Papers by María Ferrández-Sanmiguel
Memory Frictions in Contemporary Literature, 2017
Published in 2000, City of God is one of E.L. Doctorow’s most ambitious, complex and enigmatic no... more Published in 2000, City of God is one of E.L. Doctorow’s most ambitious, complex and enigmatic novels. It revolves around the possibility of reconciliation between Judeo-Christian ethics and twentieth-century brutality, of which the Holocaust is presented as a particularly extreme example. The main purpose of this chapter is to pinpoint the nature of the novel’s engagement with the Holocaust and its ideological implications. With this in mind, the novel’s self-conscious discussion of Holocaust representation becomes a key focus of inquiry. The author’s motivations for attempting to represent its fathomless horror are also explored, bearing in mind his Jewish American background. The chapter relies on Rothberg’s theorization of traumatic realism and Hirsch’s notion of postmemory in its broader understanding.
ABSTRACT: Welcome to Hard Times (1960) is not a conventional Western. The novel constitutes E.L. ... more ABSTRACT: Welcome to Hard Times (1960) is not a conventional Western. The novel constitutes E.L. Doctorow‘s first attempt to turn what at the time was considered "disreputable genre material" into a work of fiction that could yield relevant meanings for contemporary society. This is crucially achieved through the subversion of hegemonic gender configurations in the novel. Hence, the purpose of this article is to assess the extent to which Welcome to Hard Times demythologizes traditional views of the West, as portrayed in the classical Western. The focus will be on the representation of gender, highlighting Doctorow‘s preoccupation with identity and its artificial configuration. Thus, this paper will explore the novel‘s representation of alternative models of masculinity and manliness. I will also examine its transgressive attitude towards femininity and the female voice, both at a thematic and at a structural level, as well as its denunciation of gender violence. RESUMEN: ...
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow passed away on July 21, at the age of 84, leaving a legacy of twelve nove... more Edgar Lawrence Doctorow passed away on July 21, at the age of 84, leaving a legacy of twelve novels, three short story collections, a play and three essay collections that have earned him a reputation as one of the most important American literary figures of the past half century. Upon his death, President Barack Obama paid tribute to him as “one of America’s greatest novelists.” E. L. Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931 in the Bronx, the son of Rose and David Doctorow, second-generation Americans of Jewish Russian origin. He attended Kenyon College, where he majored in philosophy and graduated with honors in 1952. Then, he completed a postgraduate course on English Drama at Columbia University and served for two years with the USA Army in Germany. Doctorow began his literary career in 1960 with Welcome to Hard Times, while working as senior editor with New American Library. This first novel, a book that eventually qualified as a “post-western,” was a response to the poor-quality manuscripts that he had reviewed as script reader for CBS Television and Columbia Pictures. Six years later, he published Big as Life, a science fiction novel that never satisfied readers, publisher, or the author himself, who did not allow it to be reissued. While working on his third novel—The Book of Daniel (1971), a historical fiction that deals with the conviction and execution of a fictional couple inspired by the Rosenberg case—Doctorow was offered a post as writer in residence at the University of California at Irvine, the first of a number of teaching appointments that he held throughout his life, including positions at Sarah Lawrence College, Utah, Princeton, and New York University..
English Studies, 2020
This article focuses on N. K. Jemisin's triple-Hugo-award-winning epic trilogy Broken Earth (2015... more This article focuses on N. K. Jemisin's triple-Hugo-award-winning epic trilogy Broken Earth (2015-2017), using the strategically powerful perspectives of trauma studies and the discourses around the figure of the posthuman, and paying special attention to issues of ethics and the notion of the Anthropocene. It is contended that the main issues at play in the Broken Earth trilogy are the representation of structural oppression against a marginalized minority and the foregrounding of the possible consequences of extreme exploitation of the environment. The article argues that Jemisin's work draws a connection between the subjugation and exploitation of certain groups and of nature, framing both as traumatic phenomena. Yet, the story allows for a possibility of regeneration in the promotion of a posthuman form of ethics. In short, as this article attempts to prove, the Broken Earth series considers the past, interprets the present and offers a cautionary tale about a the future that makes a strong case for the hopeful practice of posthuman ethics.
Celebrating Forty Years of English Studies in Spain Taking Stock to Look Ahead: Celebrating Forty... more Celebrating Forty Years of English Studies in Spain Taking Stock to Look Ahead: Celebrating Forty Years of English Studies in Spain brings together a diverse but well-balanced selection of the plenary lectures, scholarly papers and round tables presented at the AEDEAN Conference at Huesca. The contents of this ebook are divided into four sections. The volume opens with two thought-provoking essays by writers Anne Karpf (London Metropolitan University) and Tabish Khair (Aahrus University), who compellingly reflect on the relationship between fiction and reality. The next two sections constitute the main body of the volume and comprise over thirty essays on the two wider areas of scholarship within English and North-American studies: literature and cultural studies (Part I) and language and linguistics (Part II). It is worth highlighting that an effort has been made to represent the different thematic areas evenly, with an average of two or three contributions per thematic panel. Finally, the last section of this volume includes some of the latest findings of three research projects in the form of round tables, dealing with cutting-edge research topics such as Neo-Victorian studies, musical narratives of the American West and European renditions of the American West. In short, the contributions included in this volume succeed not only in putting forward provocative and innovative research, but also in sampling the wealth and breadth of scholarly interests and approaches that the annual AEDEAN Conference unfailingly gathers. We would like to conclude this Preface by expressing our sincere gratitude to all those who have made the edition of this volume possible. To begin with, special thanks are due the Executive Board of AEDEAN, who have generously offered their support and advice from the moment that the University of Zaragoza was accepted as host for the 40 th AEDEAN Conference up to the last stages of the publication of this e-book. In that sense, our gratitude also extends to the panel coordinators and anonymous colleagues for their collaboration in the process of double-blind reviewing of the submitted papers. We are deeply indebted to Professor Susana Onega Jaén and Professor Francisco Collado Rodríguez-the President and Treasurer of the organizing committee-for giving us the generous opportunity to be a part of AEDEAN's 40 th anniversary conference at Huesca and trusting us with this project. Our profound appreciation goes also to the authors of the contributions included in this e-book, since it is the excellence of their scholarship that constitutes the core of this project and that will make it relevant to any reader within the field of English and North-American studies. Finally, we would like to thank the volunteer students of the Department of English and German studies at the University of Zaragoza for their tireless assistance and support, and to all the participants in the 40 th AEDEAN conference.
Orbis Litterarum, 2018
Ragtime as a Case Study Mar ıa Ferr andez San Miguel, University of Zaragoza Recent scientific ev... more Ragtime as a Case Study Mar ıa Ferr andez San Miguel, University of Zaragoza Recent scientific evidence suggests that, despite the pervasive influence of the disease paradigm, healthy reactions to trauma are the norm. Resilience is part of our DNA, since it accounts for our success to survive and thrive in adverse conditions during evolutionary times. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the theme of survival in extreme adversity has run through countless literary texts. Yet, discussions of resilience have tended to be shunned from the literary theorization of trauma. Given fiction's outstanding capacity to incorporate notions from diverse disciplines, it is not far-fetched to talk about fictional narratives of resilience. This article takes up E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime (1975) as a case study to test the hypothesis that literary texts may be profitably discussed from the perspective of resilience. In order to do so, it draws both on recent psychological theories of resilience and on the psychoanalytical concept of sublimation to provide some answers about the nature of Ragtime's alternative approach to trauma response. Its main aim is to explore how resilience as a cultural notion may manifest itself at both a thematic and a formal level in literary texts. The ultimate goal is to argue for the existence of what may be termed "resilience narratives." 1
Trauma, Gender and Ethics in the Works of E.L. Doctorow, 2020
This monograph approaches four of E. L. Doctorow’s novels—Welcome to Hard Times (1960), The Book ... more This monograph approaches four of E. L. Doctorow’s novels—Welcome to Hard Times (1960), The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1975), and City of God (2000)—from the perspectives of feminist criticism and trauma theory. The study springs from the assumption that Doctorow’s literary project is eminently ethical and has an underlying social and political scope. This crops up through the novels’ overriding concern with injustice and their engagement with the representation of human suffering in a variety of forms. The book puts forward the claim that E.L. Doctorow’s literary project—through its representation of psychological trauma and its attitude towards gender—may be understood as a call to action against both each individual’s indifference and the wider social and political structures and ideologies that justify and/or facilitate the injustices and oppression to which those who are situated at the margins of contemporary US society are subjected.
