of clearly male and female subjects, the work in fact communicates important anxieties regarding sexuality in the inter- and post-war years. In fact, WW2 military propaganda aimed at young [male] soldiers emphasized the dangers of female prostitutes rather than discouraging or chastising promiscuous male behavior.

WW2 Propaganda Poster – Soldiers’ “real” enemy…

WW2 Propaganda Poster – Soldiers’ “real” enemy… (via BusinessInsider.com)

WW2 Propaganda Poster – Soldiers’ “real” enemy… (via BusinessInsider.com)

In Dalí’s campaign poster, a similar visual rhetoric is deployed. A young, rather innocent looking male soldier is positioned so that he simultaneously, and paradoxically, appears vulnerable yet resolute in the face of female temptresses. While the women in the military campaign ads may or may not be traditionally attractive or overtly sexual, Dalí’s female bodies are clearly and explicitly sexual. He doesn’t need to label them “booby traps” to get the message across… Furthermore, the fact that these female forms morph into a skull – a threatening and ubiquitous symbol of death – communicates a subtle, yet extremely powerful  message regarding women’s sexuality. Such a portrayal implicitly connects women’s sexuality to degeneracy, illness, death, and even sin. And just like the posters, in Dalí’s painting the STD (the danger, the threat) is embodied by woman. As the seductive temptress, she is dangerous to the strong, respectful, honorable male members of society; her sexual prowess has the potential to corrupt or contaminate them… and by extension, the nation.  Finally, Dalí’s use of the women’s upper thighs for the skull’s “teeth” is certainly no coincidence: The image evokes the mythical vagina dentata, poised to devour or castrate any man who dares approach it.
( Caution: do not Google “vagina dentata”).

Detail – Vagina Dentata: Dali’s poster, campaign against venereal disease

(I think I should use the summer to improve my “blog-art” skills….. )

However you wish to interpret the posters, or Dalí’s paintings, there is no denying the communicative potential of the human body as a medium -for art, advertising, or even personal expression. To wrap up this post, below I’ve included a few more Dalí paintings that feature human skulls and double-images:

Cafe Scene. Drawing for the Nightmare in Moontide (Salvador Dali, 1941)

The Face of War – Drawing for the nightmare scene in the film “Moontide” (Salvador Dali, 1941)

Ballerina in a Death’s Head (Salvador Dali, 1939)

Do you know of other paintings that connect women to death by way of skulls, bones, or other corporeal imagery? How is the skull deployed aesthetically in different cultural contexts?

Resources:
Carbonell-Coll, Gisela M. A Spaniard in New York: Salvador Dalí and the Ruins of Modernity (1940-49). Dissertation. U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009.

Descharnes, Robert and Gilles Néret. Salvador Dalí. The Paintings. Köln: Taschen, 2002.

Meskimmon, Marsha. Women Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics. London: Routledge, 2003.

If you grew up in the southwest United States, if you can claim Hispanic heritage, or if you’ve lived in a community with a distinct Hispanic population, you are likely quite familiar with the numerous legends of “La Llorona” (The weeping woman). If, however, you grew up in central Pennsylvania (like I did) or in more rural areas of the midwest or northeast United States (like the majority of my students here in Iowa), chances are you have never heard the eerie tales of this weeping woman – this repentant, murderous mother.

La Llorona – complete with the dark river at night and the bloody handprint of a child on her blouse

In my transatlantic women’s literature seminar this semester, I wanted to include a sample of US Latino texts as a way of encouraging students to view Spanish as a “second” language within the US rather than a entirely “foreign” one.  Given that the course centered on paradigms of womanhood (female archetypes) like “la perfecta casada” (“the perfect wife”) and “La Malinche,” I dedicated the first class to “La Llorona.” There were three parts to my students’ first homework assignment:

1. Students read two very abridged versions of the the Llorona legend: one that takes place in colonial Mexico and another in the 20th century US,
2. They also read a short article on the Malinche/Llorona dichotomy that traces the evolution, and ensuing confusion and conflation of these two female figures in more recent cultural history (we had already read Octavio Paz’s “Hijos de Malinche”/”Sons-Children of Malinche” at the beginning of the semester), and
3. Students were required to find an image of La Llorona and email it to me prior to class.
   (The texts and assignments are available at the end of this post under “Resources”).

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a big fan of incorporating art and images into literature courses, and I wanted to start the class discussion by examining the diverse representations of La Llorona that exist today. This seemed like a great idea… until that morning when I received 18 versions of a dead or ghostly woman in my inbox! Just take a look at the Google Images page for “La Llorona”. Below is the most popular image that students sent me (at least 5 of the 18 selected it), followed by my “favorite” – aka – the most disturbing:

“La Llorona” – Several of my students selected this image after reading two different versions of the Llorona legend.

The creepiest image of La Llorona that I received in my inbox – it appears that is a REAL baby, not just a doll….

After discussing the two different variations of the legend and images of La Llorona, we considered the power of such mythic tales. Why do they survive? What purpose do they serve? Who is the target audience? What lessons, or moralejas, do they communicate? For example, the most modern versions appear to be targeted at children, aiming to frighten them into obedience with some variation of…

“Don’t [cry / play by the river or arroyo / stay out past dark; etc. ]…
…or La Llorona will come and steal/kill you”.

To (over)simplify these narratives, in the colonial Mexican version, the woman bears the children of a white Spaniard – a man outside, and above, her own social class. When he refuses to marry her because of her Indian blood, she brutally stabs her children in a sudden moment of rage. She promptly laments her actions and roams the streets sobbing for her children, “Ayyyyy mis pobres hijos!” (Ayyyy, my poor children).  She is arrested and condemned to death, but her ghostly spirit is said to continue roaming the streets at night in search of her children.  In the modern US version, after marrying and having children, the woman becomes overwhelmed by her responsibilities at home and unhappy due to the lack of attention from her husband (who spends the majority of his time outside the home, at work, at bars, and with younger women). One day he leaves his wife, never to return. She blames the children for the failure of the marriage and her husband’s abandonment, drowning them in the Rio Grande.  Upon realizing that their death does not bring back her husband, she goes mad, wailing (Ayyyy!) and searching for her dead children, then drowns herself in the river as she attempts to “recover” them.

Modern local legends allude to sightings of a terrifying, weeping female figure in a white dress who roams the riverbed stealing children who play nearby. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries this versatile myth has, understandably, been exploited in Mexican horror films and popular culture.

1960s Mexican horror film

Promo for a Halloween haunted house by Universal Studios

Today, “sightings” of La Llorona are occasionally reported on entertainment and “news” programs. In class we watched a brief YouTube video (in Spanish) that detailed  variations of the “Llorona” myth in other Latin American countries before delving into the main feature of the news spot: rare video footage and sound recordings of a Llorona-sighting outside of Oaxaca. Supposedly, the wail of La Llorona could be heard on this video (my class was quite skeptical!). Unfortunately, in the time since I taught the class several weeks ago, that particular video has been removed from YouTube, but below is a link to another similar one that is quite useful. It also gives a summary of the main elements of the legend, but rather than footage of a “Llorona-sighting,” it includes a documentary-style segment of a psychic examining a local property where a family had apparently felt the presence of a woman’s spirit – presumably La Llorona. It’s sort of like Ghost Hunters… in Mexico:

In any case… since my course was centered on female identities in the Hispanic World, I led the discussion away from the innocent child victims and the paranormal and towards the impact that such stories might have on women.  What do they tell us about the “bad mother” vs. the “good mother”? What norms did “La Llorona” transgress that placed her in a situation that provokes her murderous rage? How did she react in each instance? For example, both tales start with a “beautiful mestizo woman” who falls in love; both portray her subsequent filicide as a consequence of an unanticipated deceit or rejection; and both effectively punish the mother for all eternity. While the murder of one’s children indeed deserves to be castigated, the fact that male (paternal) behavior is absent or excused in these tales is revealing. The basic tenets of machismo are therefore upheld, as the man either deceives his wife or lover with no consequences, abandons her and his children in order to pursue his own desires, and/or refuses parental responsibilities – again, with no consequences. Thus the burden of responsibility falls on the woman, not merely for the well-being of her child(ren), but for ensuring the satisfaction of the male figure. Moreover, while the legend may warn young children to behave, the image of a beautiful, ultimately deceived and condemned woman serves as a warning to young women, wives, and mothers – do not aspire to marry outside your social class; do not complain if your husband does not devote as much attention to you after you have children; make sure you place the importance of your husband’s and children’s needs and desires above your own, etc. My class came up with a variety of themes that surfaced regarding woman-as-victim and the tale of La Llorona as a form of female social control - once the main “distraction” of child-murder was removed, that is.

A confluence of female identities – La Llorona y La virgen de Guadalupe… Chicano artist Delilah Montoya aims to “evoke an identity” through her photography that celebrates connections between Latin America and the United States, which originate at the Border.

