CALL FOR PAPERS

Volume XXVI (2010)

of MONOGRAPHIC REVIEW/REVISTA MONOGRÁFICA

will treat the theme of

 
HYSTERIA, HALLUCINATION AND MADNESS
IN HISPANIC LITERATURE


 

Volume XXVI of REVISTA MONOGRÁFICA will explore the manifestations in Hispanic literature of the intertwining themes of delusion, hysteria, hallucination, and madness plus their modern guises of neuroses, psychoses and senile dementia. Whether permanent or transitory, such altered states of consciousness inspired writers and intellectuals to produce treatments from satire to parody, metaphor and allegory. Ancient cultures viewed madness as divinely inspired—or diabolical—while others treated the insane as sources of amusement. Oracle, demon, or buffoon, the figure of the madman or madwoman is typically marginalized, seldom integrated into family or community; literary treatments typically reflect that marginal state.

In the Spanish novel’s foundational work, Cervantes’s genial gentleman is not the first or only madman of Spanish literature, thanks to several antecedents in the Chivalric and Sentimental novels of characters driven mad by unbearable grief or unrequited love. The author’s enduring interest in insanity is attested by his prologue, featuring two additional madmen and the novel’s doubly ironic spectacle of the madman feigning madness as he imitates Amadís/ Beltenebros, enacting a hermit on a desert island. Similar episodes—which would likely be deemed dementia today—abound in Pastoral novels as well. Another fertile area for this theme in Hispanic literature occurs in Romantic works, whose heroes and heroines often went mad or died of broken hearts. Poets, dramatists and novelists seemed to view madness as an irremediable state: it typically constituted the work’s denouement or closure (excepting cases of miraculous intervention), and many works ended with the onset of madness. Gothic novels, although less well represented in Hispanic fiction than in that of other countries, exhibit particular interest not only in the “madwoman in the attic” but also in what would be later be considered cases of the criminally insane (monsters, “wolfmen,” serial killers, vampires and the like) whose origin in the same roots as insanity (“lunacy”) appears in linkages between their episodes of uncontrollable fury and the full moon. With the advent of Positivism and Naturalism, novelists evince greater interest in the etiology of madness (origins, manifestations, and treatment); Galdós’s enduring fascination produced numerous variegated examinations. Fascination with the permutations of madness has only grown in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, abounding in both the contemporary Gothic and more scientific treatments in both novels and the cinema.

MONOGRAPHIC REVIEW/REVISTA MONOGRÁFICA invites papers of 12-15 pages on this topic. The papers should be prepared according to MLA format and the Monographic Review style sheet. Submit an electronic file with a 250-word abstract as an e-mail attachment to genaro.perez@ttu.edu. Preferred format is MS Word 97-2003 (No Macs, Vista, or Microsoft Word 2007 [.docx], please). Use end notes only and do not justify the margins. Do not underline: use italics. Please include cover letter with your e-mail address.

DEADLINE: November 30, 2010.


Send to:

Genaro J. Pérez, Editor
Monographic Review/Revista Monográfica
Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas 79409-2071
Phone:  806.742.3145
Fax:  806.742.3306
Genaro.Perez@ttu.edu