Atlantis. Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies, 2018
This article approaches science fiction using the strategically powerful perspectives of Trauma S... more This article approaches science fiction using the strategically powerful perspectives of Trauma Studies and the posthuman in conjunction with Foucault's notion of biopower, paying special attention to the deep investment of these discourses in notions of embodiment and agency. In order to do so, I will consider Octavia Butler's 1984 short story "Bloodchild" (Hugo and Nebula Awards) and James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)'s 1973 novella "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (Hugo Award). Both stories explore dystopian futures-in their focus on coercive extraterrestrials and life on an inhospitable planet, on the one hand, and on oppressive consumer culture and corporate technoscience, on the other-and point back to our posthuman present through metaphoric characters that illustrate and invite comment upon the articulation of power and the construction of the embodied posthuman. The main issue at play in the two stories, I will contend, is the identification of biopower with the traumatic appropriation of the human body and the articulation of posthuman forms of resistance to it.
Nordic Journal of English Studies, 2014
E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel (1971) is unequivocally what has been termed a "trauma novel.... more E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel (1971) is unequivocally what has been termed a "trauma novel." This paper examines the protagonist's traumatic condition, concentrating on its causes and on the determining circumstances that contribute to aggravating it. The analysis of Daniel's narrative reveals that he suffers from many of the symptoms associated to PTSD and anhedonia, a psychological condition which frequently co-occurs with PTSD as a consequence of infantile psychic trauma. The paper, then, explores the relationship between the protagonist's traumatic condition and his violent and oppressive treatment of the three main female characters of the novel. Finally, this paper concentrates on the status of Daniel's memories of his traumatic past. As a conclusion, it is contended that the novel's concern with trauma and memory points to the author's preoccupation with remembrance, which he seems to consider the best and only tool to build a better world. Doctorow seeks to highlight the importance of listening to the fragmented voices of those who suffer the effects of trauma in order to develop new social and political perspectives that will guarantee a better future.
Complutense Journal of English Studies, 2015
Many critics of Doctorow have classified him as a postmodernist writer, acknowledging that a wide... more Many critics of Doctorow have classified him as a postmodernist writer, acknowledging that a wide number of thematic and stylistic features of his early fiction emanate from the postmodern context in which he took his first steps as a writer. Yet, these novels have an eminently social and ethical scope that may be best perceived in their intellectual engagement and support of feminist concerns. This is certainly the case of Doctorow's fourth and most successful novel, Ragtime. The purpose of this paper will be twofold. I will explore Ragtime's indebtedness to postmodern aesthetics and themes, but also its feminist elements. Thus, on the one hand, I will focus on issues of uncertainty, indeterminacy of meaning, plurality and decentering of subjectivity; on the other hand, I will examine the novel's attitude towards gender oppression, violence and objectification, its denunciation of hegemonic gender configurations and its voicing of certain feminist demands. This analysis will lead to an examination of the problematic collusion of the mostly white, male, patriarchal aesthetics of postmodernism and feminist politics in the novel. I will attempt to establish how these two traditionally conflicting modes coexist and interact in Ragtime.
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 2022
This article reads two narratives of catastrophe, Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds” (1983) and Ted... more This article reads two narratives of catastrophe, Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds” (1983) and Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence” (2015), in an attempt to explore how their concern with disaster destabilizes the binary human/nonhuman. Conjuring up visions of transformation and extinction before and after catastrophe, the stories interrogate humanist accounts of subjectivity through their focus on language and consciousness, prompting us to rethink the ontological divide between the human and the animal. This interrogation is carried out not only at the level of thematics, but also at a formal level, through the techniques of defamiliarization and extrapolation as well as through the choice of narrative voice and focalization. Thus, the two stories engage with some of the key issues addressed by the discourses originating from the fields of animal studies and critical posthumanism, which are currently gaining momentum in philosophy and literary criticism in the context of the Posthuman turn. As will be contended, the stories send a powerful message about the boundary between self and other, highlighting the necessity of a shift toward a posthumanist ethics of affinity.
Extrapolation, 2021
This article reads Pat Cadigan’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel Synners (1991) from the per... more This article reads Pat Cadigan’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel Synners (1991) from the perspectives of trauma studies and posthumanism to analyze the representation of the cyborged (post)human in cyberspace. My main focus is Cadigan’s depiction of a posttraumatic world whose living conditions invite escape, and how this depiction emphasizes the fact that escape through technological transcendence is not an option, and neither is the rejection of technology altogether. Despite this bleak scenario, the novel leaves some room for optimism in the figuration of a posthuman form of resilience, inspiring reflection about future forms of engagement with technology. As this article attempts to prove, Synners uses the tropes of the cyborg and cyberspace to explore the implications of subjectivity and embodiment within technoscience. In so doing, the novel opens a critical space for interrogation of the relationship between trauma, the posthuman body, and digital technology.
English Studies, 2020
This article focuses on N. K. Jemisin's triple-Hugo-award-winning epic trilogy Broken Earth (2015... more This article focuses on N. K. Jemisin's triple-Hugo-award-winning epic trilogy Broken Earth (2015-2017), using the strategically powerful perspectives of trauma studies and the discourses around the figure of the posthuman, and paying special attention to issues of ethics and the notion of the Anthropocene. It is contended that the main issues at play in the Broken Earth trilogy are the representation of structural oppression against a marginalised minority and the foregrounding of the possible consequences of extreme exploitation of the environment. The article argues that Jemisin's work draws a connection between the subjugation and exploitation of certain groups and of nature, framing both as traumatic phenomena. Yet, the story allows for a possibility of regeneration in the promotion of a posthuman form of ethics. In short, as this article attempts to prove, the Broken Earth series considers the past, interprets the present and offers a cautionary tale about a the future that makes a strong case for the hopeful practice of posthuman ethics.
Atlantis, 2018
This article approaches science fiction using the strategically powerful perspectives of Trauma S... more This article approaches science fiction using the strategically powerful perspectives of Trauma Studies and the posthuman in conjunction with Foucault’s notion of biopower, paying special attention to the deep investment of these discourses in notions of embodiment and agency. In order to do so, I will consider Octavia Butler’s 1984 short story “Bloodchild” (Hugo and Nebula Awards) and James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)’s 1973 novella “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (Hugo Award). Both stories explore dystopian futures—in their focus on coercive extraterrestrials and life on an inhospitable planet, on the one hand, and on oppressive consumer culture and corporate technoscience, on the other—and point back to our posthuman present through metaphoric characters that illustrate and invite comment upon the articulation of power and the construction of the embodied posthuman. The main issue at play in the two stories, I will contend, is the identification of biopower with the traumatic appropriation of the human body and the articulation of posthuman forms of resistance to it.
National and Transnational Challenges to the American Imaginary. Eds. Adina Ciugureanu, Eduard Vlad and Nicoleta Stanca. Peter Lang, 2018
Affects have, of necessity, always held a central position in literature, being as they are innat... more Affects have, of necessity, always held a central position in literature, being as they are innate motivating mechanisms responsible for human responses to all stimuli (see Tomkins 2008). Shame and guilt, in particular, are key social emotions around which countless literary works have been built throughout the ages, probably due to their close connection to social, religious and juridical requirements of behavior in Western culture. The same may be said about violence, which has been frequently presented in literature as a regenerative force or as a symbol of reality. US author E.L. Doctorow's early novels-Welcome to Hard Times (1960), The Book of Daniel (1971) and Ragtime (1975)-are no different in this respect, since they too reveal an underlying preoccupation with the negative affects and with the violent foundation of North-American society. This article explores these novels' representation of the shame-guilt-violence nexus. Ultimately, the aim is to pin down the role that the fictional representation of the complex vicious circle of shame, guilt and violence plays in the novels' collective articulation of US society and culture.
Orbis Litterarum, 2018
Recent scientific evidence suggests that, despite the pervasive influence of the disease paradigm... more Recent scientific evidence suggests that, despite the pervasive influence of the disease paradigm, healthy reactions to trauma are the norm. Resilience is part of our DNA, since it accounts for our success to survive and thrive in adverse conditions during evolutionary times. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the theme of survival to extreme adversity has run through countless literary texts. Yet, discussions of resilience have tended to be shunned from the literary theorization of trauma. Given fiction’s outstanding capacity to incorporate notions from diverse disciplines, it is not farfetched to talk about fictional narratives of resilience. This article takes up E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime (1975) as a case study to test the hypothesis that literary texts may be profitably discussed from the perspective of resilience. In order to do so, it draws both on recent psychological theories of resilience and on the psychoanalytical concept of sublimation to provide some answers about the nature of Ragtime’s alternative approach to trauma response. Its main aim is to explore how resilience as a cultural notion may manifest itself at both a thematic and formal level in literary texts. The ultimate goal is to argue for the existence of what may be termed “resilience narratives.”
Memory Frictions: Conflict, Negotiation, Politics. Eds. María Jesús Martínez Alfaro and Silvia Pellicer Ortín. Palgrave MacMillan, 2017
Published in 2000, City of God is one of E.L. Doctorow's most ambitious, complex and enigmatic no... more Published in 2000, City of God is one of E.L. Doctorow's most ambitious, complex and enigmatic novels. It revolves around the possibility of reconciliation between Judeo-Christian ethics and twentieth-century brutality, of which the Holocaust is presented as a particularly extreme example. The main purpose of this study is to pinpoint the nature of the novel's engagement with the Holocaust and its ideological implications. With this aim in mind, the novel's self-conscious discussion of Holocaust representation becomes a key focus of inquiry. The author's motivations for attempting to represent its fathomless horror are also explored, bearing in mind his American-Jewish background. In order to do so, this study will rely on Rothberg's theorization of traumatic realism and Hirsch's notion of postmemory in its broader understanding.
Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos , 2015
Welcome to Hard Times (1960) is not a conventional Western. The novel constitutes E.L. Doctorow's... more Welcome to Hard Times (1960) is not a conventional Western. The novel constitutes E.L. Doctorow's first attempt to turn what at the time was considered " disreputable genre material " into a work of fiction that could yield relevant meanings for contemporary society. This is crucially achieved through the subversion of hegemonic gender configurations in the novel. Hence, the purpose of this article is to assess the extent to which Welcome to Hard Times demythologizes traditional views of the West, as portrayed in the classical Western. The focus will be on the representation of gender, highlighting Doctorow's preoccupation with identity and its artificial configuration. Thus, this paper will explore the novel's representation of alternative models of masculinity and manliness. I will also examine its transgressive attitude towards femininity and the female voice, both at a thematic and at a structural level, as well as its denunciation of gender violence.
Complutense Journal of English Studies, 2015
Many critics of Doctorow have classified him as a postmodernist writer, acknowledging that a wide... more Many critics of Doctorow have classified him as a postmodernist writer, acknowledging that a wide number of thematic and stylistic features of his early fiction emanate from the postmodern context in which he took his first steps as a writer. Yet, these novels have an eminently social and ethical scope that may be best perceived in their intellectual engagement and support of feminist concerns. This is certainly the case of Doctorow’s fourth and most successful novel, Ragtime. The purpose of this paper will be two-fold. I will explore Ragtime’s indebtedness to postmodern aesthetics and themes, but also its feminist elements. Thus, on the one hand, I will focus on issues of uncertainty, indeterminacy of meaning, plurality and decentering of subjectivity; on the other hand, I will examine the novel’s attitude towards gender oppression, violence and objectification, its denunciation of hegemonic gender configurations and its voicing of certain feminist demands. This analysis will lead to an examination of the problematic collusion of the mostly white, male, patriarchal aesthetics of postmodernism and feminist politics in the novel. I will attempt to establish how these two traditionally conflicting modes coexist and interact in Ragtime.
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Papers by María Ferrández-Sanmiguel