To continue this brief unit on US Latino literature and culture, during the second class we read two short stories by Sandra Cisneros – “Never Marry a Mexican” and “Woman Hollering Creek,” both taken from her 1991 collection of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. In these cuentos Cisneros deliberately employs mythic and historic female archetypes as a means of both characterizing her protagonists (and other characters) and critiquing the influence that such paradigms of womanhood can have on female culture. For example, rather than following in the footsteps of the mythic “Llorona” and drowning her children in the nearby arroyo to enact vengeance on her abusive husband, Cleofilas in “Woman Hollering Creek” abandons him, saving both herself and her children by crossing the river back into Mexico. On the way, Cleofilas and Felice, the independent woman who helps her escape, laugh like powerful “Gritonas” (hollering women) rather than weeping like the “Llorona”.  And in “Never Marry a Mexican“ we see how the traitorous woman, “La Malinche,” is used as a subtext for the behavior and characterization of the protagonist, Clemencia.

Finally, in the third class we watched the 2002 film Real Women Have Curves, directed by Patricia Cardoso and based on the play by Josefina Lopez. We concentrated on the way in which Ana, a Mexican-American teenager, is positioned in opposition to her Mexican mother (Carmen). Each woman has a distinct idea of what constitutes a respectable, or ideal, female identity. Carmen’s traditional, conservative notions of family and femininity clash with Ana’s more rebellious sentiments regarding women’s independence and sexuality. Since this post has gotten a bit longer than I anticipated, I won’t go into much detail regarding these class preparations and discussions, but instead will include the discussion questions, assignments, and resources at the end of this post for interested readers. Feel free to leave comments, tips, or suggestions based on your experiences reading, viewing, or teaching these texts.

I’ll wrap up with a few images of the Virgin of Guadalupe that we examined during this final class. These modern, predominantly feminist renditions of La virgen de Guadalupe are a perfect way to illustrate the reinvention of female identities by way of a confluence and manipulation of the traditional and the modern. I began with the “original” representation of Our Lady of Guadalupe – the image that appeared on Juan Diego’s cloak in 1531, and which is on display today in Mexico City’s Basilica:

“Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe” (Our Lady of Guadalupe) – Mexico. This is the image that appeared on Juan Diego’s cloak in 1531; it is preserved and on display today at the Basilica in Mexico City.

I then showed them Alma Lopez’s “Our Lady” (1999), as the shape, form, and surrounding imagery share many similarities with the iconic image of La virgen de Guadalupe, yet Lopez’s (not-so)subtle refashioning is also one of the most scandalous and controversial representations to date.

“Our Lady” by Alma Lopez (1999)

Unlike the most popular images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Lopez’s does not hide this female icon’s body or sexuality; she actively looks out and up, rather than passively averting the spectator’s gaze; she is poised more assertively, with her hands on her hips; she wears her cloak proudly, and its fabric is imbued with allusions to her indigenous past. With this image of the Virgin in a rose “bikini,” Lopez effectively calls out the paradox of the “Virgin-Mother” – the asexual woman who is most revered for her maternal role – as an impossible standard for “ordinary” Mexican women. By bringing female sexuality and corporeality into her depiction of a woman occupying the place of the “virgin-mother,” Lopez rejects the notion that women (particularly mothers) must repress or hide their sexuality.  Along with this image, I also showed several of Yolanda Lopez’s portrayals from the 70s – specifically, this one, “Virgin Running” (1978). Lopez aimed to celebrate La virgen de Guadalupe – “the most ubiquitous female Latina” – by presenting her in ways that would connect her to real, modern women’s lives. This image is actually a self-portrait – Lopez depicts herself not as a demure, serene figure, but as a dynamic, active version of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I especially love her running shoes…

“Virgin Running” (self-portrait) by Yolanda Lopez (1978)

I was hoping that a few of my students would decide to incorporate US Latino texts into their final projects, and several actually did. One project examined the modern US and colonial Mexican versions of the legend of “La Llorona” in light of the influence of Protestantism and Catholicism respectively. Another incorporated “Never Marry a Mexican” into her discussion of how literary texts engage with and challenge the problematic dichotomies that define “appropriate” female identities (ex: good vs. bad; virgin vs. whore, etc.). And yet a third chose to discuss the mother-daughter relationships in three films that we studied during the semester: The Red Virgin (dir. Sheila Pye, 2012), Volver (dir. Pedro Almodovar, 2006), and Real Women Have Curves.

