Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

In This IssueAuthor(s): Susan LarsonSource: Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Vol. 7 (2003), pp. 5-6Published by: Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20641636 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 03:41

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies and Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University ofArizona are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Arizona Journal of HispanicCultural Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 03:41:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

In This Issue

Volume Seven of the Arizona Journal is a particularly rich one, with not one, but two

distinct but related special sections. The special section of essays entitled "La penin sula h?brida" has been edited and put together by Alberto Medina, who selected them from presentations given as part of the conference of the same name that took place in the Spring of 2000 at the King Juan Carlos I Center of New York University. All of these very original essays attempt to answer the question, "How does one reconcile

the growing strength of the political and cultural projects of the oftentimes essentialist nationalisms of Spain and other countries within the context of globalization?" Medina

states that since identity is event, or a story of a flight without origin with an itinerary whose point of departure has been forgotten, one cannot help but speak with a voice

that includes the other.

"Brokering Spanish Postnationalist Culture" was the first of a series of annual semi

nars sponsored by the Department of Romance Studies of Duke University held in November of 1999. The presentations and subsequent critical discussions have

resulted in a collection of eight diverse and extremely insightful essays on Spain's nationalisms, collected here and edited by Teresa Vilar?s. All seek to articulate

exactly how the nature of nationalism in Spain has changed since 1939, when Ernest

Renan gave his seminal speech "What is a Nation?" If we are to believe the authors

of these essays, assumptions about nationalism on Spain have altered dramatically, whether we believe that the ghost of the nation still haunts Spaniards or not.

Elisabeth Guerrero's essay "Leyendas urbanas" studies the literary characters Tina Modotti and Agelina Beloff, creations of the Mexican novelist and journalist Elena

Poniatowska in the novels Tinisima (1992) and Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela (1978), respectively, as fl?neuses. Unlike some critics, Guerrero is of the opinion that the existence of the fl?neuse is entirely possible, and even essential to an understand

ing of the changing roles of women in urban Mexico in the twentieth century. Remind

ing us of Walter Benjamin's assertion that "History decays into images, not into

stories," Juan Egea's essay "Im?genes becquerianas" makes us question commonly held assumptions held by many Hispanic scholars about Gustavo Adolfo B?cquer by looking at the effect that photography and the circulation of paper money had on the imagery found in his poetry Guillermina de Ferrari's "Aesthetics Under Siege" is about one novel by Cuban author Pedro Juan Guti?rrez entitled Trilog?a sucia de La

Habana (1998). It is much more, however, in that it discusses how the postmodern case against pure aesthetics has been aggravated by a shift in values and interests

among different social groups in the context of receding socialist models on the ever

expanding horizon of globalized capital, and, through a careful analysis of the novel and its reception, one can better understand the ideological cosmology of a world in transition.

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 03:41:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Once again, our contributors, guest editors and all of the many Hispanists on

both sides of the Atlantic who have collaborated on this volume have taken another

step towards theorizing Hispanic Cultural Studies. It is an ongoing, fascinating and

productive process.

Susan Larson

Managing Editor

University of Kentucky

This content downloaded from 195.78.109.54 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 03:41:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions