Esther Fernández - Böcker

In its exploration of puppetry and animation as the performative media of choice for mastering the art of illusion, To Embody the Marvelous engages with early modern notions of wonder in religious, artistic, and social contexts.From jointed, wood-carved figures of Christ, saintly marionettes that performed hagiographical dramas, experimental puppets and automata in Cervantes' Don Quixote, and the mechanical sets around which playwright CalderÓn de la Barca devised secular magic shows to deconstruct superstitions, these historical and fictional artifacts reenvisioned religious, artistic, and social notions that led early modern society to critically wrestle with enchantment and disenchantment.The use of animated performance objects in Spanish theatrical contexts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became one of the most effective pedagogical means to engage with civil society. Regardless of social strata, readers and spectators alike were caught up in a paradigm shift wherein belief systems were increasingly governed by reason-even though the discursive primacy of supernatural doxa and Christian wonder remained firmly entrenched. Thanks to their potential for motion, religious and profane puppets, automata, and mechanical stage props deployed a rationalized sense of wonder that illustrates the relationship between faith and reason, reevaluates the boundaries of fiction in art and entertainment cultures, acknowledges the rise of science and technology, and questions normative authority.

In its exploration of puppetry and animation as the performative media of choice for mastering the art of illusion, To Embody the Marvelous engages with early modern notions of wonder in religious, artistic, and social contexts.From jointed, wood-carved figures of Christ, saintly marionettes that performed hagiographical dramas, experimental puppets and automata in Cervantes' Don Quixote, and the mechanical sets around which playwright CalderÓn de la Barca devised secular magic shows to deconstruct superstitions, these historical and fictional artifacts reenvisioned religious, artistic, and social notions that led early modern society to critically wrestle with enchantment and disenchantment.The use of animated performance objects in Spanish theatrical contexts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became one of the most effective pedagogical means to engage with civil society. Regardless of social strata, readers and spectators alike were caught up in a paradigm shift wherein belief systems were increasingly governed by reason-even though the discursive primacy of supernatural doxa and Christian wonder remained firmly entrenched. Thanks to their potential for motion, religious and profane puppets, automata, and mechanical stage props deployed a rationalized sense of wonder that illustrates the relationship between faith and reason, reevaluates the boundaries of fiction in art and entertainment cultures, acknowledges the rise of science and technology, and questions normative authority.

Understanding the soul’s essence is an elusive pursuit, rendering any attempt to write about it akin to grasping at a mirage. As a sublime subject, the soul has captivated human thought for centuries. How do we approach it? How can we define its boundaries? This exploration offers an experimental investigation into the soul’s complexities during one of Spain’s most turbulent periods—the dawn of modernity. Set against the spiritual backdrop of the 17th century, these reflections examine how materiality ensnared individuals in artifice, often neglecting expansionism’s social and political consequences. The Twelve Years’ Truce (1609) and the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) marked critical moments of instability, further compounded by economic depression and social turmoil. In this landscape of despair, the Spanish soul sought refuge inwardly and through indulgence in worldly pleasures. Through metaphysical inquiry, emotional depth, and the role of animated matter in art and theater, this book reflects on existence amid the illusions of early modern Spain.

Miguel de Cervantes’s experimentation with theatricality is frequently tied to the notion of revelation and disclosure of hidden truths. Drawing the Curtain showcases the elements of theatricality that characterize Cervantes’s prose and analyses the ways in which he uses theatricality in his own literary production.Bringing together the works of well-known scholars, who draw from a variety of disciplines and theoretical approaches, this collection demonstrates how Cervantes exploits revelation and disclosure to create dynamic dramatic moments that surprise and engage observers and readers. Hewing closely to Peter Brook’s notion of the bare or empty stage, Esther Fernández and Adrienne L. Martín argue that Cervantes’s omnipresent concern with theatricality manifests not only in his drama but also in the myriad metatheatrical instances dispersed throughout his prose works. In doing so, Drawing the Curtain sheds light on the ways in which Cervantes forces his readers to engage with themes that are central to his life and works, including love, freedom, truth, confinement, and otherness.

Queen Elizabeth I was an iconic figure in England during her reign, with many contemporary English portraits and literary works extolling her virtue and political acumen. In Spain, however, her image was markedly different. While few Spanish fictional or historical writings focus primarily on Elizabeth, numerous works either allude to her or incorporate her as a character.The Image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain explores the fictionalized, historical, and visual representations of Elizabeth I and their impact on the Spanish collective imagination. Drawing on works by Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Pedro de Ribadeneira, Luis de GÓngora, CristÓbal de ViruÉs, Antonio Coello, and CalderÓn de la Barca, among others, the contributors to this volume limn contradictory assessments of Elizabeth’s physical appearance, private life, personality, and reign. In doing so they articulate the various and sometimes conflicting ways in which the Tudor monarch became both the primary figure in English propaganda efforts against Spain and a central part of the Spanish political agenda.This edited volume revives and questions the image of Elizabeth I in early modern Spain as a means of exploring how the queen’s persona, as mediated by its Spanish reception, has shaped the ways in which we understand Anglo-Spanish relations during a critical era for both kingdoms.