Overall, my class enjoyed reading these texts, and the majority of my students had little or no prior knowledge of the rich cultural heritage of Latinos in the US. It struck me that, even if some of them decide to become Spanish majors, they most likely will not have the opportunity take future Spanish courses that include these themes. Thus, after teaching this course and listening to my students’ positive feedback and responses on this unit, I think it’s crucial that professors of Spanish and Hispanic literature begin incorporating Latino texts into more general literature and culture courses when possible, rather than reserving them for entirely separate courses on Latino Studies or Latino or Chicano Literature. If we can place such an emphasis on Transatlantic courses (Spain and Latin America), especially given the vast cultural differences among Latin American countries, then certainly we can include US Latino literature as well. While specialized courses on Latino Studies, Literature, or Culture are of course necessary and should by no means be eliminated, they should not be the only outlet for discussion and dissemination of these very relevant works.

Phew… I’m exhausted. :-) For my readers who teach or have taught Latino Studies, what are some of your favorite texts to teach and discuss with students? What additional resources might work well in a Transatlantic Spanish literature course?

Resources:

Articles

• Leal, Luis. “The Malinche-Llorona Dichotomy: The Evolution of a Myth” in Feminism, Nation, and Myth. La Malinche. Eds. Rolando Romero and Amanda Nolacea Harris. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press, 2005. 134-38.
• Paz, Laura.  “‘Nobody’s Mother and Nobody’s Wife’: Reconstructing Archetypes and Sexuality in Sandra Cisneros’ ‘Never Marry a Mexican’”. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 6.4 (2008):  11-27. Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol6/iss4/3

Texts: Short stories (cuentos) and Film

• La Llorona – Chapter 9: La Llorona, Mexico and Chapter 10: La Llorona, US, from Leyendas del mundo hispano, Eds. Susan M. Bacon, et al. NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. (I believe my copy was a first edition, the chapters are likely different in the 2nd and 3rd eds.). Older editions of this text are available for only a few dollars. Contact me if you’re interested in my copies of these chapters.
• “Woman Hollering Creek” – click on this link to download a PDF of the short story. Alternatively, the web address is teacherweb.com/IN/Burris/Comber/Cisneros-Woman-HC.pdf
• “Never Marry a Mexican“- click on this link to download a PDF of the short story. Alternatively, the web address is http://www-classic.uni-graz.at/bibwww/summerschool/reader/CSAS/texts/Mod2_Heide_170709_SandraCisnerosNeverMarry.pdf
• Real Women Have Curves (dir. Patricia Cardoso, 2002) – The entire movies is available to watch online – just don’t download anything to watch it! It will play fine once you close the pop-ups.

Homework-discussion questions
(All are edit-able Microsoft Word documents):

• La Llorona: 1_La llorona-tarea
• Woman Hollering Creek
  “Woman Hollering Creek” and “Never Marry a Mexican”:  2_Cisneros_Tarea
• Real Women Have Curves: 3_Real Women Have Curves_Tarea

Among the many articles and books I consulted for my last article on La Venus mecánica, Maite Zubiaurre’s Cultures of the Erotic in Spain, 1898-1939 (from Vanderbilt UP, 2012) was by far my favorite. Not only does Prof. Zubiaurre‘s monograph recover and examine popular Spanish erotica from the turn of the twentieth century, but it contains over 300 color illustrations – postcards, magazine covers, advertisements, photography, etc. She focuses her analysis on popular erotica and pseudoscientific essays in order to better understand how these marginalized discourses dialogue with the more sanctioned, authoritative voices of Spanish literature and culture as we understand them today. Specifically, Zubiaurre argues that the erotic cultures of 20th century Spain inevitably lead us to re-examine the works of “enshrined male figures” like philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset and physician/essayist Gregorio Marañón (I’ve written about Marañón’s “defense” of conscious maternity here). In doing so, Zubiaurre discovers that these well-known figures also had a great deal to say regarding sexuality and eroticism, but that “their work on these topics has been largely ignored in the canonical studies of their ideas” (2). By juxtaposing canonical works on love and sexuality with popular erotic culture, Zubiaurre’s Cultures of the Erotic illustrates that, even as they struggled to react against this “vulgar” trend, many respected intellectuals could not entirely escape its influence (2-3).

Maite Zubiaurre’s investigation of popular erotica and sexual pseudoscience reveals a “Third Spain” that challenges the traditional liberal/conservative dichotomy.

The book also makes a compelling argument for the recognition of an “Other”, third Spain that “cuts a different cross section through the dualist historiographies… [that] cuts across class and gender, and bridges the divide between high and low culture” (1) . As Zubiaurre notes, is is precisely Spanish erotica that points to the breakdown of these dualist historiographies: “So-called liberal Spain was often as staunchly conservative and ‘un-European’ in its attitudes towards sexual matters as were its political opposition. Conversely, ‘conservative Spain’ showed itself to be far more sexually open and sophisticated than is usually acknowledged” (1). Thus Cultures of the Erotic points to larger themes, such as history and politics, which often informed the subtle subtexts that surfaced in visual and literary depictions of sexuality and eroticism.  She employs the Spanish word “sicalipsis” (which may suggest the erotic, burlesque, or even pornographic) to refer to the sudden proliferation of erotica and accompanying erotic liberation at the end of the 19th century. According to the Wunderkammer homepage(which I’ll discuss below), Zubiaurre draws heavily on Javier Rioyo’s interpretation of sicalipsis as an erotic invasion: “I use the term… to highlight the explosion of erotic artifacts and discourses on sexuality that infused Spanish popular culture during the Silver Age when Spain had a fully stocked erotic Wunderkammer that included a wide variety of erotic artifacts, ranging from hilarious indecency to the more somber aspects of sexuality”. You can read a few excellent academic book reviews at Literal Magazine and Taylor and Francis Online.

In reading over these reviews, I discovered the absolutely amazing companion website: “A Virtual Wunderkammer. Early Twentieth Century Erotica in Spain”.  I’ve bookmarked it; it’s phenomenal. Regardless of you research interests, discipline, or even profession, you have to check it out! There are so many fantastic free resources: a 28-page Image Gallery (much of which is NSFW) that appears to contain the majority of the images included in the printed book; samples of Spanish erotic magazines and short novels (novelettes) from the early 20th century;  nudist literature; and essays on genetics, eugenics, and sexual education published in 1920s-30s Spanish journals. The essays are open-access and may be downloaded as PDFs. I was able, for example, to obtain a copy of “Maternidad Consciente” ["Conscious Maternity"], written by the ill-fated Hildegart Rodriguez (whom I’ve written about previously in my post on the short film The Red Virgin). I’m currently torn – I have several projects to work on this summer, including a conference in just two weeks – but now I want to delve into erotic literature and eugenics essays!

In my reading of the book, I especially enjoyed the chapter on technology and the machine – “machine” in this sense is not necessarily what you might think. The most popular 20th century “machines” that appeared in Spanish erotica were in fact the bicycle and the typewriter. Apparently, women on bicycles and young girls using typewriters (often typing with only one finger) were the epitome of naughty eroticism. With Freud’s writings on sexuality and masturbation fresh in the minds of many well-read Spaniards, the double-meaning inherent in such representations would not have been lost on contemporary audiences. Here are a few “scandalous” women on bicycles, followed by coy Lolitas “playing” with the “buttons” of their “typewriters” (can you follow those euphemisms?!?). Be sure to read the captions, if I’ve placed them.

Image from 1903

“Maternity and the Bicycle” — Apparently, this couple’s bicycle became damaged and the woman goes off with the mechanic fix it. Her partner takes a nap and awaits their return. His wife returns with the young man and is “very happy” – 9 months later, she has a child!

This caption uses an erotic and suggestive play on the word “conejo” (rabbit), a popular double entendre – “A difficult trip and a rabbit in trouble”

Moving on to the “typewriters”:

“Very Particular Correspondence” — “Today my machine is working very well! I will be able to answer the 13 or 14 that have solicited me!”

“The Good Boss” – ‘What have you written today? Well… that’s enough. Later you’ll have “extraordinary hours”.

Finally, in closing, here are a few more of my favorite images. Many are the covers of Alvaro Retana‘s short novels, which are often cited as examples of early Spanish homosexual literature for their portrayals of travestism, same-sex relationships, and ambiguously gendered characters.

Cover: Alvaro Retana’s erotic novelette, “Fuego de Lesbos” (1921)

Alvaro Retana’s “pathological novel” entitled “The seeker of pleasures” (or, self-indulgences; carnal desires).

“The ambiguous ones”, a 1922 novel by Alvaro Retana

This last one I love for the title, “Más hombre que cura,”  or “More Man than Priest. Page 10 of the gallery also includes a novel titled “El hijo del cura,” or “The Son of the Priest,” and throughout Zubiaurre’s book and the online Image Gallery you can see that the sexuality of priests and nuns was a quite scandalous yet recurring theme in popular erotica.

Are you familiar with early 20th century erotica in other countries – US, France, or England, for example?  Are any of the same images or representations employed? How do they compare in “subtlety” and directness?

