Resisting Invisibility: Detecting the Female Body in Spanish Crime Fiction

by Diana Aramburu

Overview

Engaging with pre-feminist and male-authored crime literature, Resisting Invisibility offers a comparative reading of women’s bodies as represented in Spanish crime literature from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Utilizing the twin concepts of visibility and invisibility, the book establishes a genealogy of differing viewpoints regarding women’s positions in these narratives, before and after the birth of the modern Spanish female detective.

This examination of the politics of female visibility expands our understanding of the aesthetic regimes that have governed the female body from the early phases of the genre’s evolution. While most scholars understand the feminization of the crime genre as a response to second-wave feminism, Resisting Invisibility demonstrates that even in the earliest representations of delinquent women, the politics surrounding the female body are problematized and are more complex than previously conceptualized. Drawing on gender and queer studies, Resisting Invisibility investigates the gendering of crime fiction, forcing us to reconsider the literary history of female visibility and prompting us to establish an alternative genealogy for Spanish crime literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487530532
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	05/09/2019
Series:	Toronto Iberic
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	737 KB

About the Author

Diana Aramburu is an assistant professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at University of California, Davis.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 

Introduction: Detecting the Female Body in Gendered Mysteries

1. Reading the Female Delinquent in Early Spanish Crime Fiction 
2. Investigating the “Eye” in Twentieth-Century Spanish Crime Novels 
3. Parodying the Male Gaze in Lourdes Ortiz’s Picadura mortal 
4. A New Politics of Visibility in the Lònia Guiu Series 
5. Lesbianizing the Genre

Conclusion: Exploring an Alternative Crime Fiction Genealogy

Notes
Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Nina L. Molinaro

"Resisting Invisibility is directed to readers and scholars interested in the history of the crime fiction genre in Spain and the role of the female body in the origins and evolution of the genre. Demonstrating expansive familiarity with all of the relevant scholarship on women's crime fiction in Spain, Diana Aramburu investigates feminist and gender theories of crime fiction, as well as portrayals of female bodies. These bodies include the delinquent body, the victimized body, the eroticized body, and the detecting body."

Nancy Vosburg

"Resisting Invisibility is stunning in both depth and breadth. Diana Aramburu is thoroughly steeped in the literature on the subject as well as feminist theory, feminist crime fiction theory, the extant criticism on crime fiction in Spain, and the history of the genre. Theory and criticism are integrated seamlessly into discussion of specific texts throughout."

Editorial Reviews

" Resisting Invisibility is directed to readers and scholars interested in the history of the crime fiction genre in Spain and the role of the female body in the origins and evolution of the genre. Demonstrating expansive familiarity with all of the relevant scholarship on women’s crime fiction in Spain, Diana Aramburu investigates feminist and gender theories of crime fiction, as well as portrayals of female bodies. These bodies include the delinquent body, the victimized body, the eroticized body, and the detecting body."

—Nina L. Molinaro, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Colorado at Boulder

" Resisting Invisibility is stunning in both depth and breadth. Diana Aramburu is thoroughly steeped in the literature on the subject as well as feminist theory, feminist crime fiction theory, the extant criticism on crime fiction in Spain, and the history of the genre. Theory and criticism are integrated seamlessly into discussion of specific texts throughout."

—Nancy Vosburg, Department of World Languages and Cultures, Stetson University

From the Publisher