Contemporary Spanish fiction: phenomenological representations of experience.
Trauma, Memory, Postmemory: re-writings and images of the Civil War and Francoism.
Eighteenth century literature: memoirs, epic poetry, travel and utopian literature, theatre.
Contemporary Spanish fiction. The research activity focuses mainly on the study, undertaken some time ago, of recent works by important contemporary writers, in which particular emphasis is placed on the literary representation of the phenomenology of experience. This involves the analysis of multiple textual aspects: narratological and figural strategies, semantic transformations, violations of the logic of discourse, elliptical tendency of statements. In this perspective, some significant novels of the post-war period are also re-examined in which the legacy of the Civil War on bodies and the urban landscape has been translated into reticent literature. The authors mainly studied are Carmen Martín Gaite, Ana María Matute, Juan Marsé, Juan José Millás, Javier Marías.
Trauma, memory and postmemory. Many of the texts examined, which can be considered generically as neo-historical or neo-modern novels, respond to a pressing demand for memory and elaboration of the traumas of the civil war and Francoist repression, while at the same time using modes typical of postmodernity. What is highlighted, above all, is the ethical and testimonial value of these stories which have a precise purpose: the redemption from oblivion and the recognition of the disappeared and forgotten. The research also includes the study of phenomena concerning minors, such as, for example, the treatment of children interned in Auxilio Social centres and the practice of baby theft. The aim is to identify and select the complex and contradictory testimonies, elaborations, reconstructions, fictions, manipulations offered in recent years by literature, cinema, photographic reportage, media and oral stories. The investigation also aims to propose a reflection on the cultural trends of our time, on the forms of memory transmission, on the contamination of languages and on the subtle relationship between ethics and aesthetics.
The literature of the eighteenth century. The research involves the following aspects: memorialism, in which the mixture of the narrator's personal discourse and historical discourse is evident; travel literature understood as proof of knowledge, ability to adapt to unpredictable situations and representation of utopian worlds, but also understood as exile, loss and estrangement from oneself; pedagogical-didactic and educational literature in which traits of 18th century utopia and philanthropy are highlighted, the concepts of virtue and hombre de bien; epic poetry. At present, the research focuses on texts still little known by Pedro Montengón and on the translation of Moratín's plays.
