miscelánea
vol. 71
2025
I S C E E AL Á N
literature, lm and
cultural studies
language
and linguistics
vol. 71
2025
a journal of english
and american studies
miscelánea
Prensas de la Universidad
Literatura, cine
y estudios culturales
Lengua y lingüística
miscelánea
revista de estudios ingleses
y norteamericanos
vol. 71
2025
Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies
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Vol. 71 - Junio 2025
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Silvia Pellicer Ortín (Literatura, cine
y estudios culturales)
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3
Prensas de la Universidad
de Zaragoza
Departamento
de Filología Inglesa
y Alemana
miscelánea
a journal of english
and american studies
2025
Edición electrónica/
Internet homepage:
<https://papiro.unizar.es/ojs/index.php/misc>
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Directoras/Editors:
Silvia Pellicer Ortín (literatura, cine y estudios culturales)
Universidad de Zaragoza
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8928-7295>
Pilar Mur Dueñas (lengua y lingüística)
Universidad de Zaragoza
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8966-1013>
Oana Maria Carciu (reseñas). Universidad de Zaragoza
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5799-0461>
Ayudantes de dirección/Assistants to the Editors:
Marta Cerezo Moreno. Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1986-4848>
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<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9202-9190>
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Edición en red/Online Edition: <https://papiro.unizar.es/ojs/index.php/misc>
miscelánea
5
Consejo Asesor/
Board of Advisors
Rosario Arias
Universidad de Málaga, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6252-3956>
Jean-Michel Ganteau
University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier III, Francia
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3147-0430>
Terttu Nevalainen
University of Helsinki, Finlandia
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3088-4903>
Francisco J. Ruiz de Mendoza
Ibáñez
Universidad de La Rioja, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1200-2850>
Consejo Cientíco y Evaluador/
Board of Referees
Annelie Ädel
Dalarna University, Suecia
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9706-0074>
Laura Alba Juez
Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3869-8494>
Eva Alcón Soler
Universitat Jaume I, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2261-5378>
Bárbara Arizti Martín
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8803-1308>
Sonia Baelo Allué
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1191-0160>
Antonio Andrés Ballesteros
González
Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3067-7712>
Gerd Bayer
University of Erlangen-Nurenberg, Alemania
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9831-0522>
Jesús Benito Sánchez
Universidad de Valladolid, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8819-3411>
Miguel Ángel Benítez Castro
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8514-5943>
Ana Bocanegra Valle
Universidad de Cádiz, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2856-0814>
Christoph Bode
Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich,
Alemania
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5006-5804>
Ruth Breeze
Universidad de Navarra, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8132-225X>
Joseph Brooker
Birkbeck College, University of London, Reino
Unido
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9245-010X>
Gert Buelens
Ghent University, Bélgica
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2683-0059>
David Callahan
University of Aveiro, Portugal
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4183-6691>
Javier Calle Martín
Universidad de Málaga, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1040-5979>
Johan Callens
Free University of Brussels, Bélgica
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1506-5942>
Mónica Calvo Pascual
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3846-468X>
6
Isabel Carrera Suárez
Universidad de Oviedo, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7121-6528>
Frederic Chaume Varela
Universitat Jaume I, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4843-5228>
María Rocío Cobo Piñero
Universidad de Sevilla, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3814-7799>
Francisco Collado Rodríguez
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2922-9194>
Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre
Universidad de Murcia, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6985-0036>
Stef Craps
Ghent University, Bruselas, Bélgica
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6720-1689>
Maria Josep Cuenca
Universidad de Valencia, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8606-713>
Rocío G. Davis
Universidad de Navarra, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1417-9702>
Celestino Deleyto Alcalá
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3087-4556>
Marc Delrez
University of Liège, Bélgica
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0817-8407>
Jorge Díaz Cintas
Imperial College, Reino Unido
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1058-5757>
Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova
Masaryk University, República Checa
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0378-7975>
Isabel Durán Giménez-Rico
Universidad Complutense de Madrid,
España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6026-0184>
Maite Escudero Alías
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3116-3641>
Gibson Ferguson
University of Shefeld, Reino Unido
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5748-577X>
Javier Fernández Polo
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1657-9323>
María del Mar Gallego Duran
Universidad de Huelva, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5518-7667>
María Luisa García Lecumberri
Universidad del País Vasco, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8651-7558>
Luis Miguel García Mainar
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3169-5920>
Cristina Garrigós González
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia,
España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8047-9733>
Rosa González Casademont
Universidad de Barcelona, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2038-0699>
Constante González Groba
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0556-8362>
Pilar González Vera
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4919-8113>
Maurizio Gotti
University of Bergamo, Italia
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7203-4830>
Ignacio Guillén Galve
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5304-1290>
Christian Gutleben
University of Nice, Francia
Felicity Hand
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3766-6266>
Luc Herman
University of Antwerp, Bélgica
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6013-2900>
7
María Isabel Herrando Rodrigo
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3895-5534>
María Dolores Herrero Granado
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1363-0189>
Ana María Hornero Corisco
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0000-2714>
Tamar Jeffers-McDonald
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, Reino Unido
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4905-2525>
Deborah Jermyn
University of Roehampton, London, Reino Unido
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9261-9887>
Jane Jordan
Kingston University, London, Reino Unido
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2129-6504>
Enrique Lafuente Millán
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4783-3953>
Rosa Lorés Sanz
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5574-6182>
Hilaria Loyo Gómez
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4933-2199>
Zenón Luis Martínez
Universidad de Huelva, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5228-7822>
María José Luzón Marco
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0454-5457>
Ana Manzanas Calvo
Universidad de Salamanca, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9830-638X>
Belén Martín Lucas
Universidad de Vigo, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5660-1559>
Paula Martín Salván
Universidad de Córdoba, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8514-2670>
María Jesús Martínez Alfaro
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7335-7690>
Silvia Martínez Falquina
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8054-095X>
Sergio Maruenda Bataller
Universitat de València, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3041-0110>
Paul McDonald
University of Nottingham, Reino Unido
Arsenio Jesús Moya Guijarro
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha,
España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6591-6680>
Laura Muresan
Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest,
Rumanía
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5585-2863>
Silvia Murillo Ornat
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1369-3590>
Marita Nadal Blasco
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2902-7613>
Claus-Peter Neumann
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6950-9153>
Ana Luiza Pires de Freitas
Federal University of Health Sciences
of Porto Alegre, Brazil
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8285-6528>
Elena Oliete Aldea
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8197-1199>
Susana Onega Jaén
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1672-4276>
Beatriz Oria Gómez
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0663-0519>
8
Nieves Pascual Soler
Universidad Internacional de Valencia,
España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8962-5298>
Viorica Eleonora Patea Birk
Universidad de Salamanca, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3291-5574>
Beatriz Penas Ibáñez
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2418-4695>
Javier Pérez Guerra
Universidad de Vigo, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8882-667X>
Ramón Plo Alastrué
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1151-1661>
Juan Antonio Prieto Pablos
Universidad de Sevilla, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8912-2818>
Paula Rautionaho
University of Eastern Finland, Finlandia
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5239-8407>
Constanza del Río Álvaro
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3370-3020>
María Isabel Romero Ruiz
Universidad de Málaga, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8084-4865>
Miguel F. Ruiz Garrido
Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9647-1039>
Noelia Ruiz Madrid
Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, España
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9800-5624
Manuela Ruiz Pardos
Universidad de Zaragoza, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9115-1020>
Dora Sales Salvador
Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6290-2013>
Lena Steveker
University of Luxembourg, Luxemburgo
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6234-6790>
Juan Antonio Suárez Sánchez
Universidad de Murcia, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8303-044>
Rubén Valdés Miyares
Universidad de Oviedo, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9564-595X>
Javier Valenzuela
Universidad de Murcia, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0007-7943>
Rafael Vélez Núñez
Universidad de Cádiz, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0405-7357>
Francisco Yus Ramos
Universidad de Alicante, España
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5276-3251>
Krystyna Warchał
University of Silesia, Polonia
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8422-4911>
9
Articles
MARÍA MERCEDES PÉREZ AGUSTÍN
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
ÁNGEL LUIS LAHOZ LEÓN
(CEIP Claudio Moyano, Madrid)
MACARENA PALMA GUTIÉRREZ
(Universidad de Córdoba)
YONAY RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ
(CUD-AGM Universidad de Zaragoza)
table of contents
15
43
67
How to Implement a Picturebook in
Primary EFL Classrooms to Develop
Children’s Intercultural Competence
Cómo implementar un álbum ilustrado
en inglés como lengua extranjera en las
aulas de primaria para desarrollar la
competencia intercultural de los estudiantes
Compositional Argument Selection in
N+V Qualia Pairs within the Discourse
of Cooking: A Corpus-based Study
Selección argumental composicional en
pares de qualia N+V en el discurso
de la cocina: un estudio basado en
corpus
A Study of Beliefs about EMI
Programmes in a Galician University
Estudio de las creencias sobre
el aprendizaje de contenidos en inglés
en una universidad gallega
10
Articles
INMACULADA FORTANET-GÓMEZ
(Universitat Jaume I)
VIKTORIIA DROBOTUN
(Taras Shevchenko National
University of Kyiv, Ukraine)
SHADIA ABDEL-RAHMAN TÉLLEZ
(Universidad de Oviedo)
JUAN VARO ZAFRA
(Universidad de Granada)
CARLOS DAVID VÁZQUEZ PÉREZ
(Universitat de València)
91
113
133
151
Collaborative Online International
Learning (COIL) between Spanish and
Ukrainian Students: New Tasks and New
Relationships
Aprendizaje internacional colaborativo en
línea (COIL) entre estudiantado español y
ucraniano: nuevas tareas y nuevas
relaciones
The Medarchy: Medical Discipline
and the Panopticon in Caduceus Wild
La medarquía: disciplina médica
y el panóptico en Caduceus Wild
The Mise en Abyme in The Drowned
World by James G. Ballard
La mise en abyme en The drowned world
de James G. Ballard
Hacia la cubanidad a través
de la santería: influencia de la nostalgia
como instrumento mercantilizado en la
protagonista de la novela Soñar en
cubano (1992)
Towards Cubanness through Santeria:
The Influence of Nostalgia as a Marketed
Tool in the Protagonist of the Novel
Dreaming in Cuban (1992)
11
TOMAS MONTERREY
(Universidad de La Laguna)
ÁLVARO ALBARRÁN GUTIÉRREZ
(Universidad de Sevilla)
SARA VILLAMARÍN-FREIRE
(Universidad de Santiago de
Compostela)
169
189
209
The Transnational Formation
of the English Novel: The Case of
Madame de Villedieu’s The Annals of
Love (1672)
La formación transnacional de la novela
inglesa: el caso de The annals of love
(1672), de Madame de Villedieu
The Power of Fancy: Liberty
and Imagination in Philip Freneau’s
College Writings
El poder de la fantasía: libertad e
imaginación en los escritos universitarios
de Philip Treneau
Tainted by (White) Trash: Class,
Respectability and the Language of Waste
in Dorothy Allison and Bonnie Jo
Campbell
Corrompido por la basura (blanca): clase,
respetabilidad y el lenguaje de los
desechos en Dorothy Allison y Bonnie Jo
Campbell
12
David Roberts, Andrew Milner
and Peter Murphy (eds.):
Science Fiction and Narrative Form.
Bloomsbury, 2023
251 261
Notes for contributors Acknowledgements
VANESA LADO-PAZOS
(Universidade de Santiago de
Compostela)
Constante González Groba, Ewa Barbara
Luczak and Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis
(eds.):
Pathologizing black bodies: the legacy of
plantation slavery. Routledge, 2023
MIASOL EGUÍBAR HOLGADO
(Universidad de Oviedo)
Reviews 231
237
243
FLOR DE LIS GONZÁLEZ-MUJICO
(Universidade da Coruña) Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid & Inmaculada
Fortanet-Gómez (ed.):
Teacher Professional Development for
the Integration of Content and Language
in Higher Education. Routledge, 2024
Articles
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 15-41 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
15
MARÍA MERCEDES PÉREZ AGUSTÍN
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
mapere65@ucm.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9178-7405>
ÁNGEL LUIS LAHOZ LEÓN
CEIP Claudio Moyano, Madrid
angel.lahoz@educa.madrid.org
<https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4394-1915>
Abstract
The aim of this article is to meet the increasing need to develop the intercultural
dimension of communicative competence through an authentic resource, in this
case, picturebooks. An innovative pedagogical initiative was carried out with two
primary-level classes (5th and 6th) in a bilingual school in central Madrid (Spain).
The selected resource was the picturebook entitled Fry Bread: A Native American
Family Story, about a present-day Native American family preparing a traditional
post-colonial recipe. The resource was introduced through reading aloud as part
of a project in which 44 students were asked to write a recipe in English for a dish
that is special to them or their families, accompanying the text with an illustration.
The contributions of students, which were compiled in a recipe book composed
of 44 main courses and desserts, were analysed in accordance with the main
topics of focus in the intervention, identifying who was the recipe-keeper in each
family. It was determined that the most popular topic was family time, followed
by tradition. In most cases, the mothers were the keepers of the recipes, and the
illustrations reflected a highly collaborative family effort to prepare the dishes. To
HOW TO IMPLEMENT A PICTUREBOOK IN
PRIMARY EFL CLASSROOMS TO DEVELOP
CHILDREN’S INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE
CÓMO IMPLEMENTAR UN ÁLBUM ILUSTRADO
EN INGLÉS COMO LENGUA EXTRANJERA EN LAS
AULAS DE PRIMARIA PARA DESARROLLAR
LA COMPETENCIA INTERCULTURAL
DE LOS ESTUDIANTES
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510148
María Mercedes Pérez Agustín and Ángel Luis Lahoz León
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 15-41 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
16
conclude, the recipes were analysed from the perspective of Byram’s (1997)
Intercultural Communicative Competence model, revealing that the dimension
of knowledge of self and other and discovery and interaction were the most
prevalent in the recipe book. This suggests awareness-raising among children of
the differences between countries and a willingness to familiarise themselves with
other cultures.
Key words: reading aloud, picturebooks, ESL/EFL (English as a Second
Language/English as a Foreign Language), Native American, interculturality,
Project-Based Learning (PBL), Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC).
Resumen
El objetivo de este artículo es responder a la creciente necesidad de desarrollar la
dimensión intercultural de la competencia comunicativa a través de un recurso
auténtico, en este caso, los álbumes ilustrados. La experiencia pedagógica
innovadora se llevó a cabo con dos clases de primaria (5º y 6º) en un colegio
bilingüe del centro de Madrid. El recurso seleccionado fue el álbum ilustrado
titulado Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story que presenta a una familia
nativa americana actual que prepara una receta tradicional post-colonial. Este
recurso se introdujo a través de la estructura de lectura en voz alta dentro de un
proyecto en el que se pedía al alumnado que escribiera una receta en inglés
acompañada de una ilustración que fuera especial para ellos o sus familias. Como
resultado, ambas clases escribieron un recetario compuesto por platos principales
y postres, 44 en total, que fueron analizados teniendo en cuenta los principales
temas abordados en la intervención y quién era el guardián de las recetas en sus
familias. Se determinó que el tema más popular era el tiempo en familia, seguido
de la tradición. En la mayoría de los casos, las madres eran las guardianas de las
recetas reflejando también una alta colaboración para preparar los platos con sus
familiares mostrados en las ilustraciones. Para concluir, se analizaron las recetas
desde la perspectiva del modelo de Competencia Comunicativa Intercultural de
Byram (1997), lo cual reveló que la dimensión de conocimiento de uno mismo y
del otro y descubrimiento e interacción eran las más prevalentes en el recetario.
Esto implica que los niños y niñas toman conciencia de las diferencias entre países
y están dispuestos a familiarizarse con otras culturas.
Palabras clave: lectura en voz alta, álbumes ilustrados, ILE (Inglés como Lengua
Extranjera), nativos americanos, interculturalidad, aprendizaje basado en
proyectos, competencia comunicativa intercultural.
How to Implement a Picturebook in Primary EFL Classrooms
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 15-41 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
17
1. Introduction
This article presents a pedagogical experience carried out at the primary-school
level involving two 5th- and 6th-grade classes in a bilingual public school in
Madrid, Spain. The objective of the experiment is to develop intercultural
competence in a multicultural classroom and encourage students to instill
democratic values citizens through the use of authentic resources. This paper
reflects upon picturebooks as literary resources that foster interculturality in an
ESL (English as a second language)/EFL (English as a foreign language) context.
The selected resource is a picturebook entitled Fry Bread: A Native American
Family Story (2019), which, as Dolan (2014) stated, “bridges the gap between
geographically distant places and the lives of the children in the classroom” (3).
