The Modern Spanish Canon

In recent years, interdisciplinary and comparative outlooks, greatly facilitated by the advent of new technologies, have transformed the discipline of Spanish Studies, leading to a re-evaluation of its scope and boundaries. To what extent is it legitimate to speak of ‘Spanish Studies’, given the linguistic and cultural diversity of Spain and the increasingly globalised nature of the world in which we live? How have digital technologies transformed the discipline, and, indeed, its objects of study? Have our methodologies and vocabulary kept apace with these advances? How do recent changes affect our access to and interpretation of cultural texts, past and present? And conversely: how do current re-evaluations of the past affect our understanding of the present? Thirteen early career researchers grapple with these and other questions in a collection of essays that elucidate the ways in which emerging scholars negotiate the urge to revise, re-shape or challenge the canon (transforming their discipline in the process), with the need to integrate their discourse within existing disciplinary boundaries.

Stuart Davis is Senior Lecturer in Spanish, Girton College, and Newton Trust Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Cambridge. Maite Usoz de la Fuente is Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Leicester.