‘Close as a kiss’: Gyn/Affection in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad

Margaret Atwood’s novella The Penelopiad (2005) seemingly celebrates Penelope’s agency in opposition to Homer’s myth in The Odyssey. However, the twelve murdered maids steal the book to suggest the possibility of what Janice Raymond calls gyn/affection, a female bonding based on the logic of emotion that, in Atwood’s revision, verges on Kristevan abjection, the sinister and the fantastic, and serves a cathartic effect not only in the maids but also in the reader. This essay aims to question the generally accepted empowerment of Atwood’s Penelope and celebrates the murdered maids as the locus of emotion, where marginal aspects of gender and class merge to weave a powerful metaphorical tapestry of popular and traditionally feminized literary genres that, in plunging into and embracing the semiotic realm, ultimately solidify into an eclectic but compact alternative tradition of women’s writing and myth-making.

Vuelta a lo que resultó un comienzo: de géneros literarios y política en “Simbiosis”, de Rodolfo Walsh

“Simbiosis”, aparecido originalmente en 1956, constituye la instancia inicial de la serie de cuentos policiales de Rodolfo Walsh que, extendida hasta 1962, protagonizan Daniel Hernández y el comisario Laurenzi. Pero “Simbiosis” representa, además, un momento de rupturas en la trayectoria de Walsh, rupturas observables a la luz de su obra previa, y que contribuyen a definir la singular posición que el escritor procura adoptar en el campo literario de la época. En la nacionalización del género policial que propone, el cuento a la vez recupera y cuestiona el canon clásico del género, al adoptar motivos de la literatura fantástica cuya operatividad como explicaciones de un delito se asocia a su origen en el saber popular, saber al cual Laurenzi accede como comisario de pueblo. Correlativamente, la equívoca resolución del crimen, debatida entre dos matrices de género, una racional y otra sobrenatural, así como el interrogante sobre la culpabilidad que deja abierto el relato, son resonancias significativas de su contexto histórico, desatendidas aún por la crítica: se trata, en particular, de los debates sobre culpables e inocentes políticos que inició en 1955 el derrocamiento militar del gobierno peronista.

'Fairy Tale and Folklore in the Nineteenth Century', Blackwell Literature Compass, 6.3 (April 2009) 785-98

Fairies and fairy tales continue to intrigue both academic and popular audiences. This article, while exploring the diverse approaches of recent scholars in this field, also raises disciplinary questions. Should the study of folklore and of the literary fairy tale be seen as separate research areas, one the preserve of the cultural historian and folklorist, the other the remit of the literary scholar? Can we even make a clear distinction in the nineteenth century between authored, literary fairy tales and orally collected supernatural folktales? If it is reductive to assume that the fairy tale can always be classified (and potentially dismissed) as children's literature, how might recent trends in Victorian studies suggest new ways of seeing and teaching the genre? Discussing the fairy tale in the context of debates over orality and authenticity, literature and science, all of these questions will be examined below.

The portrait of the first poster artists of Spanish cinema: From the genre scene to the realistic portrait

The article, which is part of a more detailed piece of work, aims to highlight the use of the portrait on the film posters of the first Spanish poster artists before the Star-System was introduced in Spain. For this it is posed the evolution that occurs in the representation of the characters in the film poster from the second decade to the beginning of the thirties in the twentieth century, a historical period of profound influences of the artistic and advertising vanguards in our poster artists´ work. However, in the late twenties moving from the simple inclusion of the scene based on the picture of a film, to the chromatic and realistic representation of the star´s face. These were the years when the influence of the major North American studios began to show in Spain. Nevertheless, it highlights their technical and compositional freedom and their influence on subsequent poster artists, as many of them will integrate the portraits and settings on their posters, following the guidelines of the major studios or the independent ones. But without forgetting their own personal way of painting the film stars’ faces on their posters.