As explained below through a detailed account of all classroom sessions and
activities, the picturebook was introduced through the reading-aloud structure
within a Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach under the heading “Recipe
Book” as part of the project. This led to the final product, which consisted of
writing a recipe for a dish with special meaning for students because it is consumed
on special occasions or is part of their family’s heritage, with all recipes compiled
in a book entitled “Recipe Book”. The expected outcomes of this initiative, in
which students were prompted to create multicultural recipes inspired by the
picturebook, are in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal
4 (Quality Education), whereby teachers foster global citizenship and value
cultural diversity. To highlight students intercultural competence, the recipes
were analysed from the perspective of Byram et al.’s (2002) Intercultural
Communicative Competence (ICC) model composed of knowledge, skills and
attitudes, and the descriptors of the Reference Framework of Competence for
Democratic Culture (RFCDC) (2013), taking into consideration the students’
cultural and linguistic background as well as the connection between these
features and the selected recipes.
The first section of the article will discuss the benefits of using picturebooks to
promote ESL/EFL learning and interculturality within the PBL methodology.
Next, the number of participants in the experiment will be presented together
with their familial-cultural background, with the purpose of bringing the reader
closer to a multicultural classroom model. The following section offers a detailed,
step-by-step explanation of the creative process, which followed the three phases
of reading aloud (pre-, while, post-), after which we offer an analysis of the final
“Recipe Book” based on six thematic blocks (1. Family time; 2. Tradition; 3.
Wish to carry on the tradition; 4. Identity; 5. Special occasions; 6. Any occasion)
based on the words used in the recipe book.
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2. State of the Art
2.1. Picturebooks as a Form of Literature
According to Barbara Bader,
A picturebook is text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a
commercial product; a social, cultural, historical document; and foremost an
experience for a child. As an art form it hinges on the interdependence of pictures
and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the
turning of the page. (1976: 1)
This resource is an item of manufacture designed to have between 24 and 48
pages which are composed of the front matter, the body of the book and the back
matter. According to Genette, these peritextual features are the parts of the text
that “surround it and extend it, precisely in order to present it” (1997: 1) and also
to generate dynamism, magic and suspense. The front matter provides a brief
description of the main topic of the book and the back matter contains a biography
and a synopsis of the story and occasionally an image of the author and illustrator.
Picturebooks break with the traditional reading conventions because texts are
short and illustrations are appealing. This requires an active and supportive reader
to bring these elements together. This description highlights one of the features
that have generated high interest, namely the bimodal link between text and image
(Nodelman 1988; Nikolajeva and Scott 2006) which could be redundant,
complementary or counterpoint (Bateman 2014). Generally, picturebook images
complement the information provided in the narration, as in Fry Bread: A Native
American Family Story. This form of literature has typically been used in the home
for bedtime reading, allowing parents to engage in an entertaining and enjoyable
experience. The gap between the text and the image leaves an interpretative space
for the reader where they can construct meaning by linking literary works through
intertextuality (Mendoza-Fillola 2001) or by means of a semiotic code such as
“interpictoriality” (Hoster et al. 2018). What makes a picturebook different from
a storybook lies in conceiving of it as “a unit, a totality that integrates all the
designated parts in a sequence in which the relationship among them —the cover,
endpapers, typography, pictures— are crucial to the understanding of the book”
(Marantz 1977: 151). Therefore, the final result is a product of viewing the
picturebook not just as a story to be told but as an object of discovery where all the
images and the elements within the object contribute to the final result.
2.2. Picturebooks for EFL/ESL and Interculturality
This section presents the multiple benefits of picturebooks for teaching EFL/
ESL and interculturality. Although there are various interpretations of the word,
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here we understand interculturality in the manner provided by the UNESCO,
which “refers to the existence and equitable interaction of diverse cultures and the
possibility of generating shared cultural expressions through dialogue and mutual
respect” (Article 4.8 of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the
Diversity of Cultural Expressions, UNESCO 2005). This definition not only
reflects the multiculturalism present in today’s classrooms but at the same time
gives different cultures equal importance. In line with Byram et al.’s (2002) ICC,
“the basis of intercultural competence is in the attitudes of the person interacting
with people of another culture” (11-13). This implies that learners should be
open and willing to learn from other cultures.
In many cases, the main challenge for teachers is to introduce different realities in
the classroom, which makes picturebooks an optimal resource because they can
act as a mirror in which students are reflected and also as a window through
which they can see other cultural experiences (Wu 2017). Furthermore, as Boyd
et al. (2014) stated, picturebooks, with their firm commitment to diversity, also
encourage students to accept people who are different from them and are works
of literature that are open to the imagination and require meaningful thoughts
and a capacity for deep reflection (Encabo Fernández et al. 2012). According to
Braid and Finch (2015), the debate and interaction that takes place while reading
aloud will foster intercultural education, also allowing students to perceive
cultural interactions and traditions in a positive way (Hancock 2016).
Picturebooks have been used as a rich and authentic source of meaningful input
in the field of foreign language education for over four decades (Mourao 2023).
High-quality picturebooks facilitate language acquisition by enhancing both
linguistic and interpersonal proficiency. According to Ghosn (2013), humanising
English teaching allows individuals to enhance their moral reasoning skills,
emotional intelligence and empathy. In this same vein, Fleta-Guillén and García-
Bermejo argue that “picturebooks not only help students to understand language
and content, but also to develop positive attitudes toward the target language”
(2014: 38). Furthermore, they expose language learners to a variety of cultures
and afford opportunities for “combining critical literacy with intercultural
learning, as an empowering process” (Bland 2013: 26). Despite the existence of
well-developed theories describing the advantages of picturebooks for intercultural
learning, empirical research is relatively scarce, especially with regard to modern
foreign language learning in classroom settings.
In the following sections the pedagogical experience will be thoroughly explained
(i.e., participants, methodology, sessions) to answer the following questions:
— To what extent did the picture book Fry Bread: A Native American Family
Story help students abandon stereotypes toward Native Americans in a
Spanish EFL context?
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— To what extent does composing recipes in EFL classrooms contribute to
raising students intercultural awareness?
2.3. Project-Based Learning for Intercultural Communicative Competence
As Thomas and Peterson (2014) state, PBL is an instructional approach that
engages students in authentic, inquiry-based projects designed to address real-
world problems or challenges. PBL is characterised by its emphasis on student
autonomy, collaboration, inquiry and application of knowledge and skills to solve
complex problems (Helle et al. 2006). Inquiry and investigation foster curiosity,
promote self-directed learning and cultivate skills that extend far beyond the
specific project at hand, as Blumenfeld et al. (1991) state.
It can be said that the main characteristics of this instructional approach meet the
requirements to develop ICC. According to Kramsch (1993), ICC involves
multiple components, including intercultural sensitivity, knowledge of cultural
norms and practices, communication skills, empathy and adaptability. In today’s
globalised world, ICC is essential for meaningful communication, collaboration
and cooperation across cultures in various personal, professional and academic
contexts. Together with this, PBL promotes active learning, critical thinking,
creativity and the development of 21st-century skills such as communication,
collaboration and problem-solving.
PBL provides authentic contexts for students to engage in meaningful interactions
with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds (Helle et al. 2006). Projects
often require collaboration with peers from different cultures, which exposes
students to diverse perspectives and experiences, as in the pedagogical experience
shown in this article. In addition, PBL promotes cultural awareness by
encouraging students to explore and understand the cultural dimensions of the
topics or issues they are investigating (Thomas and Peterson 2014). This process
fosters an appreciation for cultural diversity and helps students recognise their
own cultural biases and assumptions.
Moreover, PBL enhances students’ communication skills by requiring them to
transmit their ideas, perspectives and findings to diverse audiences (Byram 1997).
Through collaboration and interaction with peers from different cultures,
students develop cross-cultural communication competencies, including empathy,
active listening and intercultural sensitivity. Furthermore, this methodology
challenges students to solve complex problems or address real-world issues that
may have cultural implications. By working collaboratively with peers from
diverse cultural backgrounds, as reflected in the picturebook through the topic
of identity, students learn to navigate cultural differences, negotiate meaning and
develop innovative solutions that are sensitive to cultural contexts.
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3. Method
3.1. Participants
The pedagogical experience was devised for a total of 44 primary-school participants
in the 5th (n=21) and 6th grade (n=23) in a public bilingual school located in
central Madrid. The general English level of the students ranges from A2-B1.
Regarding the origin of the students’ families (see Table 1), in half of the families
(50%) both parents are Spanish, which suggests a significant representation of
local or native Spanish-speaking families. In nearly one-third of the families
(27.3%), both parents originate from a country other than Spain, which
highlights a substantial level of cultural diversity within the classroom. Moreover,
nearly one-fifth of the families (18.2%) were composed of only one parent from
a country outside Spain, which adds another layer of diversity, bringing in
different cultural perspectives and backgrounds. In one of the two single-parent
families in the class, one had a parent from Spain and the other single parent was
from elsewhere.
(n=44) (%)
Both parents of Spanish origin 22 50
One parent from a country other than Spain 8 18.2
Both parents from a country other than Spain 12 27.3
Single-parent family in which the parent is from Spain 1 2.3
Single-parent family in which the parent is from a country other than Spain 1 2.3
Table 1. Students’ family origins
As can be seen in Table 2, in 61.4% of the families both parents’ mother tongue
is Spanish, which suggests a prevalent linguistic similarity among a significant
portion of the students’ families. About one-fifth of the families (20.9%) have at
least one parent with a mother tongue other than Spanish (i.e., Swedish, French,
Korean, English, Arabic) and a smaller percentage of families (14%) have both
parents with a mother tongue different from Spanish (Guaraní, Russian,
Romanian, Quechua), indicating a subset of students with a potentially richer
linguistic environment.
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(n=47) (%)
Both parents’ mother tongue is Spanish 27 61.4
One parent whose mother tongue is other than Spanish 9 20.5
Both parents’ mother tongue is other than Spanish 6 13.6
Single-parent family in which the parent’s mother tongue is Spanish 2 4.5
Table 2. Family’s mother tongue
It can be concluded that while Spanish remains the dominant language among
families, learners are exposed to different languages and cultures. This enhances
their linguistic and cultural awareness, but also shows the need to foster the
learners’ intercultural competence.
3.2. Creative Process
The aim of this pedagogical experience was to promote democratic values in the
students. Thus, we searched for an action-oriented approach (Piccardo and North
2019), promoting learning through realistic scenarios that lead up to a final
collaborative task. We also sought to achieve a number of objectives established in
the official curriculum for English in the third cycle of primary education, particularly
those regarding reception, production, interaction and mediation in the English
language as well as the development of the different Key Competences established in
the LOMLOE (Ley Orgánica 3/2020, 2020) and the Key Competences for Lifelong
Learning identified by the European Commission, Directorate-General for
Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (2019). In order to achieve these goals the
following methodologies (see Figure 1) were introduced in the classroom.
The transformative pedagogical approach of PBL was introduced through the
driving question, “Can you write a recipe in English that is special to you and
your family and share it with us?” This question aimed to encourage authenticity
and real-world learning, one of the core tenets of PBL. Thus, the pedagogical
experience intended to mirror a genuine challenge or problem present in the
Figure 1. Methodologies used in the pedagogical experience
Project-Based Learning
Reading aloud
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world whose authenticity not only engaged students by tapping into their intrinsic
motivation (Thomas 2000), but also ensured that the learning was applicable
beyond the classroom walls. Inquiry and investigation —two other characteristics
of PBL— were put into practice since students were encouraged to investigate a
recipe that was special for their family. In addition, the families were involved in
the process. Moreover, collaboration, or positive interdependence for the final
product, was present, as the collective success of the group depended on the
individual work of each student. Furthermore, students’ autonomy and decision-
making was fostered in this pedagogical experience as students could choose the
recipe that they wanted to write, and they had to make their own decisions about
their texts and illustrations. On top of this, the final product was a recipe book
that could be shared with their families, teachers and peers, adding authenticity
and accountability to the project.
Finally, the reading aloud technique (Ellis and Mourao 2021) was implemented
through mediation, which consists of selecting the picturebook according to the
students’ level, age, needs and interests, accompanied by scaffolded activities and
guidance through the various meanings that a multilayered picturebook may
offer. One of the main challenges EFL/ESL teachers face is using language
attached to a real and authentic context in a way that is engaging within a
multicultural setting. In this regard, the picturebook Fry Bread: A Native
American Family Story becomes an object of discovery due to its multilayered
text, which leads to multiple interpretations from the narrator’s and other
characters’ voices. Furthermore, from the reader’s perspective, the story opens up
necessary dialogue between two cultures that are so isolated from each other, the
Western and the Native American. The readers also become active learners when
they read about the 573 recognised tribes depicted in the endpapers, as well as
traditional Seminole pottery, basketry and dolls.
Kevin Noble Maillard is the author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family
Story. He belongs to the Mekusukey Seminole tribe, and by sharing ‘fry bread’, a
post-colonial recipe, he seeks to promote unity among all nations. The universal
topic of food and the call to readers to join in this feast with a racially diverse set
of characters not only foster intercultural understanding, but also help the reader
to challenge certain misconceptions, such as the belief that Native Americans
have red skin, wear feathers or ride horses. Consequently, this is more than a
book about food; it is a story of displacement, starvation and the struggle to
survive, subtly alluding to the historical event of The Long Walk, when between
1863 and 1864 hundreds of Navajo were forced to march 400 miles from Arizona
to eastern New Mexico and had to subsist entirely on rations of flour, salt and
water, that is, the ingredients to prepare fry bread.Summing up, this picturebook
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offers insights into other cultures that can be very beneficial to develop cognitive
and attitudinal skills for real-life experiences. In the following table we can see
the different stages of the reading aloud process.
Mediating a picturebook read-aloud
Stage 1: Before Stage 2: During Stage 3: After
Selection and preparation Use of expressive techniques:
— Body, eyes and voice
— Reading aloud
— Read-aloud talk
Follow-up and reflection
Table 3. Picturebook reading aloud structure (Retrieved from Ellis and Mourao (2021))
3.3. Sessions
Certain that Fry Bread could be a good trigger for promoting interculturality in
the classroom, a pedagogical intervention was designed, consisting of seven
sessions that followed the reading aloud structure, as can be seen in Table 4. In
the next section the activities carried out in each session will be explained
thoroughly, as the stages of the learning process are of utmost importance to
truly support intercultural competence.
Pre-reading aloud stage
Session 1: What is
fry bread?
Activity 1. See, think,
wonder. Activity 2. Where is
this bread from? Activity 3. Peritextual
features.
Reading aloud stage
Session 2: Close
reading of Fry
Bread.
Activity 1. Reading aloud
Fry Bread. Activity 2. Going
deeper into Fry
Bread.
Activity 3. Not this,
but that.
Post-reading aloud stage
Session 3: What makes this
recipe so special?
Activity 1. Speaking circles. Activity 2. Writing your
reasons.
Session 4: Recipe time! Activity 1. Reading Kevin’s
Fry Bread recipe. Activity 2. Specific content-
based language teaching.
Session 5: Can you write
your own recipe?
Activity 1. Writing my recipe. Activity 2. Typing up my
recipe.
Session 6: Talking
through pictures.
Activity 1. Analysing the
illustrations of Fry Bread. Activity 2. If I were
the illustrator… Activity 3: Let’s
draw!
Session 7:
Composing our
hymn.
Activity 1: Final reading
aloud of Fry Bread. Activity 2:
Rewriting Fry
Bread.
Activity 3. Reading
the new poem
together.
Table 4. Reading aloud sessions during the pedagogical experience
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3.3.1. Pre-reading Aloud Stage
At this point, the main aim was to spark students’ interest in the picturebook as
well as to support ICC by bringing the Native American culture to a European
context. As an ice-breaker activity, the teacher showed the students the front
page of the book and asked questions to help draw their focus to the title and
the illustration. They wrote a list of what they could see, what they thought of the
illustration on the front page, and what they would like to know about the book.
This routine encouraged students to make careful observations and thoughtful
interpretations and stimulated their curiosity, setting the stage for inquiry.
During the second activity, and in order to deepen their understanding of cultural
similarities and differences around the world, they were prompted to predict
where bread came from, guessing its name and origin. For example, pita bread is
from Syria or Greece, pretzels are from Germany, etc.
To conclude the pre-reading stage, the teacher showed students other peritextual
elements of the picturebook, such as the title page, the front and back covers, the
dedication page, the endpapers and awards. In this fashion, the picturebook was
presented as an aesthetic object, highlighting the importance of the illustrations.
Here are some examples of questions to be posed:
• “What do you think they are eating?”
• “Do you think these characters know each other?”
• “Why is the chosen food bread?”
• “What do you think fry bread symbolises?”
• “Can you think of important moments in your life where bread is present?”
• “What is the medal on the front cover?”
