Public Intellectuals and Nation Building in the Iberian Peninsula, 1900 - 1925

The Alchemy of Identity

Thomas S. Harrington

2015
372 pages
ISBN 9781611485615
Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory

This book provides a detailed analysis of the core concepts of national identity articulated by Iberian writers during the period between 1900 and 1925. It is centered on four "pedagogical" essays written in these decades previous to the onset of authoritarian dictatorships in Spain and Portugal, works that are absolutely central to understanding the discursive architecture of collective identity in these same places today. They are as follows: Enric Prat de la Riba's La Nacionalitat Catalana (1906), Teixeira de Pascoaes' Arte de Ser Português (1915),Vicente Risco's Teoría do Nacionalismo Galego (1920), and José Ortega y Gasset's España invertebrada (1921).

The study consists of a discussion of some of the more important theoretical issues connected to social articulation of cultural identities, four chapter-long analyses of the textual manifestations of national identity within the major Romance-language communities of the Iberian peninsula, and a conclusion which underscores the key function played by these public intellectuals in establishing the parameters of the "Imagined Communities" with which they felt primarily identified.

On the most basic level, the study of these "catechistic" visions of national individuality provides a heightened sense of both the differences and commonalities inherent in the cultural traditions of these core nationality groups of the Iberian Peninsula. On another level, the study reminds us of the important pedagogical function of literature (understood here in the broadest possible sense) in the formation and maintenance of nationality identities then, as well as now.

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Reviews

"While our contemporary world is characterized by globalization, international relations and cross-cultural exchanges, nations and national borders are far from obsolete. In Public Intellectuals and Nation Building in the Iberian Peninsula (1900 - 1925), Harrington takes the concept of nationhood and its construction as his central concern. As the title of his monograph indicates, he focuses primarily on national discourses emerging within the specific geographical site of the Iberian Peninsula during the first quarter of the twentieth century. In so doing, Harrington produces a clear and accessible investigation of some of the main forces motivating historical nationalist currents of thought in Spain and Portugal that continue to contribute to the contemporary composition of these national entities."
-Fiona Noble, University of Aberdeen; Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Volume XCIV, No 1 (January 2017)

"Grounded on solid research and convincing theoretical approach, Harrington's book is an unavoidable contribution to the growing field of Iberian Studies.... Harrington analyzes the historical and ideological background of current debates, thus the tropes of cultural identity first generated between 1874-1923, a period when the Iberian Problem of the Nation was far more intricate and complex than presented by most canonical treatments."
- Enric Bou, University of Venice

About the author:

Thomas Harrington is associate professor of Hispanic studies at Trinity College.

Distributed by Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

eBook: 9781611485622