Resources:

Zubiaurre, Maite. Cultures of the Erotic in Spain, 1898-1939. Nashville: Vanderbilt U P, 2012.

Zubiaurre, Maite. A Virtual Wunderkammer. Early Twentieth Century Erotica in Spain. Companion site with image gallery and PDFs of Spanish essays from the 1920s-30s: http://sicalipsis.humnet.ucla.edu/

Don’t worry! This isn’t some sort of too-much-information personal anecdote… just some observations I made regarding the very frequent and detailed depictions of breastfeeding in the artwork gracing the Prado’s walls.

Having initially visited Madrid’s Museo del Prado in 2001 for my two-week “tour” of Spain after graduating high school, then making a brief stop there while studying abroad in Spain in 2004, I was looking forward to visiting again this summer. While I had always admired the masterpieces of Goya and Velázquez (“Las meninas“, for example), I was sure I would appreciate some of the lesser-known pieces much more after spending the past 10 years studying Spanish literary and cultural history for my PhD. I was correct – now I recognized Velázquez’s portraits of Felipe IV and Conde Duque de Olivares without having to read the descriptions; I had a new appreciation for Francisco de Zurbarán’s renditions of Hercules and their curious homoeroticism (well, according to my analyses!); and I thoroughly enjoyed studying the incredibly detailed and even “futuristic” works of El Bosco with an eye towards their influence in early 20th century surrealism – it’s incredible to think that “Jardín de las delicias” [Garden of Earthly Delights] (below) was painted around 1500! Go to the Prado’s site (click here!) to explore a high-definition image that allows you to zoom in on the most intricate details of this amazing triptych.

El Bosco – “Jardín de las delicias” [Garden of Earthly Delights] (Netherlands, 1490-1500). Museo del Prado.

You’re welcome.

San Bernardo y la Virgen, by Alonso Cano (1645-52)

I’ll start with the first two paintings that made me stop in my tracks. One is based on a religious (Catholic) story, the other on mythology. First (above), Spanish painter Alonso Cano’s “San Bernardo y la Virgen,” was completed between 1642-52. According to the information provided by Javier Portús Pérez on the Prado’s website, Saint Bernard was known for promoting the celebration and worship of the Virgin Mary throughout his life (the cult of the Virgin). As a reward for his devotion, she shares her milk. This was a popular story in Baroque Spain that linked Catholic Marian devotion to a supernatural act. Next (below), Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens’ “El nacimiento de la vía lactea” (“Birth of the Milky Way”), was completed in 1637. Along with other paintings by Velázquez, this large piece decorated the “Torre de la Parada,” a royal residence of the Spanish monarchy on the outskirts of Madrid. The majority of the scenes illustrated stories of the gods as they were depicted in classic works like Ovid’s poem, “Metamorphosis.” Rubens aimed to capture the moral essence of these stories, as well as the attitudes of the characters. In “Birth of the Milky Way,” Hercules – the son of Jupiter and Alcmena – is placed by his father at the breast of his sleeping wife Juno, so that her breastmilk might make his son immortal. Juno awakens, however, quite displeased, and the milk spilled when she removes the infant from her breast then formed the stars of the Milky Way.

El nacimiento de la vía láctea (Birth of the Milky Way) by Pedro Pablo [Peter Paul] Rubens (1636-37)

“La virgen de la leche”, by Spanish painter Pedro Berruguete (1500). Museo del Prado.

Dutch painter Bernard van Orley’s “La virgen de la leche” (1520). Museo del Prado.

“La virgen de la leche,” Maestro de don Alvaro de Luna (Spain, 1490). Museo del Prado.

“La virgen de la leche,” painted by Maestro Bartolome (Spain, 1490). Museo del Prado.

In 1517 Pedro Machuca painted “La virgen y las ánimas del Purgatorio” (“The Virgin and the Souls of Purgatory”) that actually includes TWO breasts spilling streams of milk… the milk falls onto the flames below in order to alleviate the suffering of the souls in purgatory. The Prado has a Spanish YouTube video that explains the key aspects of this painting – it would be great to use in a Spanish art history course, as it discusses Machuca’s influences, the composition, and a bit of the controversy surrounding the piece.

“La virgen y las animas del purgatorio” [The Virgin and the Souls of Purgatory], by Spanish painter Pedro Machuca (1517). Museo del Prado.

“El Nacimiento de la Virgen” [The Birth of the Virgin] by Luis de Morales (1560-69), Museo del Prado

Dutch Painter Jan Provost’s “La virgen con el niño” [The Virgin with Child], completed around 1500. Mueso del Prado.