• “The book is dedicated to J.M.-N. and to K.N.M., who do you think they
are?”
3.3.2. Reading Aloud Stage
During the reading aloud stage, the teacher-narrator helped students to engage
more actively with the story through the use of rhythm, intonation, volume, body
language, gestures, etc. and by asking questions that helped the listeners to fill
the information gaps between the images and the text. This was accompanied by
some questions that helped students to understand the deeper layers of the story
and to develop into active and critical readers, such as
• “What do you think the mother is doing in this image?”
• “How do you think the characters are feeling in this image?”
• “Why are all the children looking at the grandmother telling a story?”
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In order to focus on words and their meaning, the following activity (“Not this,
but that”) consisted of retelling the story, but changing some words which
students had to identify. For example, the teacher said, “Fry bread is food. Flour,
salt, coke, …” The students had to stop the teacher and say: “Not coke, but water”.
3.3.3. Post-reading Aloud Stage
To begin with the post-reading aloud stage, the students were required to bring
a recipe that was special and meaningful for them or their family. During the first
activity, the students had to form two big concentric circles so that each student
had another student facing them. Then, the teacher projected a question on the
interactive whiteboard, and students were encouraged to share their answers.
Later, the teacher asked them to move clockwise and repeat this exchange of
experiences with a different pair and a different question. This activity helped
them to connect with the deep meaning of the recipe for their family and to learn
about recipes from other cultural backgrounds, fostering intercultural exchanges.
These were some of the proposed questions:
• “Which recipe did you choose?”
• “Who taught you this recipe?”
• “Who usually cooks it at home?”
• “Why is that person special to you?”
• “Where does this recipe come from?”
• “How is your family related to that place?”
• “When do you usually eat this dish?”
• “Why is this recipe so important for your family?”
The students were each expected to share their recipe, which is something personal,
authentic and intimate and something to be proud of. These speaking circles
created the necessary space for children to get to know themselves better, to
interpret and compare their culture and traditions to those of others, to exhibit
curiosity and openness and value the attitudes and beliefs of others, elements that
Byram (2008) identifies as necessary for the development of intercultural
competence. After sharing their ideas with their peers orally, the students had the
opportunity to write them down on paper, which were later used for the final
project. Some examples of this writing exercise appear in the results section below.
During the 4th and 5th sessions, the students wrote their special recipe. To model
this task, the teacher used the example of the fry bread recipe that the author,
Kevin Noble Maillard, shares in the author’s notes of the picturebook, where the
author explains that it is actually a recipe passed down from his aunt Maggie. This
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provided a real, contextualised recipe that helped students to learn about text
formats, parts of a recipe (ingredients, instructions), verb tenses, specific
vocabulary, quantities and the like.The students had previously received scaffolded
instruction on key words related to cooking (i.e., verbs, kitchen utensils, the most
commonly used ingredients) through images. At the same time, they were given a
recipe template that was divided into sections for ingredients and steps and were
taught how to explain the different steps using connectors.
Subsequently, each student had the chance to write down the special recipe that
was typical of their family. At this moment, the teacher’s role was to provide one-
to-one support to students when required. To finish this phase, the students had
to type out their recipe, explaining why it was special for them, and upload it to
a digital platform (Teams). The pedagogical aim behind this task was to foster
digital competence through the use of learning technologies in a confident,
critical and responsible way.
To promote the use of English and enhance the students’ creativity, during the 6th
session the teacher proposed that students create an illustration to accompany each
recipe. Before starting to think about their illustrations, the teacher helped them
analyse the illustrations of Fry Bread by Juana Martínez Neal, pointing out aspects
such as the colours used, the use of different sizes, the expression of each character
and the perspective chosen for some of the illustrations (Serafini and Reid 2022).
To lead the students to a decision-making process, the teacher asked them to
imagine the illustration they wanted to accompany their recipe, recalling that the
picturebook is also a piece of art. To help them with this process, the teacher
asked them to close their eyes and answer these questions in their minds:
• “Who appears in your illustration?”
• “What is the setting of your illustration?”
• “What details do you want to show in the illustration?”
• “What colours will you use?”
• “Which perspective do you want to choose: long shot, full shot, medium
shot or close-up?”
In the last part of this session, the students were provided with different materials
to use in their illustrations. This created a beautiful atmosphere of concentration
and work, and the results showed a deeper understanding of the picturebook and
what the students wanted to transmit with their illustration.
In the last session, the students were asked to rewrite the poem entitled Fry Bread
with the purpose of summarising the story and also celebrating the product
created, the recipe book. For this activity, the students formed pairs. Each pair
was inspired by one of the 12 headings that compose the picturebook. Then, they
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had to invent four new verses. At the end of the session, we put all the verses of
the poem together and the students read the new poem aloud, transforming it
into a hymn as seen in the Appendix.
4. Results
4.1. Data Analysis Procedure
The data collection process began by gathering information about students’
family origins and their corresponding native languages. The second step
consisted of collecting anonymised student recipes, which were coded as initial S
followed by the number of the recipe as it appeared in the book.
Firstly, the association of two variables was studied: the students’ multicultural
background and the origin of their recipes. The percentage of students who chose
a recipe related to their cultural background was calculated. Then, we calculated
the percentage of students with a multicultural background who had selected a
recipe associated with their family’s origin. In addition, we determined the
percentage of different relatives who acted as keepers of the recipe, the people
who cooked this recipe in the family and passed it down through generations.
The recipes were analysed thematically, and the most recurring themes were as
follows: 1) Family time, 2) Tradition, 3) Wish to carry on the tradition, 4) Identity,
5) Special occasions and 6) Any occasion. This analysis was based on the words and
expressions that appeared in the recipe book, as seen in Table 5.
Topics in the recipes Codes
1. Family time
Spending time together, good memories, all together, at home
together, everyone has their part, expressions of love toward their
relatives.
2. Tradition Passed from, remember, passed it on to me, continue, generation to
generation, heritage, connection to their roots.
3. Wish to carry
on the tradition
Would like for them to learn the recipe, would show it to them when
they are born.
4. Identity
Same country as my dad, belongs to that country, related to my
family, comes from my family’s place of birth, from here, sense of
pride and connection to the cultural and culinary aspects of their
home country and their love for it.
5. Special occasions Birthday, Holy Week, Christmas, Thanksgiving.
6. Any occasion Not on any special occasion, any moment, on any day, once a week,
once every two weeks.
Table 5. Most common topics when analysing the recipes
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Lastly, the recipes were analysed following Byram’s ICC model and the descriptors
of democratic citizenship appearing in the Reference Framework of Competence
of the Council of Europe (Council of Europe 2013).
4.2. Recipe Book Analysis
This section analyses the connection between the selected recipes and the students’
multicultural background. Simultaneously, the topics that make those recipes so
special will be examined as well as the role of the keeper of the recipes within their
families, as inspired by the author Kevin Noble Maillard, who was “the fry bread
lady” in his family. The most frequently mentioned topic was Family time followed
by Tradition and Identity.
A substantial majority of students (70.5%) indicated that the source of the recipe
was related to the origin of their family, as compared with 29.5% whose recipe is
not related to their family background On the one hand, this high percentage
reinforces the idea that there is a strong connection between cultural identity
and the food they choose. It suggests that students are consciously or
unconsciously drawing on their cultural backgrounds when engaging with the
topic of food. On the other hand, the percentage of students who chose a recipe
not related to their cultural background confirms the presence of intercultural
competence in the classroom, since for a significant minority, other factors such
as personal preferences or positive experiences with other countries and cultures
play a more prominent role in their choice of recipes.
In addition, 85.7% of students with a multicultural background presented
recipes from the countries associated with their family’s background whereas a
small subgroup of students with a multicultural background (14.3%) did not
show recipes from the countries associated with their family’s background. The
substantial majority of students with a multicultural background sharing recipes
from their family’s countries indicates a positive alignment between the student’s
cultural heritage and the content of their recipes. This outcome supports the
idea that the pedagogical intervention might have encouraged students to
express and share aspects of their multicultural background through their
choice of recipe. It can be highlighted that a minority of students with diverse
cultural backgrounds also chose to include recipes that are part of the Spanish
culinary tradition.
Another important area to be analysed concerns the reasons the students gave
when explaining why their recipe was special to them (Figure 2).
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Figure 2. Most commonly mentioned topics in the recipe book
The most frequently mentioned topic is Family time. It was mentioned by 35 out
of 44 of the students (79.54%). This suggests that Family time is a central theme,
encompassing various aspects of connection, union and shared experiences, as in
Fry Bread.
Statements referring to the topic Family Time
1. “It is a way to spend time with my father” (Arepas by S1).
2. “I have good memories with this recipe as we spend our weekend enjoying the dish
together” (Mixed rice by S4).
3. “But what really matters are not the days that we eat it. The important part is the time in
family” (Pasta Bolognesa by S6).
4. “I have good memories cooking this dish and eating it by the sea. It is delicious!” (Migas
by S10).
5. “This recipe is very special for me and my family, because it takes us all together around
one big table to prepare it, and everyone has their part to do from grandparents to
grandchildren, and we cook and talk and laugh, and then we eat all together” (Pelmeni
by S16).
6. “We usually bake it on weekends because on weekends we are all at home together”
(Lemon cake by S36).
Table 6. Statements referring to the topic Family Time in the recipe book
The next most notable theme is Tradition. Statements related to the topic of
tradition were written in 12 of the 44 recipes (27.27%). In addition, the Wish to
carry on with the tradition was expressed the same number of times (27.27%).
This theme reflects a strong sense of cultural continuity and the importance of
preserving family traditions.
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Statements referring to the topic of Tradition
1. “I love this recipe because it has passed from generations to my family. This recipe
reminds me of my grandparents” (Cookies by S42).
2. “My grandmother passed away, but I still can remember the pancakes” (Chocolate
pancakes by S38).
3. “The reason is that my grandmother taught my mother and my mother passed it to me
and I want to continue the tradition” (Chocolate kisses by S32).
4. “My dad taught me this recipe because it goes from generation to generation”
(Buñuelos by S28).
5. “It comes from my great grandmother and my great grandmother is special for me,
because she is very old and she is still living” (Turkey stew by S27).
Table 7. Statements referring to the topic of Tradition in the recipe book
Some students specifically expressed a desire to continue the culinary traditions
of their family and preserve the cultural heritage associated with their recipes.
Statements referring to the topic Wish to carry on the tradition
1. “I would like to explain this recipe to my kids but not only that, I will also explain that it
is a very important recipe for me and that it comes from our origin in Argentina”
(Argentinian corn pie by S2).
2. “If in the future I have kids, I would like for them to learn this recipe. I would explain that
it is important to us because we really liked Greece” (Greek salad by S13).
3. “If I had children, I would show it to them the first day they were born” (Crepes by S33).
Table 8. Statements referring to the topic Wish to carry on the tradition in the recipe book
Hereafter, the next most mentioned topic is the connection between the recipe
and Special occasions including family trips, celebrations (Christmas, New Year’s,
Thanksgiving, Holy Week, birthdays) because they are associated with memorable
moments they spend with their beloved ones. This category was mentioned by 23
of the 44 students (52.27%).
Statements referring to the topic Special occasions
1. “I usually cook this recipe at home for my birthday” (Three milk cake by S43).
2. “My family prepares it every Holy Week in Dominican Republic” (Sweet bean by S24).
3. “As I’m Jewish, I have to say that the turkey is not the most important thing of this day
(Thanksgiving), but a distraction” (Thanksgiving Turkey by S25).
4. “I eat it on Christmas night” (Seasoned carrots by S21).
Table 9. Statements referring to the topic Special occasions in the recipe book
Twenty-one students (47.72%) reflected upon their own identity as they mentioned
their love for their home country as a significant factor that makes their recipes
special. Though less frequently mentioned, some students specifically highlighted the
regional aspect of their recipes, connecting them to specific regions within Spain,
where their grandparents used to live. All these ideas have been labeled under Identity.
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Statements referring to the topic Identity
1. “My recipe comes from the same country as my dad: Venezuela. It connects me to my
Venezuelan roots” (Arepas by S1).
2. “My mother is from a different country called South Korea and this dish belongs to that
country. I get to enjoy authentic South Korean dishes at home” (Mixed rice by S4).
3. “Because when my family cooks it, we remember Morocco. This recipe is from Morocco.
My father is from Morocco and I usually visit this place with my family” (Cous cous by
S5).
4. “I have many good memories of this recipe related to my country, Ecuador, where I
grew up” (Salchipapa by S7).
5. “This recipe comes from my family’s place of birth: Extremadura” (Migas by S9).
6. “This recipe is special because it is my favorite food. This omelet is from here, from
Spain” (Tortilla de patata by S22).
Table 10. Statements referring to the topic Identity in the recipe book
A smaller but still notable theme is the idea that the recipe is special for Any
occasion (6). This suggests a versatility in the significance of the recipes, making
them suitable for various events and not tied to specific moments.
The diversity of topics mentioned by students indicates a rich tapestry of
experiences and feelings associated with the chosen recipes, highlighting the
multifaceted nature of the students’ connections to their recipes. These themes
align well with our pedagogical objectives of fostering intercultural competence
and showcasing the diverse cultural backgrounds of the students.
To conclude, this section refers to a topic which the picturebook author Kevin
Noble Maillard mentions at the end of Fry Bread, the one of the keepers of the
recipe. These findings are summarised in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Who is the keeper of the recipes?
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The data reflect a variety of family dynamics regarding the keepers of the recipes.
Mothers (45.5%) play a central role in preserving and passing down culinary
traditions within the family. Also, a notable percentage of students (20.5%)
mentioned that their fathers are the keepers of the recipe, which challenges
traditional gender roles in cooking and highlights the involvement of fathers in
the culinary aspects of family traditions. A considerable portion of students
(15.9%) mentioned their grandmothers as the keepers of the recipe (see Figure 2),
indicating the importance of the older generation in preserving family culinary
traditions. Some students (6.8%) noted that many relatives are involved in keeping
the recipe. This could suggest a collaborative effort or shared responsibility
within extended family networks. Nearly one-tenth of the students (9.1%) made
no reference to the keeper of the recipe. Finally, one student wrote about a
saleswoman in a creperie as the person who taught the recipe to him. This fact
exemplifies the idea that people from the neighborhood also enrich our collective
imagination.
4.3. Recipe Analysis from the Perspective of ICC
Through this section we will analyse to what extent creating recipes in English
has contributed to raising students’ intercultural awareness, following Byram’s
ICC model and focusing on the dimensions of knowledge (knowledge of self and
other), intercultural attitudes (exhibiting curiosity and openness) and discovery
and interaction (exploring cultures). We will also use the descriptors of the
Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, based on the four
dimensions of values, attitudes, skills and knowledge and critical understanding,
following the Council of Europe (2013), which states that “teaching and learning
practices and activities should follow and promote democratic and human rights
values and principles”. Through the creation of recipes, students became aware of
the multiple facets of their own culture, which allowed them to understand and
acknowledge the depth of others (Byram 2008).
Knowledge of self and the other and discovery and interaction are exemplified by
being aware of the difference between the countries and not being born or raised
in that culture and the willingness to explore other cultures. The following
statements are taken from the recipe book in English.
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Knowledge of self and others and Discovery and Interaction (Statements)
1. “This recipe comes from Greece. My family isn’t related to Greece” (S13).
2. “My recipe comes from the same country as my dad: Venezuela” (S1).
3. “This recipe is from Argentina and I am from Argentina” (S2).
4. “It is very important for the country because we love meat” (S20).
5. “This recipe is special because of my mother. She is from a different country called
South Korea and this dish belongs to that country” (S4).
6. “This recipe is from Morocco. My father is from Morocco” (S5).
7. “I have many good memories of this recipe related to my country, Ecuador, where I
grew up” (S7).
8. “Because it is very special in my country and my family prepares it every Holy Week in
the Dominican Republic” (S24).
9. “As I am Jewish, I have to say that the turkey is not the most important thing of this day,
but a distraction” (S25).
10. “This recipe comes from Romania because my family is from there” (S15).
11. “This recipe is special for me because it reminds me of my home country (Argentina)”
(S20).
12. “We are related to this place because we love Italian food” (S26).
Table 11. Statements related to knowledge of self and others and discovery and interaction from
the recipe book
The dimension of attitude is reflected through the openness and curiosity toward
other cultures and also the willingness to transmit this knowledge to the coming
generations.
Attitude (statements)
1. “If I have a kid I will share a recipe with them because to Romanian people and my
family this recipe is very important as a tradition” (S15).
2. “My family isn’t related to Greece. I would like to learn this recipe” (S13).
3. “This dish is also wonderful because you celebrate this day with other people, with
different religions and nationalities” (S25).
Table 12. Statements regarding attitude in the recipe book
The illustrations that accompany the recipe also display certain cultural elements
such as a Christmas tree (Figure 4) and a view of the great mosque of Casablanca
(Figure 5). Taking into account that the main topic is food, some traditional
ingredients that are less commonplace in Spain appear in some illustrations,
including sesame oil for the recipefor bibimbap (Figure 6) or Greek yogurt to
prepare tzatziki. Most illustrations display a traditional Western table with typical
cutlery (spoon, fork and knife) although most tables are rounded, likely influenced
by the illustrations that appear in the picturebook.
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Figure 4. Student’s illustration of roast chicken
Figure 5. Student’s illustration of couscous
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During this particular pedagogical experience, the teachers had a high impact on
students’ motivation by promoting self-confidence, openness to discussions and
critical thinking to help learners become more active citizens. This is also
interpreted through the 166 validated descriptors involving children below the
age of ten from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic
Culture (Council of Europe 2013), as mentioned above. In the dimension of
attitude, understood as openness to cultural otherness and other beliefs,
worldviews and practices, number 21 reflects the interest in learning about
people’s beliefs, values, traditions and worldviews through discovery and
interaction. The first step was to deconstruct stereotypes toward Native Americans
through the picturebook and the recipes become the object of discovery that
raises students’ interest toward other cultures (Korean, Romanian, Russian,
Ecuadoran, etc.) The dimension of attitude through civic mindedness is clearly
reflected in descriptor 33 through the expression of willingness to volunteer to
help people in the community. This can be seen when the children are very proud
of having these origins and really want to teach the future generations these
recipes, to preserve the tradition. Being active citizens is represented in descriptor
34 when the students participated in decision-making processes regarding the
affairs, concerns and common good of the community (in most cases helping
their mothers or grandmothers to prepare the recipe). To conclude, in the
dimension regarding knowledge and critical understanding, and more specifically
about how they understand the world, descriptor 159 refers to the ability to
describe basic cultural practices, in this case eating habits in one culture. This is
clearly reflected in the fact that it is the central topic of the project.
Figure 6. Student’s illustration of bibimbap
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5. Conclusions
During the intervention described here, students approached the Native American
culture through an authentic and current resource that allowed them to identify
with them and dispel stereotypes about these minorities. In creating recipes,
students were able to develop intercultural competence, specifically the knowledge
dimension, exemplified by the awareness of the differences between countries, as
well as discovering and interacting with other cultures. The multicultural reality
of the classroom is implicitly reflected in the recipes, since one-third of the families
come from countries other than Spain (Romania, Peru, Greece, USA, Morocco,
Dominican Republic, Argentina). In turn, some of the illustrations accompanying
the recipes refer to cultural elements such as a mosque or the Thanksgiving feast
or to unusual ingredients in Spain such as sesame oil. The attitudinal dimension
has also been represented through openness and curiosity toward other cultures
and the importance of passing on this tradition to future generations, as the theme
of tradition and the desire to pass traditions on is the second most recurring
theme after time spent with family. As in the picture book, women are central
figures as the caretakers of the recipes within the same family, as reflected in the
recipe book, where 45.5% of mothers are in charge of preserving the tradition.
According to the Reference Framework of Competencies for Democracy (Council
of Europe 2013), the students reflected an interest in other ways of thinking,
values, traditions and worldviews by taking an interest in the recipes made by
their peers. In some testimonies transcribed in the recipe analysis section, we can
see how the students are proud of their origins and feel responsible for transmitting
customs to the coming generations, as in the picture book. In turn, the need to
make decisions during the process, such as which recipe to choose in the first
place, as well as explaining why it is special to them, fosters student agency,
requiring them to seek the common good for the community, in this case helping
their mothers or grandmothers to prepare the recipe.
With respect to limitations, since the Native American culture depicted in the
storybook is so far removed from our own, it was essential to read the author’s
notes to learn more about the customs, food and history of the indigenous
peoples, as well as to interpret some of the symbols that appear in the illustrations.
In addition, it was the first time the students had written a recipe, making it
necessary to teach them the format, structures and vocabulary of the genre. The
students required teacher guidance in this process as well as for transcribing the
recipe in electronic format.
In general, it can be concluded that the selection of a quality picturebook
accompanied by guided and scaffolded activities guarantees more experiential
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and deeper learning that at the same time may turn the student into an agent of
change for society by being more aware of a multicultural world and showing a
greater openness to other realities different from their own, while improving
their linguistic competence.
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Appendix
THESE RECIPES ARE FOOD
Because they are delicious
Because they have nutrients
Because they have different ingredients
Because you can eat them
THESE RECIPES ARE SHAPE
Because they have many different shapes
They can be circles, squares, triangles
They can be flat, soft or large
THESE RECIPES ARE SOUND
The sound of the sugar
slowly falling in a bowl.
The sound of the flour
quickly mixing.
THESE RECIPES ARE COLOR
Red, yellow, green, blue and many other colors.
They have different colors and that’s fun
Because you are more excited
and enjoy more this experience.
THESE RECIPES ARE FLAVOR
Because they are made of ingredients.
There are a lot of types of flavors
in these recipes:
salty, sweet, sour, hot, …
THESE RECIPES ARE TIME
Because when you prepare them,
you are with your family.
Because they come from the past
and they will be in the future.
THESE RECIPES ARE ART
Art is passion
Passion is fun
When you have fun, you have everything
inside and outside.
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41
THESE RECIPES ARE HISTORY
They come from the past
They have stories inside
They are and they will be memories
They are our history
THESE RECIPES ARE PLACE
In the kitchen of my house.
In my grandma’s house
In my aunt’s restaurant
In a shop
THESE RECIPES ARE NATION
Because they are made in different nations
They transport us to those nations
Because is Peru, is Spain, Paraguay, Ecuador,
Korea, Venezuela, Extremadura, …
THESE RECIPES ARE EVERYTHING
The recipes feed you and make you have
a lot of fun with your family and friends.
These special moments are beautiful
when you think about them.
THESE RECIPES ARE US
THESE RECIPES ARE FOR YOU
Received: 20/01/2024
Accepted: 09/07/2024
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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43
Abstract
This paper aims to analyse the compositional argument selection process
represented by different syntactic alternations within the specialised domain of
cooking, thus contributing to the characterisation of this specialised discourse.
The syntactic alternations studied include canonical actives, passives, causative/
inchoative alternations, middles and Instrument-subject alternations. These
constructions allow the incorporation of cooking verbs (Levin 1993) and denote
divergent argument structure realisations. As indicated here through
compositional analysis, the constructions contain distinctive N+V qualia pairs. As
in Pustejovsky (1991, 1995), this paper follows a lexico-semantic approach and
applies a corpus-based methodology to examine and compare over 8,300
contextualised examples from two corpora (a specialised corpus on cooking and
a general corpus) using the Sketch Engine corpus tool. The results show that the
syntactic alternations examined follow related but distinctive underlying patterns
in semantic composition, and thus are construed with N+V qualia pairs that
characterise the specialised discourse of cooking.
Keywords: argument selection, compositional analysis, syntactic alternations,
discourse of cooking, qualia pairs.
MACARENA PALMA GUTIÉRREZ
Universidad de Córdoba
l82pagum@uco.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0558-9358>
COMPOSITIONAL ARGUMENT SELECTION IN N+V
QUALIA PAIRS WITHIN THE DISCOURSE
OF COOKING: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY
SELECCIÓN ARGUMENTAL COMPOSICIONAL
EN PARES DE QUALIA N+V EN EL DISCURSO
DE LA COCINA: UN ESTUDIO BASADO EN CORPUS
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510185
Macarena Palma Gutiérrez
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44
Resumen
El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el proceso de selección argumental
composicional representado por diferentes alternancias sintácticas en el ámbito
especializado de la cocina y, de este modo, contribuir a la caracterización de este
discurso especializado. Las alternancias sintácticas objeto de estudio son las activas
canónicas, las pasivas, las alternancias causativo/incoativo, las medias, y las
alternancias de sujeto instrumento. Estas construcciones permiten la incorporación
de verbos de cocinar (Levin 1993) y denotan realizaciones divergentes de la
estructura argumental y, en consecuencia, como se atestigua aquí, contienen pares
de qualia N+V distintivos en el análisis composicional. En línea con Pustejovsky
(1991, 1995), este trabajo sigue un enfoque léxico-semántico y una metodología
basada en corpus para analizar y comparar 8300+ ejemplos contextualizados de
dos corpus (un corpus especializado de cocina y un corpus genérico) mediante el
uso del software Sketch Engine. Los resultados muestran que las alternancias
sintácticas examinadas siguen patrones subyacentes relacionados pero distintivos
en la composición semántica y, por lo tanto, se interpretan con pares de qualia N+V
que caracterizan el discurso especializado de cocina.
Palabras clave: selección argumental, análisis composicional, alternancias
sintácticas, discurso de la cocina, pares de qualia.
1. Introduction
The language of cooking has been widely explored from a linguistic perspective
(e.g. Lévi-Strauss 1966; Lehrer 1969, 1972; Newman 1975; Bator 2014). This
paper contributes to the characterisation of this specialised domain by contrasting
data from two corpora: a specialised corpus of cooking and a general corpus of
English. Particularly, it focuses on the usage of N+V configurations and the most
productive syntactic patterns typically found in this specialised domain,
contrasting these patterns with those from the general corpus.
Scholars like Casademont (2014) and Durán and L’Homme (2020: 37) consider
verbs as ‘conveyances of knowledge’ that help characterise specialised discourse
because they specify information about argument structure in their corresponding
cultural domains. Unlike purely verb- or noun-centred approaches to
compositionality (Sager 1990; Hale and Keyser 2002), this study follows
Pustejovsky’s (1991, 1995) ideas, thus advocating a lexico-semantic approach
that spreads the semantic load across all the constituents of the utterance. Nouns
and verbs are both considered specialised units of language in specific domains
and as such contribute to the syntactic and lexico-semantic characterisation of a
specialised discourse.
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This study identifies typically-occurring N+V combinations in the discourse
of cooking as qualia pairs, that is, as linguistic elements that are paired
depending on the information predicated by a given verb about the meaning
of a particular noun. This linguistic connection, in fact, is triggered by our
basic knowledge about the nominal entity in question and our conceptualisation
of it in terms of its more inherent features, known as qualia roles (Pustejovsky
1991, 1995). A N+V qualia pair is “a combination in which the predicate
expresses one of the qualia values of the noun (like picture-paint, book-read, or
house-build)” (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 13). The qualia relational structure
thus involves those lexico-semantic, syntactic and conceptual constraints that
are “based on the idea that there is a system of relations that characterises the
semantics of nominals” and “serves to specify the reading of a verb” (Yoshimura
1998: 115).
The hypothesis of this study is that there exists a correlation between the most
productive N+V qualia pairs and the most typically-occurring syntactic structures
in a given specialised domain, in contrast to those (qualia pairs and syntactic
structures) found in a general corpus. Therefore, there should be a correspondence
between the lexico-semantic and the syntactic features that characterise the
specialised discourse of cooking. For example, if corpus data confirms the N+V
qualia pair chef _cook as significantly productive, then it would follow that a
syntactic canonical transitive structure with an agentive subject and a patientive
object could be frequently found in this specialised discourse, thus revealing a
given pattern of qualia structure that specifies the meaning of the noun in relation
to the semantics of the verb.
This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents the analytical tools used
(namely, syntactic alternations with cooking verbs and notions of qualia and co-
specification phenomena). Section 3 describes the methodology employed.
Section 4 presents the main findings and a discussion of the results. Finally,
Section 5 offers some closing remarks.
2. Tools for Analysis
In this paper I examine the interaction between the lexico-semantic and syntactic
features that characterise the discourse of cooking. I analyse the frequency of
occurrence of different grammatical patterns and the most productive N+V qualia
pairs. To do so, Subsection 2.1 explores the different syntactic alternations that
appear with cooking verbs, and Subsection 2.2 examines the main principles of
qualia structure and co-specification phenomena.
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2.1. Syntactic Alternations with Cooking Verbs
Placing a particular nominal entity in subject position is anything but random,
since doing so requires a process of lexico-semantic and discourse-pragmatic
profiling. As stated in Palma Gutiérrez, “profiling is related to the specific
portrayal of the foregrounded domain of a given linguistic expression as the focus
of attention in discourse” (2024: 139). Depending on the profiling/defocusing
phenomena involved in each case, distinct portions of the action chain and
argument structure realisations are represented. This leads to the configuration
of different syntactic patterns where diverse energetic interactions occur among
the participants, that is, Agent, Patient and Instrument (Langacker 2013).
According to Levin’s (1993) typology, cooking verbs are classified by the distinct
methods or techniques of cooking they describe, such as baking, frying or
boiling. Their prominence and frequent use in the specialised discourse of
cooking reflects the centrality of these actions to this domain (cf. Levin 1993:
244). Following Levin’s classification, these verbs participate in the syntactic
patterns illustrated in Examples 1-5:1
(1) Jennifer baked the potatoes (with her new oven).
(2) The potatoes were baked (by the chef).
(3) The potatoes baked.
(4) Idaho potatoes bake beautifully.
(5) This oven bakes potatoes well. (Adapted from Levin 1993: 243-244)
The basic/canonical active form in Example 1 follows the SVO syntactic pattern:
it contains a +Animate agentive subject (Jennifer) which is profiled syntactically
and a -Animate patientive object (the potatoes), which is defocused. It also contains
an oblique Instrument. Therefore, the flow of energy within the canonical action
chain follows the sequence Agent-Patient(-Instrument). Traditionally, the
transitive active clause is considered the most basic/unmarked syntactic pattern.
As found in corpus studies by Givón, the assumption of the higher productivity
of transitive actives “is associated, among other things, with the predication that
the unmarked member of a binary distinction […] is more frequent in text”
(1993: 52). Additionally, as Stockwell claims, “a prototypical subject acts as both
topic and agent, and alternative clause-patterns represent a deviation away from
this norm” (2002: 35). Accordingly, syntactic patterns with a different argument
structure alignment, such as those illustrated in Examples 2-5, are considered
syntactic alternations to the canonical pattern, as detailed below.
The passive construction in Example 2 portrays the same situation as the canonical
pattern, but with the order of arguments reversed. It profiles a ±Animate Patient
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(the potatoes), and, when specified, the Agent occupies a defocused oblique object
position, introduced by a by-phrase (the chef). The causative/inchoative alternation
in Example 3 occurs with verbs of change of state/position to describe an eventive
situation (Levin 1993: 30). It follows the SV syntactic pattern since it only profiles
a -Animate patientive subject (the potatoes) and no Agent is coded. The middle
alternation in Example 4 follows the SVA syntactic pattern: it only profiles a
-Animate patientive subject (Idaho potatoes). It describes a potential/facilitative
(not an eventive) situation emphasised by the adverbial beautifully (26). Both
causatives/inchoatives and middles are intransitive counterparts of the basic/
canonical active form. In turn, the Instrument-subject alternation in Example 5 is
a transitive structure that follows the SVO syntactic pattern. However, it profiles
the oblique participant this oven (with an instrumental, not agentive, role) and a
patientive argument in object position (potatoes) (80). Here, the Instrument can
be understood as a metonymic extension of the Agent, paraphrased by the sequence
Agent-Patient-Instrument in Jennifer baked the potatoes with her new oven.
Following Pustejovsky’s ideas, patientive participants are classified by their
belonging to a natural or an artifactual kind (2001: 8; 2006: 54). The former are
described as naturally-occurring entities (e.g. water), whereas the latter are described
as artifacts, that is, objects created for a particular purpose (e.g. sandwich). Contrary
to artifactual objects, naturally-occurring entities lack an agentive value and denote
nominals that have not been created out of any intentional behaviour.
Table 1 summarises the features of the syntactic alternations examined in this paper
regarding the syntactic and semantic arrangement of their argument structures:
Canonical
actives
Passive
alternations
Causative/
inchoative
alternations
Middle
alternations
Instrument-
subject
alternations
Grammatical
roles at the
syntactic level
Subject and
Object
Subject (and
Oblique
Object) Subject Subject Subject and
Object
Subject’s
semantic role
(Profiled entity)
Agent Patient Patient Patient Instrument
Object’s
semantic role
(Defocused
entity)
Patient Agent X X Patient
±Animate
subject +Animate ±Animate -Animate -Animate -Animate
Table 1. Syntactic and semantic features of the alternations under examination
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2.2. Qualia Structure and the Process of Co-specification
The theory of qualia structure (Pustejovsky 1991, 1995) establishes a mechanism
to represent lexical meaning based on a system of four dimensions of meaning,
called qualia, whose main function is to “capture different properties of objects,
as they are represented in language” (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 3).
A single quale indicates a particular aspect of a word’s meaning through the
relationship between the concept expressed by the word and another concept
evoked by it. Qualia roles rely on the conceptual relations that a word may activate.
The four basic qualia roles are as follows:
• Formal qualia (Qf) encode taxonomic information about a lexical item
(type-of relations), and they answer these questions: ‘What type of thing is
this?’ and ‘What is its nature?’
• Constitutive qualia (Qc) focus on partonomic information about the
constituent parts/material of an object (part-of/made-of relations), and
they address these questions: ‘What are its constituent parts?’ and ‘What is
it made of?’
• Telic qualia (Qt) capture information about the purpose/function of an
entity (used-for/functions-as relations), and they answer these questions:
‘What is its purpose?’ and ‘How does it function?’
• Agentive qualia (Qa) refer to information about the origin of an object
(created-by relations), and they address these questions: ‘How did it come
into being?’ and ‘What brought it about?’
Figure 1 illustrates the qualia structure of the lexical item house in terms of its
qualia roles:
Figure 1. Representation of the qualia structure of the lexical item house (adapted from
Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 8-9)
Even though this view of lexical meaning is basically decompositional,2 this
model also examines compositionality, that is, “how a word meaning may or may
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not compose with other meanings, and how it changes in the different contexts”
(Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 5). Consider the contextual modulation of word
meaning in Examples 6a- 6d below, paying special attention to how different
qualia roles are activated in the contexts provided:
(6) a. They have a three-story house.
b. Never forget to lock your house when you leave.
c. My cousin lives in a comfortable house.
d. It took four years to finish the house.
In 6a the lexical item house refers to a type of physical object, a building, thus
relying on a Qf relation between house and three-story. In 6b, the term house
metonymically evokes its most salient part (the door lock) in a Qc relation with the
predicate lock. In 6c the most salient feature of the house that is conceptually
activated in this context is its inhabitability and comfortability, that is, its function
(Qt). Finally, the conceptual relation between house and finish in 6d profiles a Qa
relation based on its process of creation/construction. Therefore, the meaning of
a lexical item adapts to the semantics of the elements surrounding it in a particular
context, thus profiling or activating the most salient features (qualia roles) evoked
in each case.
From this notion of contextual modulation of word meaning, it follows that
different elements in a grammatical construction can be paired in discourse in
accordance with their qualia structure to specify their meaning. In this study, I
concentrate on the relationship between nouns and verbs forming qualia pairs in
the specialised discourse of cooking.3 As proposed in Pustejovsky and Jezek, an
N+V qualia pair is a combination in which the verb promotes one of the qualia
values of the noun, as in book-read or house-build (2016: 13). This phenomenon is
known as co-specification. The results of this paper also show that metonymic
embedding can occur when certain qualia values are subsumed within others in
compositional analysis.
3. Data and Method
In this paper I conduct a corpus-based study of 8,385 instances to examine and
contrast the lexico-semantic and syntactic properties of four cooking verbs and
their syntactic alternations in a specialised corpus of cooking and a general corpus
(henceforth, SC and GC, respectively). I compiled 892 examples from the SC and
7,493 from the GC. Particularly, I examine those syntactic alternations that
involve productive N+V combinations in the domain of cooking.
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The data collection process and subsequent analysis was divided into different
phases. First, I used the Web search function of the Sketch Engine corpus tool
(Kilgarriff et al. 2004) to compile the SC using texts from the internet (e.g. food
blogs, cooking recipes, restaurant reviews). The resulting corpus contains
760,630 words. The GC used to contrast the data with the SC was the English
Web 2021 (enTenTen21) corpus, the largest English-language corpus available on
the platform (over 52 billion words).
The second step was to extract the most salient N+V qualia pairs in both corpora.
To do so, I used the Word Sketch function of Sketch Engine, which provides a list
of the most frequent collocates for a given target word in specific grammatical
relations. In this case, the target words were the four selected verbs (i.e. cook,
bake, boil, fry). I chose these four verbs for two reasons. First, as proposed by
Levin, these verbs “describe the basic methods of cooking”, and thus “are the
ones that show the widest range of properties” among their class (1993: 244).
The second reason was that these verbs proved to be highly frequent in the SC, as
demonstrated by the results displayed in the Wordlist function of Sketch Engine.
The Wordlist tool automatically generates frequency lists for the words in a
corpus. When a filter was applied to the SC, 2,241 items were found. In terms of
their frequency of occurrence, cook occupies the fourth position (3,273
occurrences), bake the ninth (2,243 occurrences), fry the twentieth (1,165
occurrences) and boil the twenty-third (1,100 occurrences).
I then manually coded the most frequent N+V collocates. Word Sketch collocates
are classified in terms of their association score with the target word4 and sorted
into categories depending on their grammatical relations. I analysed the collocates
in terms of the following two syntactic relations: ‘Words that serve as Subject of
the verb’ and ‘Words that serve as Object of the verb’. I selected the ten most
frequent collocates in each syntactic category in both corpora. As Sketch Engine
does not have the capacity to automatically filter out lexical/morphological
mismatches, these were discarded manually, removing the non-valid instances
that contained adjectives lemmatised as verbs (e.g. baking in baking soda) and
nominalised forms of verbs (e.g. fries in French fries).
Later, I sorted the Word Sketch results for both corpora by searching for those
nominals that co-occurred with the four cooking verbs and performed any of the
following semantic roles:
• Agents: [+Animate] entities relying on the value human
• Patients: [-Animate] entities associated with the value food
• Instruments: [-Animate] entities related to the value tool
Once the N+V combinations were retrieved, the contextualised instances in both
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corpora were then analysed and sorted according to their syntactic alternations.
In the case of the GC, I analysed the first 100 examples from each N+V
combination.
4. Results and Discussion
In this section, I discuss the main results of the corpus analysis. Firstly, I present the
most salient N+V combinations from both corpora, distinguishing the semantic
role of the nominal entities in each case. After this, I examine the modulation of
word meaning in some N+V qualia pairs and their co-specified values at the
lexico-semantic level. Finally, I explore the qualia patterns in compositional
argument selection phenomena that were most syntactically productive in both
corpora.
Table 2 shows the Word Sketch instances that were selected and thus identified as
the most frequent N+V qualia pairs in both corpora. To compare these results,
the pairs are ordered in terms of the raw frequency of occurrence of the nominal
entities with each verb (Nº) and their normalised frequency in number of hits per
million tokens (Freq).5 The semantic roles of the nominal entities (whether Agent
(A), Patient (P) or Instrument (I)) and the total number of occurrences (in both
subject and object positions) in both corpora are also provided:
VERB COOK
Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)
Subject position Object position Subject position Object position
Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)
potato(P) 6/(6.68) chicken(P) 98/(128) chef(A) 4,132/(0.07) food(P) 78,933/(1.28)
rice(P) 6/(6.68) potato(P) 66/(89.05) chicken(P) 768/(0.01) meal(P) 65,691/(1.07)
egg(P) 6/(6.68) fish(P) 48/(58.99) pasta(P) 757/(0.01) meat(P) 26,132/(0.42)
chicken(P) 5/(5.57) egg(P) 45/(53.44) meat(P) 751/(0.01) dinner(P) 25,159/(0.41)
fish(P) 3/(3.45) rice(P) 40/(52.71) rice(P) 734/(0.01) rice(P) 24,245/(0.39)
-- -- pasta(P) 35/(51.77) potato(P) 654/(0.01) dish(P) 21,247/(0.34)
-- -- food(P) 25/(34.51) oven(I) 537/(0.01) chicken(P) 19,254/(0.31)
-- -- corn(P) 23/(28.94) bean(P) 457/(0.01) breakfast(P) 13,998/(0.23)
-- -- onion(P) 21/(25.62) onion(P) 415/(0.01) vegetable(P) 12,525/(0.2)
-- -- noodles(P) 18/(20.04) steak(P) 374/(0.01) pasta(P) 9,741/(0.16)
Total nº 26 Total nº 419 Total nº 9,579 Total nº 296,925
TOTAL Nº: 445 TOTAL Nº: 306,504
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VERB BAKE
Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)
Subject position Object position Subject position Object position
Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)
oven(I) 6/(6.68) pie(P) 11/(12.24) bread(P) 5,696/(0.09) bread(P) 41,596/(0.68)
-- -- pastry(P) 8/(8.9) oven(I) 2,788/(0.05) dish(P) 32,684/(0.53)
-- -- fish(P) 8/(8.9) cookie(P) 2,567/(0.04) cake(P) 31,169/(0.51)
-- -- tart(P) 7/(7.79) cake(P) 2,437/(0.04) potato(P) 26,902/(0.44)
-- -- cake(P) 7/(7.79) pie(P) 1,410/(0.02) cookie(P) 22,328/(0.36)
-- -- bun(P) 6/(6.68) cupcake(P) 467/(0.01) bean(P) 20,099/(0.33)
-- -- cookie(P) 6/(6.68) pizza(P) 430/(0.01) pan(I*) 18,387/(0.3)
-- -- loaf(P) 6/(6.68) baker(A) 418/(0.01) pie(P) 10,299/(0.17)
-- -- chicken(P) 4/(4.45) pastry(P) 411/(0.01) apple(P) 5,040/(0.08)
-- -- biscuit(P) 3/(3.45) muffin(P) 322/(0.01) chicken(P) 4,373/(0.07)
Total nº 6 Total nº 66 Total nº 16,946 Total nº 212,877
TOTAL Nº: 72 TOTAL Nº: 229,823
VERB BOIL
Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)
Subject position Object position Subject position Object position
Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)
water(P) 16/(17.81) potato(P) 29/(31.3) pot(I) 2,692/(0.04) water(P) 101,495/(1.65)
mixture(P) 6/(6.68) corn(P) 21/(23.62) kettle(I) 1,628/(0.03) egg(P) 26,026/(0.42)
-- -- mixture(P) 20/(22.26) water(P) 633/(0.01) potato(P) 10,461/(0.17)
-- -- turkey(P) 16/(17.81) mixture(P) 612/(0.01) rice(P) 4,823/(0.08)
-- -- cookie(P) 12/(13.36) liquid(P) 519/(0.01) milk(P) 3,117/(0.05)
-- -- ham(P) 9/(10.7) soup(P) 95/(0) pot(I*) 2,977/(0.05)
-- -- kettle(I*) 8/(8.9) wort(P) 95/(0) kettle(I*) 2,797/(0.05)
-- -- chicken(P) 6/(6.68) pasta(P) 87/(0) peanut(P) 1,776/(0.03)
-- -- wing(P) 6/(6.68) cook(A) 82/(0) pasta(P) 1,613/(0.03)
-- -- pierogi(P) 4/(4.45) potato(P) 65/(0) noodle(P) 1,390/(0.02)
Total nº 22 Total nº 131 Total nº 924 Total nº 156,475
TOTAL Nº: 153 TOTAL Nº: 157,399
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Table 2. Frequency of the most salient N+V qualia pairs in both corpora
Table 2 illustrates the N+V combinations and lexico-semantic features that
characterise each corpus. With the verb cook, the most frequent semantic roles in
subject position are the Patient potato (in the SC) and the Agent chef (in the GC).
Additionally, both corpora reveal the saliency of Patients in object position
(chicken and food, respectively). The two corpora differ in that the verb cook only
occurs with Patients (in both subject and object positions) in the SC, whereas in
the GC, other semantic roles are found in subject position (chef as Agent and oven
as Instrument).
In the case of bake, the most salient semantic roles in subject position are the
instrumental participant oven (in the SC) and the patientive entity bread (in the
GC). No other nominal entities in subject position were found in the SC with the
verb bake, whereas in the GC, three different semantic roles were found in subject
position: Patient (bread), Instrument (oven) and Agent (baker). In both corpora,
all the participants have a patientive nature in object position, with the exception
of pan in the GC, working as Instrument and conveying a metonymic value. To
illustrate this, consider Example 7 from the GC:
VERB FRY
Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)
Subject position Object position Subject position Object position
Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq) Entity(Role) Nº/(Freq)
-- -- onion(P) 113/(125.7) egg(P) 246/(0) egg(P) 4,872/(0.08)
-- -- shallot(P) 18/(20.04) bacon(P) 161/(0) chicken(P) 3,815/(0.06)
-- -- chicken(P) 17/(18.92) onion(P) 114/(0) onion(P) 2,869/(0.05)
-- -- egg(P) 16/(17.81) garlic(P) 76/(0) bacon(P) 1,986/(0.03)
-- -- mushroom(P) 12/(13.36) cook(A) 74/(0) potato(P) 1,782/(0.03)
-- -- gnocchi(P) 11/(12.24) turkey(P) 72/(0) rice(P) 1,150/(0.02)
-- -- potato(P) 11/(12.24) sausage(P) 35/(0) turkey(P) 897/(0.01)
-- -- garlic(P) 10/(11.13) chicken(P) 33/(0) tortilla(P) 620/(0.01)
-- -- bacon(P) 8/(8.9) burger(P) 19/(0) noodles(P) 620/(0.01)
-- -- pancetta(P) 6/(6.68) tofu(P) 14/(0) tofu(P) 457/(0.01)
Total nº 0 Total nº 222 Total nº 623 Total nº 19,068
TOTAL Nº: 153 TOTAL Nº: 19,691
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(7) Bake each pan 10-12 min.
Here, the term pan stands for the ingredients inside it, meaning ‘bake the
ingredients with the pan’. The conceptual metonymy underlying this process is
container for content.
Regarding boil, the most salient co-occurring semantic roles in subject position
refer to the Patient water (in the SC) and the Instrument pot (in the GC). Once
again, the GC presents the three different semantic roles found in subject position:
Instrument (pot and kettle), Patient (water) and Agent (cook). In the SC, the most
frequently co-occurring entities with boil have a patientive nature, either in subject
or object position. The only exception is kettle in object position (see Example 8
taken from the SC), which follows the same process as pan in Example 7:
(8) Boil the kettle.
Here, the term kettle stands for the water inside it, meaning ‘boil the water with
the kettle’. The conceptual metonymy underlying this process is container for
content as well.
In the case of fry, no statistically relevant nominal entities in subject position were
found in the SC, whereas two different semantic roles (Patient and Agent)
occurred in the GC, as illustrated by egg and cook, respectively. All the entities
found in both subject and object position in both corpora with fry have a
patientive nature (with the exception of cook in subject position in the SC).
The lack of nominal entities and variety of semantic roles in subject position
observed throughout the SC is due to the pervasive use of instructional
imperatives, where no agentive subject is syntactically coded, though semantically
recoverable as you. Consider the following instance in Example 9 taken from the
SC in this regard:
(9) Fry the onions.
Recipe texts commonly contain imperative structures that guide users in the
cooking process. The SC contains a higher concentration of this type of patterns
as compared with the GC. As detailed below in this section, the most productive
structure in both corpora is the basic/canonical pattern. The main difference is
that the GC tends to portray the whole action chain, including salient Agent and
Patient entities (in declarative patterns), whereas the SC focuses on patientive
participants (within imperative forms).
Below I discuss the corpus results by examining the subject-verb qualia pairs in
N+V combinations where we find the different semantic roles of the nominal
entity (Agent, Patient and Instrument). Figure 2 shows the qualia structure
representation of four lexical items and highlights the co-specified qualia values
of these nominal entities in subject position in combination with cooking verbs.
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The four lexical items and their semantic roles are chef (as an Agent), bread (as
Patient of the artifactual kind), kettle (as Instrument) and water (as Patient of the
natural kind).
Figure 2. Qualia structure representation of nouns with different semantic roles + cooking verbs
As illustrated in Figure 2, when these four nominal entities co-occur with cooking
verbs, they profile different qualia values depending on their semantic roles
(Agent, Patient and Instrument when in subject position) and the most
conceptually salient information they provide. The list below captures the main
principles of argument selection of these lexical items to form N+V qualia pairs in
the specialised discourse of cooking:
• Agentive participants (like chef) + cooking verb (like cook) = [Qt = ø = Qit]
• Artifactual patientive participants (like bread) + cooking verb (like bake) =
[Qa]
• Naturally-occurring patientive participants (like water) + cooking verb (like
boil) = [Qf/Qc]6
• Instrumental participants (like kettle) + cooking verb (like boil) = [Qt]
In the case of agentive and instrumental participants with cooking verbs, different
types of telic values are denoted, as represented by chef and kettle in Figure 2
above. The former refers to the ‘indirect telic’ (Qit) and the latter refers to the
‘direct telic’ (Qt) value. According to Pustejovsky and Jezek (2016: 30), the (Qt)
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characterises the entity as something used to perform a particular activity (as in
kettle_boil), whereas the (Qit) characterises the entity as something that has the
function of carrying out the action denoted (as in chef_cook).
Therefore, as stated in Pustejovsky and Jezek (2016: 29), even though the (Qt) is
mostly associated with instrumental objects (as in kettle_boil), a telic value is also
present in nouns that denote concepts such as professions (as in chef _cook),
agentive nominals (like runner_run) and functional locations (such as school_
learn).
