Exilios y redes en el hispanismo de Estados Unidos (1962-2011): Ficciones y migraciones

Abstract

With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing Franco dictatorship (1936-1975), Spaniards fled and went into exile in large flocks. Unfortunately, the United States only admitted a small group of Spanish intellectuals, deemed politically neutral, who joined institutions of higher education and developed multicultural, academic, and social networks. These intellectuals had a lasting influence that led to a significant revival of Hispanism in the USA. This dissertation, Exiles and Networks in US Hispanism (1962-2011): Fictions and Migrations, interrogates autobiographical novels and memoirs that focus on the experience of three of those exiles: Prof. Carmen de Zulueta (CUNY/Lehman College, 1966-1984), Prof. Ildefonso-Manuel Gil (Rutgers University, 1962-1983), and Prof. Víctor Fuentes (U. California-Santa Barbara, 1965-2003).Despite differences in genres and viewpoints (memoirs, autobiographies, autofiction, etc.), these authors share specific chronotopes of exiles. These chronotopes are based on three dimensions through their experience of displacement: spaces, times and intellectual networks, through which they recreate their exilic itineraries. Each author accentuates a specific dimension of these chronotopes: Zulueta (Chapter 1) puts distance between herself and her account and focuses on the portrayal of the intellectuals that assisted her along the way; Gil (Chapter 2) relishes the recreation of time as a game that is played out on the page; and Fuentes (Chapter 3) adopts characters of traditional Spanish literary works (picaresque, Don Juan, revolutionary) to create chronotopes in which the three dimensions are equally relevant. The analysis of these authors’ chronotopes of exile reveals not only their identities as exiles, but also their relationship with Spain as their homeland, and the United States as their host. They develop a special relation with both countries since they become transatlantic and transoceanic figures that greatly enjoy the new opportunities found in the US, but long for the past lives of their homeland. Their accounts also divulge the ways in which the previous Spanish intellectuals that had arrived in the US assisted each other and helped them to emigrates. They also portray the spaces of their new home and the “non-places” of Spanish culture that they constructed once they were settled.