The Erotics of Urban Female Work in Anarchist Kiosk Literature and the Contradictions of Modernity
2018; Routledge; Volume: 19; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14682737.2018.1537332
ISSN1745-820X
Autores Tópico(s)Decadence, Literature, and Society
ResumoThis essay explores an aspect of a narrative genre, kiosk literature, which has received very little critical attention in Spanish cultural studies, even though it was an extremely popular form of expression. The dimension of this genre (or sub-genre) that I propose to study is anarchist mass-produced fiction as a manifestation of the discourses of modernity in Silver Age Spain. Considering the notion that modernity is characterized by its manifold and contradictory responses to social change, my essay investigates the ways in which mass-produced anarchist short novels both subverted and perpetuated the economic, political, and gender hierarchies of their day. Specifically, I examine the narrative tensions and contradictions arising in the representation of the urban working woman in La aventurera (1935 Urales, F. 1935. La aventurera. La Novela Libre, no. 25. Barcelona: La Revista Blanca. [Google Scholar]) by Federico Urales and Una mujer y dos hombres (1932 Montseny, F. 1932. Una mujer y dos hombres. La Novela Ideal, no. 312. Barcelona: La Revista Blanca. [Google Scholar]) by Federica Montseny. My analysis reveals that, while these short narratives propose the sexually liberated female professional as a model of social modernity and progress, this representation also perpetuates the very gender and class prejudices that these freethinkers purported to overcome.
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