The South is Different: The Other Modernity in the Travel Narratives of Carmen de Burgos and Emilia Pardo Bazán
Subject Area
Spanish Peninsular Studies
Abstract
“ Spain is different,” a 1964 slogan used to attract tourists in Spain during Franco’s dictatorship, summarizes the nature of an “inescapable” modernity in this country, rooted in its much commented decline at the end of the 19th century. Traces of the ideological discourse comprised in this slogan date back to the beginning of the 20th century when a general state of ambivalence characterizes the Spanish cultural production scene. The political, economical and social decline of a once-powerful imperial Spain was of wide concern among Spanish writers and intellectuals during this time. Coupled with an increase in industrialization evident especially in Northern Europe, this subject provoked different ambivalent reactions within Spain. Debates about Spanish modernity however have usually not considered the travel writings of women intellectuals like Carmen de Burgos and Emilia Pardo Bazán. My paper sets up to explore their travelogues Por Europa 1916 and Al Pie de la Torre Eiffel respectively by looking at how these two texts interact in order to produce an analytical framework of Spanish modernity and at the same time to interrupt a fixed interpretation of Spain as liminal both to Europe and modernity.
Brief Bio Note
Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Utah State University
Location
Room 210
Presentation Year
2018
Start Date
4-5-2018 9:35 AM
Embargo
11-4-2017
Recommended Citation
Raducanu, Daniela, "The South is Different: The Other Modernity in the Travel Narratives of Carmen de Burgos and Emilia Pardo Bazán" (2018). South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL). 2.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/seccll/2018/2018/2
The South is Different: The Other Modernity in the Travel Narratives of Carmen de Burgos and Emilia Pardo Bazán
Room 210
“ Spain is different,” a 1964 slogan used to attract tourists in Spain during Franco’s dictatorship, summarizes the nature of an “inescapable” modernity in this country, rooted in its much commented decline at the end of the 19th century. Traces of the ideological discourse comprised in this slogan date back to the beginning of the 20th century when a general state of ambivalence characterizes the Spanish cultural production scene. The political, economical and social decline of a once-powerful imperial Spain was of wide concern among Spanish writers and intellectuals during this time. Coupled with an increase in industrialization evident especially in Northern Europe, this subject provoked different ambivalent reactions within Spain. Debates about Spanish modernity however have usually not considered the travel writings of women intellectuals like Carmen de Burgos and Emilia Pardo Bazán. My paper sets up to explore their travelogues Por Europa 1916 and Al Pie de la Torre Eiffel respectively by looking at how these two texts interact in order to produce an analytical framework of Spanish modernity and at the same time to interrupt a fixed interpretation of Spain as liminal both to Europe and modernity.