As illustrated in Figure 2, chef denotes a person (Qf) having the ability (Qa) to
cook (Qit). Correspondingly, in the case of kettle, this nominal denotes a tool
(Qf) used to boil water (Qt). Hence, in N+V qualia pairs where the nominal entity
is an Agent, the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qit) of its argument (either in
subject or object position). Similarly, in those N+V qualia pairs where the nominal
entity is an Instrument, the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qt) of its argument,
either in subject or (oblique) object position.
The other N+V qualia pairs retrieved from the corpus analysis that also denote
the (Qit) relation between the Agent and a cooking verb are baker_bake, cook_boil
and cook_fry. These combinations only appear in the GC, since no salient Agents
were identified in the SC. However, a (Qt) relation is found in the following N+V
qualia pairs, where the nominal performs the semantic role of Instrument: oven _
bake (in both corpora), and oven_cook, oven_fry, utensil_cook and pan_bake (only
in the GC).
Regarding artifactual and naturally-occurring patientive participants with
cooking verbs, we observe different patientive entities (natural and artifactual
kinds) participating in cooking events, thus denoting divergent N+V qualia pairs.
This is represented by the lexical items bread and water, respectively, in Figure 2
above. Whereas artifactual Patient-oriented entities profile a (Qa) value, naturally-
occurring Patients rely on a (Qf/Qc) relation, as detailed below.
The patientive entity bread belongs to the artifactual kind since it has been
created intentionally through a baking event. In the field of cooking, artifactual
Patient-oriented entities denote specific types of food (Qf) that are meant to be
eaten (Qt) following a process of creation (Qa). Therefore, in N+V qualia pairs
where the nominal entity is an artifactual Patient, the cooking verb co-specifies
the (Qa) of its argument (either in subject or object position). The other most
productive N+V qualia pairs retrieved from the corpora analysis that also denote
artifactual patientive entities co-specifying a (Qa) value are potato _cook (in the
SC) and cake_bake and egg_fry (in the GC).
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Finally, the patientive participant water is a naturally-occurring entity. As
represented in Figure 2, the default value of (nil Qa) of this type of entities
captures “the primacy of a natural origin” (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 34),
since they have not been created through any activity or intentional behaviour.
The only patientive entity of a natural kind found in the corpus is water, profiling
a (Qf/Qc) relation with the predicate boil. Thus, water denotes a type of liquid
that can boil due to its internal composition (Qf subsuming Qc); it is meant to be
drunk (Qt); and its origin possesses a naturally-occurring nature (nil Qa).
Therefore, in N+V qualia pairs where the nominal entity is a naturally-occurring
Patient, the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qf/Qc) values of its argument (either
in subject or object position).
So far, I have analysed modulation of word meaning in N+V qualia pairs and their
co-specified values at a lexico-semantic level, paying special attention to salient
lexical items in the discourse of cooking and focusing on the semantic roles of
these nominal entities with regard to a set of cooking verbs. Let us now further
explore the qualia patterns in compositional argument selection phenomena at
the syntactic level. Examples 10, 11 and 17 were retrieved from the GC, whereas
Examples 12 -16 were taken from the SC:
(10) The chef had never cooked vegan food before.
(11) The cook boiled the water for sterilizing.
(12) The fish fillets cooked through after 10min.
(13) The water boiled after 3-4min.
(14) Baked potatoes cook in about half the usual time in an air fryer.
(15) Water boils rapidly.
(16) This oven baked the salmon recipe perfectly.
(17) The oven cooks quickly and evenly.
Examples 10 and 11 represent canonical active transitives, whereas Examples 12-
15 represent intransitive alternations classified as follows: 12 and 13 are instances
of the causative/inchoative alternation, respectively incorporating an artifactual
and a naturally-occurring entity as Patients in subject position (fish fillets and
water). Examples 14 and 15 represent middles, which also incorporate an
artifactual and a naturally-occurring entity as Patients in subject position (baked
potatoes and water). Finally, Examples 16 and 17 represent, respectively, the
transitive and intransitive counterparts of the Instrument-subject alternation
(with oven).
Examples 10-17 are represented in Figure 3 to profile their qualia patterns in
compositional analysis at the syntactic level.
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Figure 3. Qualia patterns in compositional analysis at the syntactic level
As shown in Figure 3, canonical actives within the field of cooking (as in
Example 10) are transitive constructions that typically consist of patterns in
which the cooking verb expresses the (Qit) of the subject. Depending on the
nature of the Patient (whether artifactual or naturally-occurring), the cooking
verb expresses a different pattern in qualia structure: in combination with
artifactual Patients (like vegan food), the cooking verb expresses the (Qa) of the
object, thus profiling the creation process that the entity undergoes. Alternatively,
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in combination with a naturally-occurring entity (like water), the cooking verb
expresses the (Qf/Qc) value of the object, since no (Qa) is found in natural kinds.
Thus, canonical active structures with artifactual Patients involve a [Qit + Qa]
qualia pattern in compositional analysis, whereas canonical actives with naturally-
occurring entities as Patients profile the [Qit + Qf/Qc] qualia pattern.
Figure 3 further illustrates both causatives/inchoatives and middles as intransitive
alternations. They have a common syntactic one-argument structure with a
patientive subject. However, depending on the nature of the nominal entity
(whether artifactual or naturally-occurring), a different qualia pattern is profiled
in compositional analysis. In those structures with an artifactual Patient-oriented
subject (as illustrated in Examples 12 and 14, respectively), the cooking verb co-
specifies the (Qa) of the subject by conceptually implying its creation processes.
However, in those structures with a natural-kind Patient-oriented subject (as in
Examples 13 and 15, respectively), the cooking verb co-specifies the (Qf/Qc)
values of the subject, since no (Qa) is found in natural kinds. Thus, causatives/
inchoatives and middles with an artifactual Patient-oriented subject underlie the
[Qa] qualia pattern in compositional analysis, but with natural-kind Patient-
oriented subjects they undergo the [Qf/Qc] pattern. The main difference between
these constructions is that causatives/inchoatives involve a specific time reference,
whereas middles incorporate adverbial/modal modifiers (time-oriented adjuncts
in 14 and 15) that influence their aspectual properties and reinforce their non-
eventive nature (Palma Gutiérrez 2022: 44).
The same qualia analysis can be applied to the passive structure. Even though
Levin (1993) does not contemplate passives as possible alternations with cooking
verbs, this Patient-subject alternation has been found very frequently in the
corpora examined, as detailed below.7 The main difference between the passive
and the other Patient-oriented structures (middles and causatives/inchoatives) is
that the passive Agent is either defocused (in a by- clause) or omitted syntactically,
whereas in the other structures, the Agent is totally demoted.
Finally, the Instrument-subject alternations illustrated in Figure 3 capture both the
transitive and the intransitive syntactic counterparts (respectively shown in Examples
16 and 17). Semantically, both alternations contain Instruments in subject position
(oven), and thus, their cooking verbs express the (Qt) of these participants. The
main difference between these alternations is that the transitive counterpart
encodes the patientive object at the syntactic level, whereas the intransitive
counterpart conceptually evokes it via metonymy. As detailed below, in order to
analyse the intransitive counterpart, I examine the notion of conceptual
modulation of noun meaning (Pustejovsky and Jezek 2016: 12) based on the
predicate’s argument selection process through a metonymic operation.
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First, in the case of the transitive counterpart of the Instrument-subject alternation,
I observed the following. In the selectional context of the verb bake, the noun
salmon is used to explicitly denote the entity that undergoes the baking process
(Qa), thus profiling the [Qt + Qa] qualia pattern in compositional analysis.
However, in the intransitive counterpart, I explored the notion of conceptual
modulation of noun meaning via metonymy. In the selectional context of the verb
cook, the noun oven is used to implicitly denote the entity that undergoes the
cooking process (Qa) by means of the metonymic complex instrument for action
for result (Serrano-Losada 2015: 43). This metonymic complex implies a dual
analysis: first, a domain expansion metonymy whereby the instrumental entity
oven stands for the action denoted cooking (i.e. instrument for action), and then,
a domain reduction metonymy whereby the action of cooking stands for its resulting
product food (i.e. action for result). Therefore, intransitive alternations of the
Instrument-subject construction profile the [Qt[Qa]] qualia pattern in compositional
analysis, where the (Qa) value is metonymically embedded within the (Qt) of the
N+V qualia pair.
Yet, as observed in the corpora, another metonymic relation is possible with
intransitive Instrument-subject alternations like The kettle boiled. In this case, in
the selectional context of boil, the noun kettle is used to metonymically evoke a
container for content relation (‘kettle’ for ‘water contained in the kettle’). In
contrast to the analysis carried out in Example 17, where a (Qa) value is embedded
within the (Qt) relation between oven and cook ([Qt[Qa]]), in the case of The kettle
boiled, the embedded qualia values are (Qf/Qc) because the nominal water is of a
natural kind ([Qt[Qf/Qc]]). Exploring which type of nominal entity is most
frequently topicalised when in combination with these verbs demonstrates the
tendency of these N+V combinations to participate in certain syntactic alternations
more productively.
As shown in Table 3, the four verbs under study were more productive in the
canonical pattern in both corpora, despite their differences in size. The main
differences were found in the second most productive N+V pairs retrieved in
each case.
Specialised corpus (SC) General corpus (GC)
cook bake boil fry cook bake boil fry
Canonical 265 64 129 221 953 902 1042 975
Caus/Incho 20 0 18 0 661 499 436 500
Middle 2 0 4 0 139 296 208 38
Instr. Subj 2 6 0 0 99 213 206 0
Passive 156 2 2 1 115 69 32 110
Table 3. Frequency of the syntactic alternations with each verb in both corpora
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The data displayed in Table 3 confirms the research hypothesis: there exists a
correlation between the most productive N+V qualia pairs and the most frequent
syntactic constructions found in the corpora. First, the N+V[cook] combinations
suggest the following: the most salient pairs are cook_chicken (in the SC) and
cook_food (in the GC), thus entailing a higher productivity of the basic/
canonical action chain with Patients in object position and Agents in subject
position (which can be elicited in the imperative form) in both corpora.
Additionally, other salient N+V[cook] combinations are potato_cook (in the SC)
and chef_cook (in the GC). The former indicates a higher productivity of
grammatical patterns containing patientive subjects (such as passives, causative/
inchoatives or middles) in the SC, whereas the latter implies a higher productivity
of Agent-subject structures, whether in the canonical form (i.e. also including a
Patient in object position) or in the unspecified object alternation (i.e. with no
object specified).
Second, the N+V[bake] combinations show that the most salient pairs are bake_
pie (in the SC) and bake_bread (in the GC), therefore pointing to a higher
productivity of the basic/canonical action chain with Patients in object position
in both corpora. Also relevant is the case of oven_bake, which is highly frequent
in both corpora and implies a higher productivity of the Instrument-subject
alternation (transitive and intransitive variants) in both corpora.
Third, the N+V[boil] combinations indicate that the most salient pairs are boil_
potato (in the SC) and boil_water (in the GC), thus revealing a higher productivity
of the canonical structure with Patients in object position in both corpora.
Additionally, the other most salient N+V[boil] combinations are water_boil (in
the SC) and pot _boil (in the GC). The former would lead to a higher productivity
of Patient-oriented subject (such as middles, passives or causative/inchoative
alternations) in the SC, whereas the latter would imply a higher productivity of
Instrument-subject alternations in the GC.
Finally, the N+V[fry] combinations show that the most salient pairs are fry_onion
(in the SC) and fry_egg (in the GC), therefore indicating a higher productivity of
canonical patterns with patientive objects in both corpora. Additionally, in the
GC we also observe another highly salient pair, egg_fry, therefore implying a
higher productivity of Patient-subject structures (like middles, passives or
causatives/inchoatives).
Therefore, the data provided in Table 3 above, together with the previous
discussion of the connections between the normalised frequency of occurrence of
certain N+V qualia pairs and certain syntactic patterns, demonstrate that these
correspondences are different in each corpus, and this contrast contributes to the
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lexico-semantic and syntactic characterisation of the discourse of cooking. In
both corpora, the most frequent grammatical pattern is the canonical structure
with the four verbs. However, the second most salient syntactic alternations differ
in both corpora. In the GC, the second most productive structure is the causative/
inchoative alternation with the four verbs due to the saliency of N+V combinations
containing Patient-oriented subjects. On the other hand, in the SC, each verb is
more productive in different structures, either relying on the saliency of N+V
pairs with Patient- or Instrument-oriented subjects: cook is more frequent in the
passive form, bake in the Instrument-subject alternation, boil in the causative/
inchoative alternation and fry in the passive form.
5. Conclusions
This paper analyses naturally-occurring language by applying the principles of
argument selection phenomena to examine the motivating factors behind the
processes of qualia-pairing and co-specification in the specialised discourse of
cooking. To do so, I examined the selectional contexts of four cooking verbs
(cook, bake, boil and fry) and the most salient nominal entities (in subject/object
positions) in combination with these verbs in two corpora (a specialised corpus
and a general corpus). This led to the creation of different argument structure
realisations as well as distinctive syntactic alternations in which the N+V
combinations were found. The results of this corpus-based study shed light on
the lexico-semantic and syntactic characterisation of the specialised discourse of
cooking.
As demonstrated here, the type of nominal entity most frequently topicalised
with the cooking verbs examined shows the tendency of each N+V combination
to participate more productively in certain syntactic alternations. In both corpora,
the four verbs are more productive in the canonical pattern. Concerning the
remaining less prototypical syntactic alternations, there are different tendencies
depending on the nature of the most frequent N+V pairs with each verb. In the
GC, the most frequent non-prototypical alternation is the causative/inchoative
pattern with the four verbs. In contrast, in the SC, other grammatical structures
become salient.
Regarding the notion of qualia structure, I have also demonstrated that these
cooking verbs express a (Qit) value when combined with agentive subjects. This
is illustrated in the N+V qualia pairs chef_cook, baker _bake and cook_fry. These
cooking verbs express divergent patterns in qualia structure depending on the
nature of the patientive entities they accompany (whether artifactual or naturally-
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63
occurring). Therefore, artifactual Patients (in both subject and object position)
with cooking verbs evoke a (Qa) relation in their qualia patterns. These nominals
co-specify the meaning of the predicates by conceptually implying their creation
process (Qa) and encoding the resulting outcome. This is illustrated in the N+V
qualia pair bread_bake, egg_fry and potato_cook. However, this relation is not
found in naturally-occurring Patients with cooking verbs, since natural kinds
have (nil Qa) and thus profile a (Qf/Qc) value in co-specification with the
predicates, as shown in the N+V qualia pair water_boil. Finally, the cooking verbs
examined here express a (Qt) value when combined with Instrument subjects in
both transitive and intransitive counterparts. This is illustrated in the N+V qualia
pairs pot_boil, oven_cook, oven_bake and kettle_boil.
When the above N+V qualia pairs are examined regarding the syntactic
alternations that these cooking verbs can undergo, the following patterns in
compositional co-specification are found:
(i) Canonical active structures represent one of these complex patterns
depending on the nature of the grammatical object: [Qit + Qa] or [Qit +
Qf/Qc].
(i) Causatives/Inchoatives, middles and passives illustrate one of these
simple patterns depending on the nature of the grammatical subject: [Qa]
or [Qf/Qc].
(iii) Instrument-subject alternations denote one of these qualia patterns
depending on the occurrence or not of a metonymically-based operation
on the grammatical subject: [Qt + Qa], [Qt[Qa]] or [Qt[Qf/Qc]].
This study has examined contextual modulation of word meaning by exploring
the process of compositional argument selection in N+V qualia pairs in the
specialised discourse of cooking. The significance of the present study for the
specialised domain of cooking is directly associated with its linguistic
characterisation in terms of its lexico-semantic and syntactic features, particularly,
when in combination with a usage-based approach. Future lines of research may
explore other syntactic alternations, as well as other metonymically-based
operations.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for taking the time and effort to
review the manuscript. I sincerely appreciate all their valuable comments and
suggestions, which helped me in improving the quality of the paper.
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Notes
1. Levin also presents other
alternations with cooking verbs (adjectival
passive participle alternations (e.g. a baked
potato), and resultative phrases (e.g. Jennifer
baked the potatoes to a crisp)) (1993: 244).
However, these were discarded because the
former have a lexical (not a syntactic) nature,
and thus, no transitivity alternations can be
examined, and the latter, because no instances
were found in the corpora consulted.
2. The process of lexical
decomposition follows the idea that words
can be decomposed into semantic primitives
annotated as (±) binary values. For example, the
word chair can be decomposed as [-Animate],
[+Countable], [+Concrete], [+Artifact].