David Gerard (Dutch), “Descanso en la huída a Egipto” [Rest on the Escape to Egypt], 1515. Museo del Prado.

“Descanso en la huída a Egipto” by Dutch painter Joachim Patinir (1518-1520). Museo del Prado.

Finally, Antonio Solá’s marble sculpture titled “La caridad romana” (“Roman Charity”) was perhaps the most fascinatingly disturbing piece I saw. The sculpture depicts the story of a young woman, Pero, who secretly breastfed her imprisoned father, Cimon, so that he would not die condemned to starvation. When her stealth act of piety is discovered, her father is released and she is celebrated for her compassion and virtue. The story is of pagan origin and had actually been depicted quite frequently in paintings and art during the 15th to 17th centuries. The  juxtaposition of eroticism, maternal care, and incest certainly caused the most gasps from my fellow museum visitors once they read the description of the father-daughter figures.

Spanish sculptor Antonio Solá’s “La caridad romana” [Roman Charity], completed in 1851. Museo del Prado.

All in all, my experience in the Prado this summer has only strengthened my conviction that we stand to learn so much from the study of art, art history, and literature – and not just about cultures of the past, but about our own present day beliefs, values, and anxieties.

Do you know of other famous depictions of breastfeeding, either in religious, secular, or mythological contexts? Have you seen versions of Pero and Cimon’s story? What do you think of “public” breastfeeding in today’s society?

I feel very lucky to have been able to spend the month of June in Spain, first in Madrid for nearly 3 weeks (with a day trip to Segovia), then in Santiago de Compostela for a few days during a conference, and now in Oviedo and other parts of Asturias where I’m visiting a friend before returning back home to my poor abandoned husband and dogs! While I have been able to use my Spanish daily, eat amazing food and drink lots of red wine, visit the incredible Prado and Reina Sofia Museums in Madrid, and blog a bit about early 20th-century eroticism and breastfeeding in classic art, I also spent a lot of time working on my paper and presentation for the Humanities conference in Santiago de Compostela (which was, in fact, the main reason for my trip!). The conference theme was Hispanic Humanism at the crossroads of print, visual, and electronic communications, and so I had to venture out of my “comfort zone” of early twentieth-century Spanish literature and culture. I decided to work with film, since I had recently seen Pedro Almodóvar’s La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In) (2011). I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous (terrified?) to speak of Almodóvar in Spain – yikes!

I also managed to get a researcher’s card for Spain’s National Library (La Biblioteca Nacional) in Madrid, which was quite an accomplishment! Photo: Madrid, June 2014.

In this post you can read about what the work-portion of my trip entailed, which should be especially useful to those who think professors have the summers “off”. No complaints here, though, since I love that I am able to travel and present fascinating analyses of film and literature as part of my job. My conference paper (which was written in Spanish) was titled “Los avances médico-científicos como artes plásticas posmodernas en La piel que habito”, or in English, “Scientific and Medical Advances as Postmodern Plastic Arts in The Skin I Live In“. In it, I adopted a postmodern interpretation of new technology as powerful and potentially dangerous artistic mediums. This movie is an extremely disturbing psychological drama, with elements of science fiction and horror films; the plot is nearly impossible to summarize in a concise way (as are the plots of most Almodóvar’s films!). In the most (over)simplified sense, Dr. Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) is a scientist/researcher/doctor who is working to create a perfect, indestructible artificial skin. The audience sees early on that he keeps “Vera” (Elena Anaya) imprisoned in his home, using her to carry out his experiments. In the process, he essentially shapes – or “(re)creates” – her in such a way that she begins to resemble his now deceased wife. As the non-lineal narrative unfolds, largely via flashbacks, viewers learn the shocking story behind Vera. I’m sure you can find a more thorough, spoiler-filled summary somewhere, if you’re interested!

Given that the film reveals a strong interest in the arts, especially through the incorporation of sculpture, classical and modern paintings, music, dance, and even fashion, I wanted to examine Vera as yet another “piece” of artwork – the product (masterpiece) of the “artist”, Doctor Ledgard. This would allow me to look at science, medicine, and new technologies as alternative, postmodern artistic mediums that, nevertheless, found their inspiration in revered masterpieces of the past. In the film, for example, there are two large paintings of Venus by Italian Renaissance painter Titian (Tiziano) that adorn the hallway of Ledgard’s mansion: “Venus de Urbino” and “Venus recreándose con el amor y la música.” The film juxtaposes these sixteenth century representations of the goddess with subsequent images of Vera on the television screen in Ledgard’s room, where he observes her with a watchful, erotic eye. Below are Titian’s paintings, followed by two screen-shots from La piel que habito.

