María Pilar Rodríguez - Böcker

Affective Landscapes: Representation of Terrorism and Violence by Basque Female Authors draws from contemporary social and cultural theory of affect to analyze the Basque Country’s political violence since the birth of the terrorist organization E.T.A. The study focuses on how this violence has been represented in contemporary works of literature and cinema authored by women and examines the alternative means these authors use to examine political violence from a gendered perspective. The artistic works analyzed in this volume highlight the connection between violence and the production of specific affective states; these authors’ stories illustrate the pernicious effects that violence has for human relationality and social bonds. As such, the study provides new readings of seminal works authored by Basque women during this period of violence and, in doing so, it renders a much-needed contribution to the place that their artistic productions have in providing a novel understanding of the Basque political reality. The study presents a groundbreaking analysis to understand the centrality of affect as a unique prism to approach violent contexts, to present different affirmations of the "political," and to bring to light social dynamics otherwise unnoticed.

Through the analysis of six Spanish novels, one for each decade from the 1940s through the 1990s, Rodríguez proposes a new concept of the novel of feminine development and emphasizes the importance of the voicing of women's sentiments, passions, desires, and opinions that have not been expressed before in the literature of Spain. The study begins with Nada by Carmen Laforet, and continues with La playa de los locos by Elena Soriano, La plaça del Diamant by Mercè Rodoreda, two stories from Te dejo el mar by Carme Riera, Los perros de Hécate by Carmen Gómez Ojea, and Efectos secundarios by Luisa Etxenike.

This book aims to create a new space for the analysis of female experience in the Italian diaspora through a selected sample of representative writers in contemporary Anglophone literature. In addition, it presents memoir writing as a fertile ground for literary and cultural research and as an important framework for expanding paradigms of identity in our increasingly diverse societies. This innovative study focuses on intersectional memoirs –texts written from the perspective of ethnic women. It examines the formation of narratives of identity in contemporary writing, particularly looking at the expression of cultural and gender difference through the genre of memoir and within the US and Canadian contexts. The work of migrant and ethnic communities and marginalized voices situated at the boundaries of nations, cultures, social classes and genders, is examined through a blend of literary, feminist, racial and cultural memory theories supported by textual analysis.