👤 Gender and sexuality

Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present: Structures of Feeling
Jo Labanyi
Selected Essays 11•23 September 2019

  • ‘There is much in this book to celebrate—multiple topics, angles, issues and theories addressed in order to focus us on ‘ways of thinking about Spanish culture’, where ‘culture’ means literature, cinema, painting and photography, with (perhaps) history, historical memory, feminism, gender, race, nation formation, modernity and politics added to the mix.... Some of these essays are already classic studies that have influenced the way we think about certain literary periods or texts. Labanyi combines theory with specificity, details from the works studied inserted (or viewed through) various theoretical constructs. She claims to search for ‘moments of contradiction or incoherence’ in literature that often point to ‘something important’ (6), a claim fully realized in this book.’ — David T. Gies, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98.3, 2021, 485-87
  • ‘The essays in Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present are suggestive in their individual approaches; the book as a whole is nevertheless unique as a window into the thought of one of the most influential scholars of Spanish culture in recent decades. Whether or not one always agrees with Labanyi, it is impossible not to be in awe of her mind and method, and how she has carried the profession forward.’ — Wadda C. Rios-Font, Studies in XXth and XXIst Century Literature 46.1, 2022
  • ‘Las páginas que abren el volumen son un brillante ejercicio de egohistoria donde Labanyi reflexiona tam- bién sobre la labor de re-archivo que acomete para este proyecto... Como Labanyi asevera desde las primeras páginas de Spanish Culture from Ro- manticism to the Present, lo que realmente cuenta son los momentos no esperados, de tensión, que el crítico logra desentrañar en el artefacto cultural objeto de estudio, “the contradictions and incoherence that, perhaps even more than areas of consensus, put us in touch with the pulse of the time” (4). Quizá sea este crucial precepto metodológico, aplicado de manera consistente a esta variedad de estudios realizados desde mediados de los noventa, adoptando diversos ángulos críticos y considerando distintos medios, lo que trasluce con mayor fuerza en Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present. Structures of Feeling: la tentativa generosa de motivarnos a releer a contracorriente para deshacer, o cuando menos problematizar, asunciones culturales que también atrav’ — Patricia López-Gay, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 25, 2021, 310-12
  • ‘A key contribution to Spanish Cultural and Literary Studies. Running through the collection is the author’s attention to ‘structures of feeling’, drawing on Raymond Williams’s notion, as a driver and explanatory resource for the comprehension of a diverse array of cultural production primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.’ — Richard Cleminson, Modern Language Review 118.2, 2023, 269-71 (full text online)

Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society
Edited by Letizia Panizza
Legenda (General Series) •1 July 2000

  • ‘In her introduction Letizia Panizza writes that one of the aims of the collection is to recover neglected areas of Italian culture and society, which she has done... Many of the essays are quite good; all are informative.’ — Elissa B. Weaver, Renaissance Quarterly 2002, 713-15
  • ‘Offers a vast and well-organized view of the position that early modern women occupied in Italy from 1400 to 1650... I highly recommend the collection.’ — Rinaldini Russell, Forum Italicum 36.1, 2002, 214-15
  • ‘The above is merely a fraction of the content. There is certainly richness in this volume. Many branches of scholarship gain by having these articles in print and they are an eloquent testimony to the vitality of scholarship in this area.’ — Olwen Hufton, Modern Language Review 97.1, 2002 (full text online)
  • ‘This excellent book of essays... retains the liveliness and originality of the conference held at Royal Holloway, University of London, ... with the added bonus that all those given in Italian have been translated, so that - as the editor says - we can benefit from the work of many specialists, some of whose work has not previously been available in English.’ — Alison Brown, Italian Studies LVII, 2002, 171-2
  • ‘Without doubt, the most important volume yet published in English on the specific contribution of women to culture and society in Italy in the Renaissance... The coherence of the volume is assured by a number of overarching themes.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XXXIX, 2003, 480