3. As Pustejovsky and Jezek
explain, “[a] qualia pair may take the form of a
verb-noun pairing, and adjective-noun
pairing, or a compound” (2016: 31). This paper
focuses exclusively on N+V qualia pairs to
analyse the argument selection process
within the specialised discourse of cooking.
4. Association score uses
pointwise mutual information between the
target word and its collocate, multiplied by
the log of the pair frequency for the particular
grammatical relation examined. Association
score uses the so-called logDice statistical
measure to automatically identify collocations
and frequent combinations of words and is
not affected by the size of the corpus (Rychlý
2008).
5. In Table 2, both raw frequency
and normalised frequency are provided. Even
though the raw frequency in the SC is minimal
compared to that of the GC, the normalised
frequency is higher in the SC. This is so
because the N+V pairs are more productive in
the SC than in the GC, despite their size.
6. The qualia representation of the
naturally-occurring entity water merges Qf
and Qc values because we cannot separate
what this entity is (Qf) from what it is made of
(Qc). In fact, we could specify the Qc value
since each water molecule is identical and is
made up of one oxygen atom and two
hydrogen atoms, chemically represented as
H2O. However, its Qf value cannot be
separated from this established Qc condition.
7. Two syntactic patterns not
proposed by Levin (1993) as potential
alternations with cooking verbs were
identified in the GC (not in the SC), particularly,
with the verbs cook and bake, distributed as
follows: 26 instances with cook and 19 with
bake in the unspecified object alternation, and
seven instances with cook and two with bake
in the benefactive alternation.
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65
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 67-89 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
67
YONAY RODRÍGUEZ RODRÍGUEZ
CUD-AGM Universidad de Zaragoza
yonay@unizar.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1969-7218>
A STUDY OF BELIEFS ABOUT EMI PROGRAMMES
IN A GALICIAN UNIVERSITY
ESTUDIO DE LAS CREENCIAS SOBRE
EL APRENDIZAJE DE CONTENIDOS EN INGLÉS
EN UNA UNIVERSIDAD GALLEGA
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510358
Abstract
The beliefs that learners hold are a key variable in language learning, and from a
socio-cultural perspective, learner beliefs are connected to the context in which
learning takes place. This study, which forms part of a more extensive project on
beliefs about English as a foreign language (EFL), explores the views of a group
of students and instructors at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC)
regarding content learning in English. The beliefs of 373 students and instructors
were measured by means of a questionnaire and interview. Despite indicating a
generally positive predisposition towards EMI programmes, the responses varied
based on the academic field of the course content, students’ previous language-
learning experience and the type of English instruction used in teaching. In
addition, the data revealed a series of issues concerning the implementation of
EMI programmes at the USC. This study is the first of its type to be conducted
at this institution and one of the few in Galicia. Findings from the study
underscore the context-specific nature of beliefs in general while also drawing the
USC, together with other Spanish and foreign academic institutions, into a
broader assessment and discussion of EMI programmes.
Key words: beliefs, context, English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI),
programme implementation.
Yonay Rodríguez Rodríguez
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68
Resumen
Las creencias del estudiantado son una variable importante en el proceso de
aprendizaje de un idioma, y desde un enfoque sociocultural, guardan una estrecha
relación con el contexto donde se aprende. Como parte de un proyecto más
extenso acerca de las creencias sobre el Inglés como Lengua Extranjera (ILE), en
este estudio se exploraron las ideas preconcebidas de un grupo de estudiantes y
profesores de la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC) sobre el
aprendizaje de contenidos en inglés. Para ello se recopiló información de 373
participantes mediante un cuestionario y una entrevista. Los datos indican que, a
pesar de que los participantes mostraron una predisposición favorable hacia los
programas EMI, el área académica del alumnado, su experiencia previa en el
aprendizaje de idiomas, y el tipo de instrucción en inglés del profesorado marcaron
algunas diferencias. Además, se identificaron una serie de cuestiones relacionadas
con la implementación de estos programas en la USC. Al ser el primero de su tipo
que se realiza en esta institución y uno de los pocos en Galicia, este estudio
refuerza el carácter contextual de las creencias y ubica a la USC, junto a otras
universidades españolas e internacionales, en la evaluación de los programas EMI.
Palabras clave: creencias, contexto, instrucción en inglés, implementación de
programas.
1. Introduction
In recent decades, research has focused on the different ways in which beliefs are
formed and how beliefs relate to the actions, emotions and identities of learners
and instructors within the social and political contexts in which the teaching-
learning process takes place (Ellis and Tanaka 2003; Kalaja et al. 2015). Several
studies conducted in Spain have addressed the ways in which beliefs are related to
different language-learning variables (Roothooft and Breeze 2016; Doiz et al.
2019; Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al. 2020). However, few have been carried out in
Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain. One study, conducted by Cal Varela and
Fernández Polo (2007), explored self-perceptions of English proficiency among
the teaching staff at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and the
ability of these academics to carry out activities related to their work. However,
students were not included as participants in the study. Another study, by Loredo
Gutiérrez et al. (2007), surveyed the attitudes of Galician students toward
multilingualism. The present study intends to fill the research gap by exploring
the views of 373 USC students and faculty members regarding English as a
medium of instruction (EMI).
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As part of a process of internationalisation, Galician universities have enacted
various initiatives to enhance their curricula in order to attract more students
from outside the country. At the USC, where the present study was carried out,
the last decade has seen the introduction of a wide range of extracurricular
courses offered in different foreign languages (FLs) and an increasing number of
for-credit courses in English. In addition, universities have taken measures to
apply the Regulation for Quality Teaching in FLs (LEDUS in Galician), which
demands that all university teaching staff demonstrate a CEFR C1 proficiency
level if they are to teach a subject in English; to enrol in these courses, students
are required to have a B2 level. This expanded course offering in FLs has had a
direct impact on the beliefs and attitudes that students and faculty hold about
English as a language of instruction for learning course content, and this is the
dimension of EFL learning that this project sets out to explore. Evaluating how
students and instructors perceive the implementation of academic programs such
as EMI is necessary to make informed decisions that have implications for future
educational initiatives of this kind.
2. Theoretical Background
2.1. Content Learning through English Instruction in Higher Education
The presence of EMI programmes in higher education curricula has expanded in
recent times in step with the process of internationalisation. Yet, findings from
studies on their effectiveness for learning have been rather ambiguous. On the
one hand, EMI programmes are generally welcomed by students and educators
(Doiz et al. 2011; Aguilar 2017; An and Thomas 2021) and have been associated
with significant improvements in all four main English skills (Rogier 2012).
Students have also acknowledged that EMI-based teaching has certain
advantages, such as high student motivation due to the instrumental role of
English, as EMI increases students’ opportunities to practice their linguistic
skills, thus making them better prepared for mobility and more competitive
within the job market (Avello et al. 2016; Fernández-Costales 2017; Serna
Bermejo and Lasagabaster 2023). University faculty also report that EMI
programmes help them develop their linguistic competence, giving them an
added feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction; additionally, these programmes
are often tied to certain administrative and/or financial incentives (Dearden and
Macaro 2016; Macaro et al. 2019).
On the other hand, several common issues surrounding the implementation of
these programmes have been identified, mainly concerning the English
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proficiency of learners and the preparedness and attitudes of instructors, together
with issues relating to policy implementation and the involvement of other
stakeholders. Regarding linguistic competence in English, much concern has
been voiced about the ability of learners to assimilate content and develop
linguistic skills through EMI (Doiz et al. 2011; Murata 2019; Wang 2021). In
addition, challenges related to the development of disciplinary literacy and the
distribution of EMI subjects across the curriculum are also seen as problematic
(Airey 2011; Dearden 2018; Dafouz and Smit 2020).
The introduction of EMI programmes also leads to a change in the role of
lecturers and professors. Different studies (Doiz et al. 2013b; Kirkgöz and
Dikilitaş 2018; Murata 2019; Bowles and Murphy 2020) have identified both
positive and negative aspects of EMI in this regard. The disadvantages include,
for example, the general tendency for instructors who teach through EMI to
sidestep linguistic issues in their practice (Doiz et al. 2011; Dafouz 2014; Aguilar
2017), largely because they are not English specialists. In addition, merely
possessing linguistic expertise in English does not make an instructor qualified
to deliver this type of teaching (Dearden and Macaro 2016; Akincioğlu 2024).
Other issues such as the need for effective EMI assessment tasks, educators’
concerns about the additional responsibilities and workload that EMI entails and
the lack of administrative and financial support from other stakeholders (Aguilar
2017; Mede et al. 2018; Shohamy 2019) have also been detected.
Most of the concerns identified thus far in research seem to point to problems
stemming from inconsistencies in policy implementation, which results in limited
or incongruent procedures that hamper successful teaching and learning. This,
coupled with the need to monitor and assess these programmes, plus the need for
more human and financial resources, are pressing concerns in many institutions
of higher education today (Roberts and Palmer 2011; Doiz et al. 2013a; Ekoç
2018), including the USC, as the present study seeks to show.
2.2. The Concept of Beliefs
In simple terms, a belief can be understood as a strong opinion about what is
considered right, good or appropriate. In EFL, the beliefs of students and
instructors are central to their approaches to and expectations about the learning
process (Ellis 2008; Sadeghi and Abdi 2015). Beliefs have been found to play a
key role, for instance, in the mismatch between the aims and behaviour of
students and educators in the classroom, in the way students choose and deploy
learning strategies, in levels of student anxiety, and in the degree of autonomy in
the learning process (Barcelos and Kalaja 2006; Dafouz et al. 2016; Sydorenko et
al. 2017; Doiz and Lasagabaster 2018; Moncada-Comas 2022). Woods (1996)
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showed that teachers’ beliefs about knowledge (BAK) were closely linked to
their decisions when organising and delivering the course and also to their
professional identity, which has been supported by more recent studies (Huang
et al. 2021; Er 2024).
According to Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory (SCT), beliefs change under the
influence of significant others (Barcelos and Kalaja 2011), that is, individuals or
conditions relevant to the learner, such as other learners, friends, teachers,
advisors and academic programmes. These sources provide varied interpretations,
experiences, or circumstances related to the learning event, which learners and
teachers assimilate and act upon. Among these significant others, scholars have
identified, for example, the language-learning context (ESL vs EFL), classroom
instruction, institutional policies, socio-cultural factors and new situational
experiences (e.g. university transfer due to changing cities, migration or Erasmus
programmes) (Orduna-Nocito and Sánchez-García 2022; Sato and Storch 2022;
Cots and Mancho-Barés 2024).
In the Spanish context, in their analysis of different learning environments (EFL
formal instruction, Study-abroad (SA) and English as a Medium of Instruction
(EMI)), Pérez Vidal et al. (2018) reported on more pragmatic benefits and more
self-confidence for EMI students as compared to students with SA experience. In
addition, Doiz and Lasagabaster (2018) and Serna Bermejo and Lasagabaster
(2023) found a relationship between L2 motivation and EMI contexts among
Spanish learners. More recently, interest has focused on the socio-academic
context and perceptions of students and teachers (Pérez-Llantada 2018; Rubio-
Cuenca and Perea-Barberá 2021; Velilla Sánchez 2021) to identify issues and
implement initiatives to improve the quality of EMI programmes.
3. The Study
EMI programmes are a type of significant other according to SCT and discussed
above. That is, they are a learning environment which will inevitably affect the
beliefs of students and instructors. In turn, their beliefs about these courses will
influence their choice of learning and teaching strategies, as well as their
motivation and attitude towards the learning process. With this in mind, the
present study focused on two main research questions:
RQ1. What are the beliefs of USC students and instructors from different
academic disciplines about learning course content in English?
RQ2. How do USC students and teaching staff evaluate the implementation
and functioning of EMI programmes?
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3.1. Participants
Of the 649 USC informants who participated in the main study about beliefs,
57% (n=373) provided data about their beliefs regarding content learning in
English, 338 of whom were students and 35 were instructors. Table 1 below
outlines the main demographic characteristics of this population sample.
STUDENTS (n=338)
Academic level Sex Nationality Academic areas
1st year
n=124 (37%) Females
n=238 (70%) Foreign
n=32 (10%)
English Studies n=99 (29%)
Other lang and lit n=20 (6%)
Cultural studies n=7 (2%)
2nd year
n=75 (22%) Males
n=100 (30%) Spanish
n=306 (90%)
Chemistry n=78 (23%)
Physics n=16 (5%)
Double degrees (Nat Sc) n=9 (2%)
3rd year
n=70 (21%)
Engineering n=17 (5%)
Journalism and AdV Comm n=6 (2%)
Criminology and Law n=19 (6%)
4th year
n=61 (18%)
Odontology n=27 (8%)
Educational Sciences n=40 (12%)
Master P.
n=8 (2%)
INSTRUCTORS (n=35)
Level taught Sex Nationality Type of English instruction
Undergraduate
n=17 (48%) Females
n=17 (49%) Foreign
n=4 (11%) EMI programmes
n=16 (45%)
Under- and
postgraduate
n=17 (48%)
Males
n=18 (51%) Spanish
n=31 (88%)
General English programmes
(Philology, ESP)
n=19 (55%)
Postgraduate only
n=1 (3%)
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the USC population sample
3.2. Methodology
A total of 338 students completed an online questionnaire on beliefs, of whom 56
were also interviewed. Meanwhile, 35 faculty members responded to the
questionnaire, 22 of whom participated in an interview. The student questionnaire
was a 39-item inventory based on the Beliefs About Learning Language Inventory
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(BALLI) for FL students (Horwitz 1988). It included four items on beliefs about
EMI programmes, of which one close-ended question (36) was an opener to
another three (37-39). The 34-item questionnaire version for instructors included
two items related to EMI programmes. To tailor the study to the USC context,
the two questionnaires were available in multilingual format (Galician, Spanish,
English) and included a final section for open comments. The reliability of each
tool, which was measured using Cronbach’s alpha, ranged between 0.6 and 0.7.
Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were carried out with students and
instructors, using a set of 16 questions for students and 12 for instructors; each
set included one question and a number of prompts about EMI programmes. The
shortest conversations with students lasted about 27-30 minutes, and 31 of these
shortest conversations were held individually. The longest interviews lasted
approximately 52 minutes, six of them were held with two students and three of
them with focus groups of 4-5 students. Meanwhile, the instructors discussed
EMI programmes during individual interviews that lasted about 37 minutes. The
interviews were also offered in multilingual versions, and all answers were
transcribed orthographically for analysis.
As stipulated by the ethical guidelines of the USC (Código de Boas Prácticas Na
Investigación 2018: 11-12), consent was obtained from all participants prior to
collecting the study data, and informant anonymity was guaranteed through data
coding. Quantitative data were analysed using a variety of statistical tests available
in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) with an alpha level set
at.05, while NVivo software was used for thematic analysis of the interview data.
Based on the research questions, three variables were used to contrast each group
of participants, that is, the students’ field of study, their foreign language
experience, and their sex; in the case of instructors, the variables used were years
of professional experience, type of English instruction, and sex.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1. The Pattern of Beliefs of Students and Instructors about EMI
As regards the student questionnaire, three main statements (STs) were used to
explore their perceptions about learning through EMI.
ST37. My level of satisfaction about learning English through another subject
is (very low /low/a bit low/a bit high/high/very high).
ST38. When I learn other subjects in English, my English skills develop (not a
bit/very little/a bit/moderately/much/very much).
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ST39. When I learn a subject in English, I learn the content of this subject (I
can’t learn it/with much difficulty/with difficulty/with some difficulty/
easily/very easily).
Concerning the first research question, the findings show a generally homogenous
pattern of beliefs both among students and teaching staff about EMI, with differences
emerging based on variables such as disciplinary area and the type of instruction.
4.1.1. Quantitative Data from Students’ Questionnaire Responses
The reported level of satisfaction with learning content through English among
students was rather minimal (M=3.7). Whereas the informants expressed that
they are capable of learning the content of the academic subjects relatively well
(M=4.21), they believed the development of their language competence in English
to be limited (M=4.05). As one of the informants commented,
…having other subjects in English serves to learn specific vocabulary rather than to
develop skills, in my opinion and personal experience. (QtSt282)
The analysis of the variables confirmed this general belief pattern, while certain
contrasts also became evident.
4.1.1.1. Variable 1: Learners’ Area of Study
Regarding the areas of study in which learners were enrolled, a comparison of
responses across three main discipline areas yielded significant statistical
differences. As expected, responses to ST37 by Humanities and Social Sciences
students contrasted with those of the other groups in all three items related to
EMI (Table 2).