In this volume, we are particularly interested in approaching theatre and performance as a dynamic and evolving practice of continuous change, regeneration and cultural mobility. Neither the dramatic texts nor their stage versions should be viewed as finished products but as creative processes in the making. Their richness lies in their unfinished and never-ending potential energy and their openness to constant revision, rehearsal, revival, and collective enterprise. This edited collection aims to create a dialogue on the artistic processes implicated in the various ways of working with the play text, the staging practices, the way audiences and critical reception can impact a production, and the many lives of Iberian theatre beyond the page or the stage. That is, its cultural and social legacies.

In this volume, we are particularly interested in approaching theatre and performance as a dynamic and evolving practice of continuous change, regeneration and cultural mobility. Neither the dramatic texts nor their stage versions should be viewed as finished products but as creative processes in the making. Their richness lies in their unfinished and never-ending potential energy and their openness to constant revision, rehearsal, revival, and collective enterprise. This edited collection aims to create a dialogue on the artistic processes implicated in the various ways of working with the play text, the staging practices, the way audiences and critical reception can impact a production, and the many lives of Iberian theatre beyond the page or the stage. That is, its cultural and social legacies.

The first comprehensive study of Tirso de Molina and his work in EnglishTirso de Molina (c.1583-c.1648) may not have written El Burlador de Sevilla, but the works of this prolific author, one of the three pillars of Golden Age Spanish theatre, are notable for their erudition, complex characters, and wit. Informed by a multidisciplinary critical perspective, this volume sets Tirso's plays and prose in their social, historical, literary, and cultural contexts. Contributors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain offer a state of the art in current scholarship, considering such topics as gender, identity, spatiality, material culture, and creative performativity, among others. The first volume in English to provide a richly detailed overview of Tirso's life and work, Tirso de Molina: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Twenty-First Century grounds the reader in canonical theories while suggesting new approaches, attuned to contemporary interests, to his legacy.

This is a book on deterministic and stochastic Growth Theory and the computational methods needed to produce numerical solutions. Exogenous and endogenous growth models are thoroughly reviewed. Special attention is paid to the use of these models for fiscal and monetary policy analysis. Modern Business Cycle Theory, the New Keynesian Macroeconomics, the class of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models, can be all considered as special cases of models of economic growth, and they can be analyzed by the theoretical and numerical procedures provided in the textbook.Analytical discussions are presented in full detail. The book is self contained and it is designed so that the student advances in the theoretical and the computational issues in parallel. EXCEL and Matlab files are provided on an accompanying website (see Preface to the Second Edition) to illustrate theoretical results as well as to simulate the effects of economic policy interventions. The structure of these program files is described in "Numerical exercise"-type of sections, where the output of these programs is also interpreted. The second edition corrects a few typographical errors and improves some notation.

This is the third corrected and extended edition of a book on deterministic and stochastic Growth Theory and the computational methods needed to produce numerical solutions. Exogenous and endogenous growth, non-monetary and monetary models are thoroughly reviewed. Special attention is paid to the use of these models for fiscal and monetary policy analysis. Models under modern theories of the Business Cycle, New Keynesian Macroeconomics, and Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models, can be all considered as special cases of economic growth models, and they can be analyzed by the theoretical and numerical procedures provided in the textbook.Analytical discussions are presented in full detail. The book is self-contained and it is designed so that the student advances in the theoretical and the computational issues in parallel. Spreadsheets are used to solve simple examples. Matlab files are provided on an accompanying website to illustrate theoretical results from all chapters as well as to simulate the effects of economic policy interventions. The logical structure of these program files is described in "Numerical exercise"-type of sections, where the output of these programs is also interpreted. The third edition corrects a few typographical errors, includes two new and original chapters on frequentist and Bayesian estimation, and improves some notation.

This is the third corrected and extended edition of a book on deterministic and stochastic Growth Theory and the computational methods needed to produce numerical solutions. Exogenous and endogenous growth, non-monetary and monetary models are thoroughly reviewed. Special attention is paid to the use of these models for fiscal and monetary policy analysis. Models under modern theories of the Business Cycle, New Keynesian Macroeconomics, and Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models, can be all considered as special cases of economic growth models, and they can be analyzed by the theoretical and numerical procedures provided in the textbook.Analytical discussions are presented in full detail. The book is self-contained and it is designed so that the student advances in the theoretical and the computational issues in parallel. Spreadsheets are used to solve simple examples. Matlab files are provided on an accompanying website to illustrate theoretical results from all chapters as well as to simulate the effects of economic policy interventions. The logical structure of these program files is described in "Numerical exercise"-type of sections, where the output of these programs is also interpreted. The third edition corrects a few typographical errors, includes two new and original chapters on frequentist and Bayesian estimation, and improves some notation.