Founders of the Future

The Science and Industry of Spanish Modernization

Óscar Iván Useche

2022
276 pages
$37.95
ISBN 9781684483853
Campos Ibéricos

In this ambitious new interdisciplinary study, Useche proposes the metaphor of the social foundry to parse how industrialization informed and shaped cultural and national discourses in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spain. Across a variety of texts, Spanish writers, scientists, educators, and politicians appropriated the new economies of industrial production - particularly its emphasis on the human capacity to transform reality through energy and work - to produce new conceptual frameworks that changed their vision of the future. These influences soon appeared in plans to enhance the nation's productivity, justify systems of class stratification and labor exploitation, or suggest state organizational improvements. This fresh look at canonical writers such as Emilia Pardo Bazán, Concha Espina, Benito Pérez Galdós, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and José Echegaray as well as lesser known authors offers close readings of their work as it reflected the complexity of Spain's process of modernization.

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Reviews

"Founders of the Future establishes Spain as a vital player in late nineteenth-century discussions of modernization, industrialization, and energy. With a background in engineering and a fine ear for language, Óscar Iván Useche looks beyond well-known works to show how metaphors in popular science writing shaped attitudes toward energy, industrial production, and Spain's possibilities."
- Laura Otis, author of Banned Emotions: How Metaphors Can Shape What People Feel

"Each chapter of this finely-crafted book paints a lucid picture of the productive incorporation of industrial language and imagery into the discursive fabric of fin-de-siglo Spanish society. Researchers, historians, and scholars from diverse disciplines and theoretical backgrounds will no doubt find Useche's book a rich source for reflection."
- Nicolás Fernández-Medina, author of Life Embodied: The Promise of Vital Force in Spanish Modernity

"At the crossroads of industry and ideology, Useche reveals the 'semiological engine' of a paradigm shift in fin-de-siglo Spain that spans the discursive horizon of modernization and progress. Attentive to economics, education, labor practices, technology, and the environment, this study explores how coetaneous, often contradictory currents of thought confronted change through new ways of imagining a symbolic advancement that was at once liberating and threatening for Spain's tomorrow."
- Travis Landry, editor of The Fruits of the Struggle in Diplomacy and War: Moroccan Ambassador al-Ghazzal and His Diplomatic Retinue in Eighteenth-Century Andalusia

"Founders of the Future uncovers the new logic in Spain's late nineteenth-century industrialization and modernization. It offers a unique perspective for mapping how different sectors of Spanish society viewed technological innovation, a 'social foundry' whence to forge regenerative approaches to Spain's social, political, and economic problems."
- Dale Pratt, author of Signs of Science: Literature, Science and Spanish Modernity Since 1868

About the author:

Óscar Iván Useche is an associate professor of Spanish at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. As a specialist in modern peninsular studies, his research focuses on exploring the interaction between science, technology, and cultural production in fin-de-siglo Spain. His work has appeared in a variety of academic publications, including the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Decimonónica, and Siglodiecinueve.

Distributed by Rutgers University Press

Cloth: $150.00, 9781684483860; EPUB: $37.95, 9781684483877