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Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium

The Ends of Spanish Identity

Jessica A. Folkart

Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium: The Ends of Spanish Identity investigates the predominant perception of liminality—identity situated at a threshold, neither one thing nor another, but simultaneously both and neither—caused by encounters with otherness while negotiating identity in contemporary Spain. Examining how identity and alterity are parleyed through the cultural concerns of historical memory, gender roles, sex, religion, nationalism, and immigration, this study demonstrates how fictional representations of reality converge in a common structure wherein the end is not the end, but rather an edge, a liminal ground. On the border between two identities, the end materializes as an ephemeral limit that delineates and differentiates, yet also adjoins and approximates. In exploring the ends of Spanish fiction—both their structure and their intentionality—Liminal Fiction maps the edge as a constitutive component of narrative and identity in texts by Najat El Hachmi, Cristina Fernández Cubas, Javier Marías, Rosa Montero, and Manuel Rivas. In their representation of identity on the edge, these fictions enact and embody the liminal not as simply a transitional and transient mode but as the structuring principle of identification in contemporary Spain.

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 278 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61148-579-0 • Hardback • October 2014 • $128.00 • (£98.00)

978-1-61148-581-3 • Paperback • September 2016 • $55.99 • (£43.00)

978-1-61148-580-6 • eBook • October 2014 • $53.00 • (£41.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, History / Europe / Spain & Portugal, Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General

Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium

The Ends of Spanish Identity

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium: The Ends of Spanish Identity investigates the predominant perception of liminality—identity situated at a threshold, neither one thing nor another, but simultaneously both and neither—caused by encounters with otherness while negotiating identity in contemporary Spain. Examining how identity and alterity are parleyed through the cultural concerns of historical memory, gender roles, sex, religion, nationalism, and immigration, this study demonstrates how fictional representations of reality converge in a common structure wherein the end is not the end, but rather an edge, a liminal ground. On the border between two identities, the end materializes as an ephemeral limit that delineates and differentiates, yet also adjoins and approximates. In exploring the ends of Spanish fiction—both their structure and their intentionality—Liminal Fiction maps the edge as a constitutive component of narrative and identity in texts by Najat El Hachmi, Cristina Fernández Cubas, Javier Marías, Rosa Montero, and Manuel Rivas. In their representation of identity on the edge, these fictions enact and embody the liminal not as simply a transitional and transient mode but as the structuring principle of identification in contemporary Spain.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 278 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61148-579-0 • Hardback • October 2014 • $128.00 • (£98.00)

978-1-61148-581-3 • Paperback • September 2016 • $55.99 • (£43.00)

978-1-61148-580-6 • eBook • October 2014 • $53.00 • (£41.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, History / Europe / Spain & Portugal, Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General

Author

Jessica A. Folkart is associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Virginia Tech.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Note on Translations

Chapter 1: On the Edge: Liminality and Spanish Identity at the Turn of the Millennium

Chapter 2: The (Never) Ending Story: Apocalyptic Desire and the Liminal Fiction of Javier Marías's Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí

Chapter 3: History Incarnate and the Liminal Body in Rosa Montero’s La hija del caníbal

Chapter 4: Second-Hand Identity: Limbs, Liminality, and Transplantation in Manuel Rivas’s A man dos paíños

Chapter 5: Ethical In-difference and Liminal Identity in Cristina Fernández Cubas’s Parientes pobres del diablo

Chapter 6: Scoring the National Hym(e)n: Sexuality, Immigration, and Liminal Identity in Najat El Hachmi’s L’últim patriarca

Conclusion: The End of Liminal Fiction

Afterword/Afterward

Works Cited

Index

About the Author

Reviews

Folkart masterfully uses the theories of Emmanuel Lévinas to consider Christina Fernández Cuba’s Parientes pobres del diablo (2006) as an exploration of the ethics implicit in identity formation. . . .Folkart’s writing is clear, concise and eminently readable, giving the lie to the assumption that serious scholarship must equal dry prose. In the final analysis, Folkart’s thought provoking, superbly researched, and convincingly argued study of the palimpsest of Spanish identities makes this book an asset to contemporary literary and cultural studies.
— Letras Femeninas

Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium

The Ends of Spanish Identity

Jessica A. Folkart

Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium

The Ends of Spanish Identity

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