Iberismo(s)

Overview & Synopsis

This volume is the result of the debates held at Ca’ Foscari University during the Iberismo(s) study day, aimed at discussing the ethical, theoretical and methodological limits of Iberian Studies and demonstrating their applications. Far from a unidirectional reading, the works gathered here explore the multiple aspects of Iberism, or rather ­Iberisms: different aspects such as the literary, cultural, economic and political ones are taken into account and interpreted on the basis of their plurality – since the diversity of actors, discourses, and contexts makes it impossible to outline a closed narrative. According to Claudio Guillén, “national literature is […] an institution that is not only insufficient, but also spurious and fraudulent”, hence the commitment to redefine this field of study. Moreover, its analytical perspective is associated with the ‘crisis of Hispanism’ as a ‘uninational’ and monolingual paradigm. Iberian Studies as such do not take root in a simple broadening of the object of research in order to give space – and thus a new location – to the more peripheral realities; it is rather a theoretical and methodological reformulation in constant development, as all the essays in this volume attest.