“Venus de Urbino” (1538), Titian

“Venus recreándose con el amor y la música” (1555) – Titian. Museo del Prado.

Both of these portraits find parallels in the film – first, Vera is posed in a similar way to “La Venus de Urbino.” Moreover, the “frame” of the television set causes her image – which is essentially one of surveillance – to appear as a piece of framed artwork adorning the wall of Ledgard’s room.

Secondly, both protagonists appear on screen in certain moments positioned such that they evoke the portrait depicting Venus, love, and music (another artistic medium). The representations in La piel que habito that echo this second painting, “Venus recreándose con el amor y la música,” were for me the most fascinating as objects of analysis, given that the imitation/evocation of this classic scene occurs on two levels: first, within the narrative [first image below]; second, in Almodóvar’s direction of the film [second image below].

source: http://www.estoyradiente.com

In addition to these paintings, I also discussed renowned Spanish painter Diego Velázquez’s seventeenth-century rendition of Venus, “Venus del espejo” (1599-1660). This version of the goddess was especially innovative, given that she was portrayed as a brunette, which, at the time, made it a bit more difficult to immediately identify her with the ubiquitous blonde goddess. Moreover, Velázquez incorporates a mirror into the painting, allowing viewers to see that Venus is in fact aware she is being observed (or painted, “created” as a work of art). The mirror’s reflection, however, obscures the details of her true identity and beauty. The reflected image is ambiguous, and thus we are unable to precisely pinpoint or describe this woman-goddess’s complete appearance.

“Venus del espejo” (Diego de Velázquez, 1599-1660). Museo del Prado.

Velázquez’s portrait essentially challenges us to reflect on what exactly we are seeing when we observe a piece of art – how faithfully does art reflect reality, and is it even capable of doing? In La piel que habito, we see Vera posed in a very similar position – as we can see from the following screen shot, the television monitor on the wall again makes this piece of technology resemble the classic pieces of framed art that hang in Ledgard’s hallway.

In sum, by evoking or incorporating images of female beauty in classic art by way of postmodern parody – either explicitly or implicitly – I argue that Almódovar’s film both celebrates and challenges canonical artwork and the standards of beauty that it has sanctioned. According to Linda Hutcheon in The Politics of Postmodernism, postmodern parody allows us to re-visit the past (both history and art), this time contemplating its associated ideology with a mix of irony, admiration, and criticism (103-04). When viewers see these scenes of Vera in the first 20 minutes of the film, they do not know her history until they piece it together as the narrative unfolds anachronistically (I won’t include spoilers – go watch this thought-provoking, but quite disturbing, film!). Later, when the audience has constructed the back-story, these early representations of Venus – typically associated with the epitome of female beauty, eroticism, love, and the male-gaze – take on entirely new meanings. Thus, my paper suggests that, in La piel que habito Almódovar ambiguously celebrates and criticizes both canonical representations of female beauty, and the powerful capacities of science, medicine, and technology. Below is the final slide of my PowerPoint that compares Vera to the three paintings I discussed. You can view the entire presentation, and read the Spanish paper by clicking on the links under Resources, below (they will download as PDFs).

Vera (as Venus) alongside classic paintings of Venus by Titian and Velazquez.

I’m hoping to expand on this paper by doing more research on the actual paintings (delving into some art history!), including Goya’s famed “La maja desnuda” (1795-1800) if possible. I may also consider the importance that sculpture wields within the film. In the resources below, you can read my conference paper (in Spanish) and view the PowerPoint that accompanies it. I’d love to hear your comments, suggestions, or criticism.

How many of Pedro Almodóvar’s 18+ films have you seen? Which is your favorite? If you teach Spanish or film, have you used any in your classes? (My Spanish women’s literature class, for example, recently discussed Volver).

Resources:

Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism. London and New York: Routledge, 1989.

Bender, Rebecca. “Los avances médico-científicos como artes plásticas posmodernas en La piel que habito.” Presented at VII Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de la Asociación Hispánica de Humanidades – El humanismo hispánico en la encrucijada universal de la comunicación: lo impreso, lo visual y lo electrónico. Santiago de Compostela, Spain: 26-28 June 2014.
Paper:RMBender_LaPielQueHabito_paper
PowerPoint:RMBender_PowerPoint_LaPielQHabito