Transnational Iconography in the Spanish-Speaking World

The idea for a special issue of Symposium on transnational iconography stemmed from evolving ideas within the field of Spanish Peninsular studies that challenge traditional categories of study limited by national geographies. The idea of a country or region producing literature, art, or film completely in isolation from global influences certainly has no place in current Spanish research or pedagogy. But much more complex issues of historical cultural exchanges that have been obfuscated or forgotten within the academy beg for attention, as do the seemingly disparate approaches to this material from European scholars as opposed to North American scholars. Recent studies about the problem of ideology as a point of departure for cultural studies have pointed to the artificial divisions within the academy; researchers and students have been placed within specific departments that reward very specific methodologies and provide rather narrow definitions of disciplines. This is even true for the arbitrary and unhelpful separation of Latin American and Iberian literatures and cultures. Sebastiaan Faber suggests that the rift between, on the one hand, what the academy purports and, on the other, what has always been a fluid exchange of economic and cultural influence lies in “the relationship between the materiality of cultural history and the institutionality of academic work” (18; italics in original). People have been crossing the Atlantic, moving through Africa into Europe and vice versa, sailing, flying, and migrating from all regions of the world for centuries, so why do we continue to pigeonhole academic work by region?

The term “transnational” suggests the movement between and around conceptualized regions and populations of peoples and places. It is the opposite of the nation-state or the geographical demarcation of borders that intend to separate peoples, goods, and all kinds of exchange and influence. Concepts of place and spatiality come to the forefront when thinking about transnationality, primarily because the term suggests a connection with a territory or nation that is fluid and malleable. Bertrand Westphal explains that the invention, extrapolation, and mythification of spaces through personal experience or literary description ultimately define our relationship geographically to the world (6–7). Through maps and mapping out movement in the forms of migration, colonization, and the commercialization of humans and goods to be bought and sold, the literary imagination creates interrelationships among spaces, places, and peoples. Westphal champions literature and the literary imagination as fundamental building blocks of transnational imaginings of cities and landscapes that function as much more than a mere adornment of the “real” place. Rather, literature and art actively inform other disciplines such as geography, architecture, and sociology in conceptualizing relationships between individuals, cultures, and places across multiple time frames.

The articles in this special issue contribute to the reconceptualization of what Iberian studies can be by making crystal clear the rich diversity not only of the population, but of the burgeoning cultural production of immigrant and minority artists in Spain. The articles that follow analyze the impact of artistic contributions in theatre, poetry, narrative, and film of immigrant communities in the peninsula, ranging from Chinese families to poets from Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara, to religious iconography from Ecuador. Michelle Murray and Antonio Portela dismantle North American influences (Langston Hughes's poetry and Greta Garbo's films) that became radicalized through a transgressive reassessment of iconography as mythology. Debra Faszer-McMahon presents an important and crucial discussion for this volume about the differences between iconography and iconology in her analysis of Saharaui protest poetry. The authors in this volume also explore the difficulties of representation within subaltern communities and propose various methodologies for understanding alternative perspectives and experiences that include gender fluidity, language as a cultural symbol, religiosity and memory, and intertextualities that emphasize a cross-cultural experience. Cultural hierarchies are challenged and at times inverted, as in Jeffrey Coleman's vivid analysis of Chinese immigrant culture through the visual performance space of the theatre and Marie-Eve Monette's exploration of the filmic/visual juxtaposition of indigenous icons of death and rebirth within a dominant Catholic discourse.

Needless to say, the studies here are provocative and diverse but unified in their reimagining of an Iberian and Latin American literary tradition that cannot afford to remain stagnant within conservative notions of national geographies. Interdisciplinarity demands permeable borders that allow scholars to move between ideological spaces as evidenced in these studies that rely on history, geography, and anthropological models for the full rendering of textual analysis. The movement between disciplines echoes the movement between spaces that the artist and theorist undertake together, and perhaps “this perpetual motion applies less to a transgression than to the inherent transgressivity of all spatiality and of every perception of place” (Westphal 45; italics in original). Space, place, and time are reconfigured in this issue into interdependent coordinates that map the fluidity and movement of people and ideas that result in a welcome agitation of Hispanic literary studies.

Notes on contributor

Kathryn Everly is Professor of Spanish at Syracuse University. Her research interests include contemporary narrative and film, feminist theory, and cultural studies. She has published recently on works by Dulce Chacón, Carme Riera, and Najat El Hachmi. Her current project analyzes the figure of the Civil War militiawoman in film and photography.