GROUPS: G1 HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (n=126)
G2 NATURAL SCIENCES (n=103)
G3 APPLIED SCIENCES (n=109)
Questionnaire statement (ST) Mean value Significant differences
ST37. My level of satisfaction with learning
English through another subject is…
G1 (M=4.03)
G1-G2 (p<.001)G2 (M=3.28)
G3 (M=3.74)
ST38. When I learn other subjects in English,
my English skills develop…
G1(M=4.48) G1-G2 (p<.001)
G2 (M=3.63)
G3 (M=3.94) G1-G3 (p<.001)
ST39. When I learn a subject in English, I learn
the content of this subject…
G1(M=4.47) G1-G2 (p=.01)
G2(M=4.13)
G3(M=3.99) G1-G3 (p< .001)
Table 2. Statistically significant differences in responses across the three main disciplinary areas
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To obtain a more detailed account of students’ beliefs across specific academic
fields, the questionnaire responses were also organised into 11 different academic
subgroups containing one or two related degrees. The statistically significant
differences found are shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Statistical differences in responses across the 11 academic areas (n=338)
As can be observed, the responses to ST37 varied across the different disciplinary
fields. The learners who reported the strongest dissatisfaction with the EMI
experience were those enrolled in chemistry (M=3.21) and educational sciences
(M=3.08). However, fewer significant differences were found for statements 38
and 39, and the pattern described in Table 2 above was confirmed, with students
in English studies acknowledging greater development of their language skills
(M=4.56) and more effective learning of the course content (M=4.53). All in all,
the informants reported that they learned the content of their respective academic
subjects relatively well, while they perceived their language learning was limited.
These results mirror the unbalanced EMI learning scenario in terms of content
and language-learning outcomes in higher education (HE) that Airey describes
(2016: 73). He explains that, when enrolling in EMI courses, students are
expected to have already acquired sufficient linguistic competence in pre-
university education. Yet, as we shall see throughout this section, not only are the
student informants affected by this imbalance in EMI programmes, but also by
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insufficient linguistic preparation before starting them. Other research has also
pinpointed the different issues that this imbalance may cause for students’
learning (Arnó-Macià and Aguilar-Pérez 2021; Pun and Jin 2021; Zhang and
Pladevall-Ballester 2021).
4.1.1.2. Variable 2: Language-Learning Experience (LLE)
This variable comprised three sub-variables: the number of languages that
students knew other than their L1 —here called extra languages (ExL)—, the
number of foreign languages they had learnt through formal instruction (LFI),
and their SA experiences. The results for this variable, as shown in Table 3,
confirm that those students who have learnt more languages and those with some
SA experience hold different beliefs about EMI learning.
Sub-variable 1: Extra
Languages (ExL)
ST37 My level of
satisfaction...is…
ST38…my English skills
develop…
1ExL (n=106) (M=3.37) (M=3.72)
2ExL (n=151) (M=3.79) (M=4.04)
3ExL (n=59) (M=4.08) (M=4.61)
Significant differences 3ExL and 1ExL (p=.01) 3ExL and 1ExL (p<.001)
3ExL and 2ExL (p=.02)
Significant correlations - -
Sub-variable 2: Languages
learnt by FI (LFI)
1LFI (n=171) (M=3.50) (M=3.91)
2LFI (n=150) (M=3.89) (M=4.15)
3LFI (n=14) (M=4.36) (M=4.64)
Significant differences 3LFI and 1LFI (p=.02) -
Significant correlations - Positive [r (338) = .13, p=.015]
Sub variable 3: SA
experience
SA (n=93) (M=3.89) (M=4.30)
No SA (n=245) (M=3.64) (M=3.96)
Significant differences - t(336) =-2.28,p=.02
Significant correlations - Positive [r (338) = .12, p=.023]
Table 3. Significant differences and correlations for ST37 and ST38 based on LLE (n=338)
These results mirror past investigations that clarify the cognitive benefits of
increasing the linguistic repertoire and spending time in environments where
English is the native language (Kristiansen et al. 2008; Fox et al. 2019). In
addition, SA experiences in combination with formal instruction increase
students’ instrumental and integrative motivation and trigger belief changes as
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regards learning strategies and autonomous learning (Serrano et al. 2016;
McManus 2023).
4.1.1.3. Variable 3: Sex
Female students reported more English linguistic growth (M=4.16) through
EMI lessons than males (M=3.79, p=.01), and they also reported more effective
learning of course content (M=4.29) than their male counterparts (M=4.02,
p=.01). Possible explanations for these findings include higher motivation and a
more effective use of learning strategies by females as identified in previous
research. They have been found to use, for example, more strategies for general
study, for practicing formal rules and for conversation than their male counterparts
(Dörnyei and Ryan 2015; Montero-Saiz Aja 2021).
4.1.2. Quantitative Data from Instructors’ Questionnaire Responses
Data related to the opinions of instructors about learning academic content in
English was elicited through questionnaire statements 29 and 32 and explored
in greater depth through the interviews. The wording for these items was as
follows:
ST29. In Galicia students who start their university degree have a good level of
English (a B1 at least). (Strongly disagree…Strongly agree)
ST32. I think they should include more subjects in English as part of the
university curriculum/programmes. [Yes, but only if they are optional
subjects / Yes, either as optional, compulsory or core subjects / No (…
please…comment…on the reasons.)]
Concerning student English proficiency on enrolment in university studies, 80%
of the teaching staff (n=28) concurred that this level is below the required
standard for HE (M=2.57). As for ST32, more than half of the instructors (57%,
n=20) supported the introduction of more EMI courses in the curriculum only if
these were offered as elective courses. Based on the variables of sex and years of
experience, no significant statistical differences were found. However, regarding
the type of instruction (i.e. GE or EMI), it seems that the EMI instructors are
more enthusiastic about the further implementation of EMI courses (M=2.75)
than the GE instructors (M=2.26; p=.02). As language specialists, it seems more
natural for the latter to identify implicit or secondary aspects, whether linguistic
and/or pedagogical, that may impinge on students’ learning and development. In
contrast, EMI instructors seem to be more positive based on the utilitarian value
of the language and the gratifying experience of teaching in a FL, as they attested
in the interviews.
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4.1.3. Qualitative Data from the Interviews
In terms of motivation and attitudes towards EMI programmes, about 89% of the
students (n=50) welcomed further implementation of these courses due to the
instrumentality of English, in that it guarantees preparedness for future
employment (8 ref),1 a variety of social opportunities (6 ref), better access to post-
graduate studies and research materials (7 ref) and enriched disciplinary and
language learning (2 ref). For their part, the instructors acknowledged the
usefulness of the language as a professional tool, not only for their students, but
also for themselves (4 ref). In addition, EMI instructors acknowledged that their
role grants them advantages regarding their teaching timetable and provides a
good opportunity to practice the language (4 ref).
Some lecturers and professors considered the students’ insufficient level of
English a hindrance to the learning of specific academic subjects (4 ref), and that
content learning is easier in a student’s mother tongue (2 ref). In addition, some
argued that EMI should not be imposed since there are other foreign languages
to learn as well (2 ref). Other instructors expressed their disapproval of EMI,
indicating that the challenge it poses for learners might lead to negative attitudes
towards the language. Indeed, some comments by EMI students also show
evidence of this issue:
In any case, to have to study a subject in a language that you cannot use proficiently
is always a challenge. (QtSt252)2
I don’t think I have upgraded my…language skills…in English at the USC. I think
my skills have improved very little compared to the level I had when I finished high
school, which is disappointing. (QtSt420)
The informants broadly agreed that learning English is different from learning
other subjects. Based on this belief, it is understandable that acquiring and teaching
content through EMI is very challenging, in that students and educators must
learn and teach, respectively, while engaged in course content that requires different
processes of learning. This issue has also been noted in previous studies (Cots
2013; Doiz et al. 2013b; Dafouz 2014; Pérez Vidal 2015; An and Thomas 2021).
4.2. Evaluation of EMI Programmes
In relation to the second research question regarding the implementation of these
programmes, the interviews revealed diverse sets of concerns.
4.2.1. Student and Instructor Proficiency
The comments of some instructors made clear that low levels of English
proficiency of beginning students at the USC were an issue:
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Another problem is the uneven level of the students; for instance, some of them
want an exam in English but some others don’t. (EMI-IntT13)3
According to the official regulations, students are expected to have a B2 level… but it
is unrealistic. So… this means I’m forced to build basic language skills while trying to
force the programme as much as I can… The official regulations describe multilingual
students, and they say their level is high when it is really low. (GE-IntT16)
For their part, the students also acknowledged that their levels of proficiency, as
well as those of professors and lecturers, were not good enough for effective EMI
learning (5 ref). Pre-service instructors noted having received very little training
in English as future primary school teachers (2 ref), which echoes findings
reported by Loredo Gutiérrez et al. (2007) about a group of teachers in training
of whom less than 50% perceived their competence in English to be high. Apart
from their previous language-learning experiences in secondary education, this
also reflects the different levels of exposure to learning in English because of the
uneven distribution of courses across USC faculties and schools. For example, at
the beginning of the present study, only four subjects were taught in English in
the Faculty of Education, whereas 13 subjects were taught in the language in the
Faculty of Chemistry. An additional issue that underlies the negative opinions of
pre-service teaching staff seems to be the quality of the teaching they experience.
When asked if more courses in English should be included in the curriculum,
they stated:
What should be established is that if we have a good foundation at the secondary and
high school levels, we can have courses taught in English at the university. (IntSt18)
Yes, they [courses in English] should be included. We only had one subject over
three months taught by three teachers, none of whom spoke in English. And they
just focused on the basic grammar as usual. (IntSt21)
Furthermore, most of the participating instructors (95%, n=21) commented on
the preparation and attitudes of students and staff on EMI programmes. As the
following comments illustrate, the instructors themselves pointed out the need
for better training:
As to the teacher… they should allow us to take some lessons in English, for example,
for a better preparation. (EMI-IntT12)
I have a C1 level and would like to continue learning… I think all EMI teachers have
language limitations… Some students are way better than me in English because
they have lived abroad, or they are Erasmus students. (EMI-IntT13)
In the case of the other faculties, I see the advantages of EMI only if the teachers are
well prepared to deliver the lessons in English. As to the students…the level is so
unequal that perhaps it would be best to teach them English as a separate subject and
not… through the degree subjects. So, I think there’s more will to internationalize
the degrees than to have the students learn. (GE-IntT22)
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They [instructors] need to prepare themselves to teach specific language, for
instance, in a subject like English for law, the new ESP teacher needs to become
familiar with areas such as civil law and criminal law…general English teachers do
not normally learn terms related to law, business or science… thus, it’s necessary to
spend extra-time preparing lessons. (GE-IntT2)
These findings suggest a positive predisposition of EMI instructors to improve
their language competence in English, which aligns with the results reported by
Cal Varela and Fernández Polo (2007) about the motivations and beliefs of the
USC staff. In addition, an imbalance was found in the skill levels of the teaching
staff. On the one hand, while GE instructors have high linguistic proficiency,
they lack solid preparation to teach in ESP areas. On the other hand, pre-service
teaching staff are given good pedagogical training, but linguistic training in their
degree programmes is lacking. As regards the EMI instructors, although they are
specialists in their respective content areas, they also seem to require more solid
professional development, both pedagogically and linguistically. In this regard,
different initiatives have been set in motion in Spain and beyond, such as EMI
professional development and training programmes (Arnó-Macià and Aguilar-
Pérez 2021; Dafouz 2021; Webster and Herington 2021; Morell et al. 2022; Gil
and Mur-Dueñas 2023) which could serve as a blueprint to design solutions
customised to the needs of students and faculty at the USC.
4.2.2. Instructors’ Attitudes and Pedagogical Practice
Some comments by the EMI teaching staff illustrated that their teaching practice
was rather intuitive and based on their beliefs about teaching in English, thus
revealing a lack of pedagogical cohesion across the faculties and schools:
In terms of materials, I give my master students everything in English just as it is
stipulated in the programme. We are not allowed to give them any materials in
Spanish or Galician… It is also true that sometimes if they come across a word they
don’t know, I translate it for them. (EMI-IntT12)
So, I make clear from day one that I don’t teach English, but I won’t assess their
English either… In the case of the materials I give them out in English. (EMI-IntT15)
We should always be clear about the content, for instance, in the use of PowerPoint
slides I include illustrations to accompany the meaning of new words, we use a
combination of materials in English and Spanish… I don’t assess their language skills
but... What I don’t do is to give them the translated word or to accept questions in
Spanish or Galician. I [try] to force them to repeat [the question] in English. So, it’s
a mutual understanding that it is not an English class, but we try to understand each
other in English. (EMI-IntT18)
In terms of methodological approaches when teaching classes through EMI, the
instructors also attempt to use translanguaging,4 albeit inconsistently, as can be
gathered by some of their comments:
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In chemical engineering… students can take the same subject in Spanish/Galician
or in English… In the case of the materials, I give them out in English… but via
the forums they have access to the materials in Spanish… They could do without the
English materials and use the Spanish ones, but I don’t think they do because
reading is one of their best skills. (EMI-IntT15)
Because the level of my students is not homogenous, I would usually use my
presentation slides in Spanish for those low-level students so that they may have a
better chance to follow the content but in fact there are more materials and
bibliography in English… so I give them terminology translated into Spanish
(practically a literal translation). In a one-to-one interaction, I usually use Spanish if
I see they don’t understand the explanation in English or if they can’t formulate
questions clearly. But to address the whole class I usually use English. (EMI-IntT19)
These inconsistent pedagogical practices and assessment criteria are detrimental to
the effectiveness of EMI programmes. The fact that students receive little or no
feedback about their linguistic performance runs contrary to the aims of EMI to
develop or reinforce their language skills. This means that some learners must
assimilate course content in English despite poor linguistic competence attained in
pre-university years. Along these same lines, the issue of the development of
academic English skills for their future professions should also be addressed. As
regards pedagogy, the compartmentalisation of languages, i.e. the use of English or
Spanish rather than the full available language repertoire, creates what Doiz et al.
refer to as “the hegemony of the monolingual mindset” (2013b: 215). In the case
of the current study, based in the region of Galicia, such a monolingual approach is
also detrimental to the use of the Galician language since it serves to foster the use
of the more dominant L1 (Spanish) as a counterpart to English. Moreover, whereas
team-teaching might not be feasible at the present time at the USC due to a shortage
of teaching staff, it is an alternative worth exploring in the future.
4.2.3. Curricular Organisation of EMI Programmes
Other EMI implementation-related issues voiced by the faculty members involved
the placing of EMI subjects in the most appropriate academic years or levels
throughout the curriculum, which increases the difficulty of teaching these
programmes (4 ref), as stated by one interviewee.
They [students] may find these subjects difficult because they are normally placed in
the last years of their degrees and some years have gone past since students last
studied English. Hence, on the one hand, it would seem feasible for this type of
English subject to be present at the beginning of their degree; however, on the other
hand, at the beginning stages of a degree students are not familiar with some
important concepts for their degrees and thus, it may seem useless to teach them
some terms in English before they even know what they are in their native language(s)
(GE-IntT2).
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82
Additional suggestions regarding the implementation of this methodology
included consistent need analysis and monitoring (1 ref), effective decision-
making and support by stakeholders and local authorities, and sufficient academic,
human and economic resources (7 ref). All these aspects impinge on the quality
of EMI programmes, that is, on “the level of excellence at which the institutional
EMI policy is reflected in instructional practices…, learning outcomes and
alumni performance” (Akincioğlu 2024: 146).
4.2.4 Linguistic Friction of EFL and L1s
Finally, the data also showed the linguistic friction that can arise from the process
of internationalisation in multilingual contexts (Doiz et al. 2011, 2014; Cots
2013). This is reflected in the ideological approach of two interviewees, the first
of whom wondered, “Why do we have to give up Spanish as a LF and surrender
to English?” (GE-IntT3). In a similar vein, a second instructor explained that
EMI subjects widen the gap between those students with high and lower levels of
proficiency. “It harms, consequently, those students whose skills are not
linguistic” (GE-IntT5). Other participants also consider English as a form of
imperialism, as these comments show:
Although foreign languages are very important, I think it is more important to know
your mother tongue very well. In the case of Galician people, it is sad when I hear
them speak proficiently in English, Spanish, or other foreign languages but they
can’t produce a full correct sentence in Galician, the language of our land. (QtSt238)
Forced linguistic colonialism has a negative impact on the recipient cultures. The
educational, personal, and developmental benefits deriving from the learning of a
foreign language are present regardless of the language learned. The impossibility of
choosing beyond the English language is inadequate, and it leads students to think
they are not good at languages since they cannot achieve a high level of competence
in English in particular. (GE-QtT4)
This linguistic tension cannot be overlooked when implementing EMI programmes
in multilingual regions since monolingual practices in English undermine the
multilingual identities of the learners and teachers. Thus, EMI pedagogies should
favor more inclusive, multilingual practices (Doiz et al. 2019; Akincioğlu 2024).
5. