Ethics of Life: Contemporary Iberian Debates (Hispanic Issues, 42, Band 42) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 082652091X ISBN 13: 9780826520913

Verlag: Univ of Chicago Press behalf of Vanderbilt Univ. P, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

The contributors ask the following questions:

- What are the different rhetorical strategies employed by writers, artists, filmmakers, and activists to react to the degradation of life and climate change?
- How are urban movements using environmental issues to resist corporate privatization of the commons?
- What is the shape of Spanish debates on reproductive rights and biotechnology?
> Hispanic Issues Series
> Hispanic Issues Online
hispanicissues.umn.edu/online_main.html

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Katarzyna Beilin is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

William Viestenz is Associate Professor of Spanish and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Ethics of Life: Contemporary Iberian Debates Volume 42

By Katarzyna Beilin, William Viestenz

Vanderbilt University Press

Copyright © 2016 Vanderbilt University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8265-2091-3

Contents

Introduction: Ethics of Life: Contemporary Iberian Debates Katarzyna Beilin and William Viestenz, 
PART I: Genealogies of Ecological and Animal Rights Movements in Modern and Contemporary Iberia, 
1. The Environment in Literature and the Arts in Spain Carmen Flys-Junquera and Tonia Raquejo, 
2. Nunca Máis: Ecological Collectivism and the Prestige Disaster John H. Trevathan, 
PART II: Ecological Crisis and the Neoliberal Appropriation of Public Space, 
3. Tourism and "Quality of Life" at the End of Franco's Dictatorship Eugenia Afinoguénova, 
4. Die and Laugh in the Anthropocene: Disquieting Realism and Dark Humor in Biutiful and Nocilla experience Katarzyna Olga Beilin, 
5. Cultivating the Square: Trash, Recycling, and the Cultural Ecology of Post-Crisis Madrid Matthew Feinberg and Susan Larson, 
6. Degrowth and Ecological Economics in Twenty-First-Century Spain: Toward a Posthumanist Economy Luis I. Prádanos, 
PART III: Iberian Bio-Power: Life as a Political Matter, 
7. Reproductive Rights in Spain: From "Abortion Tourism" to "Reproductive Destination" Pablo de Lora, 
8. Mar adentro and the Question of Freedom Paul Begin, 
9. Still Different? Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture in Spain Sainath Suryanarayanan and Katarzyna Olga Beilin, 
PART IV: Reassembling the Archive through the Concept of Life, 
10. Iberian Cultural Studies beyond the Human: Exploring the Life History of Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja in Spanish Anthropology and Popular Film Daniel Ares López, 
11. The Bull Also Rises: The Political Redemption of the Beast in La pell de brau by Salvador Espriu William Viestenz, 
12. Animals in Contemporary Spanish Newspapers John Beusterien, 
13. Accounting for Violence, Counting the Dead: The Civil War and Spain's Political Present Sebastiaan Faber, 
Afterword, 
Spain: Taking the Alternative? Martín López-Vega and Luis Martín-Estudillo, 
Contributors, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The Environment in Literature and the Arts in Spain

Carmen Flys-Junquera and Tonia Raquejo

According to Joaquín Fernández, Spain has not had a strong environmentalist tradition, partially due to the Franco regime (Ecologismo español). In his study, Fernández notes that the Civil War marked a fracture between any previous incipient Spanish activism, and that real consciousness only started in the 1970s, together with democracy and the economic boom known as the "Spanish miracle" (44). An early study by Josep Vicent Marqués, Ecología y lucha de clases (1978), illustrates the leftist, Marxist influence in most initial environmental movements, clearly linked to social injustice. Only with the increase of urban speculation as the result of massive construction, which threatened the entire coast and large tracts of rural space, and the uncontrolled growth of cities did the environmental impact become an issue within the greater population. And as such, most debates are closely tied to social and economic problems rather than with the agenda to preserve wilderness which resonates so strongly in the United States. In the last two decades, environmental debates have appeared in political, social, economic, and scientific discourses; but, sadly, the financial and economic crisis has stunted this momentum of environmental awareness and dried up all funding. Despite the urban sprawl, there is still no strong "green" political party with parliamentary representation in Spain, although there are prominent activists, such as Juan López de Uralde, longtime president of Greenpeace Spain and founder of a new environmentalist political party, Equo, whose major test was to have been the European and local elections in 2014 and 2015, respectively. However, this test was weakened due to the rise of new populist parties with which Equo made alliances. These alliances were very successful in both elections, but the actual weight of Equo and environmental issues was diluted.

During this period there has been significant environmental awareness in the sciences and social sciences, but the humanities and arts in Spain were largely disconnected from environmental concerns. In the journal Ixquic 2 (2000), critics Jorge Paredes and Benjamin McLean assert that environmental literature in Spanish could only stem from Mesoamerica and was virtually impossible in the Iberian Peninsula, given its strong Judeo-Christian tradition, and the importance of humanism, rationalism, capitalism, and positivism, which made the culture insensitive to the environment (25). Even if their concept of environmental literature as direct denunciation of environmental degradation is restrictive, it is true that there has not been much environmental concern in the humanities. However, things are changing. Research groups with an environmental focus have been created within both literary and art criticism. Various novels and poetic works have recently addressed environmental concerns and there are numerous artists with a clear ecological purpose in their creative work. This essay aims to present an overview of the recent research within the fields of literature and the fine arts.

Literature and Ecocriticism

While ecocriticism has become a significant literary approach in the United States and the United Kingdom, an ecocritical school of thought is merely incipient amongst Spanish Hispanists. It is clear, as Paredes and McLean state, that literature coming from the indigenous peoples of the American continent has cried out in protest over the degradation of the environment and natural landscapes (20), while this has not happened in Spain, with the exception of a few recent cases. Most Spaniards have had a strong sense of place-attachment to their region, but the approach from criticism has usually been either one of nationalism and identity or some variation of the classic locus amoenus and the pastoral.

Prior to the 1970s, Spanish literature took up the thematization of nature without, however, being ecologically oriented. Paredes and McLean discuss the Spanish Renaissance and Baroque literature (9–16) while Pratt and Gordon, in one of the earliest ecocritical articles about Spanish literature, point out that during the Romantic period, Spanish literature tended to focus on the sublime of nature (249). Nevertheless, despite the clear influences of the environment on Spanish culture and literature — which both writers point out — there has been little ecological awareness.

Miguel Delibes's speech upon entering the Royal Academy of Language in 1975 was the major wake-up call. In his speech he interprets his own work based on an environmental approach derived from the report The Limits to Growth (1972) commissioned by the Club of Rome, an approach which dominates the little work carried out in the late twentieth century in environmental writing in Spain. This can be considered, as Marrero Henríquez states, the first critical interpretation of literary work based on environmentalist thinking ("Ecocrítica" 208). Delibes's approach, rather than a nostalgic view of rural life, can be interpreted as associating rural life with a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle in contrast to the so-called progress of the cities. Although...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Univ of Chicago Press behalf of Vanderbilt Univ. P
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 082652091X
• ISBN 13: 9780826520913
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 378
• Herausgeber: Beilin Katarzyna
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland