This course will focus on feminist and proto-feminist discourses by Spanish women during a crucial historical period in the development of feminist thought in Spain, from the Enlightenment to the Second Republic (1931-36). We will examine a variety of genres--both literary and non-literary--considering not only the challenges faced by women of diverse backgrounds who took up the pen in the face of hetero-patriarchal norms, but also the strategies they employed to negotiate their participation in the public sphere as writers, intellectuals, and activists. Authors to be studied include Enlightenment figures (María Rosa Gálvez, Josefa Amar y Borbón); Romantic writers (Carolina Coronado, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda), who, under the impact of liberalism were key to shaping new models of subjectivity for women; nineteenth-century feminists and social reformers of the late nineteenth century (Concepción Arenal, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Concepción Gimeno de Flaquer); fin-de-siècle/early twentieth-century suffragists and freethinkers (Rosario de Acuña, Carmen de Burgos, Clara Campoamor, Hildegart Rodríguez, among others). We will explore the unique perspectives that these (proto-) feminist thinks bring to their writing as they address social, political, and cultural issues, including citizenship, women's suffrage, national identity, colonialism, slavery, and human rights.
Course Attributes:
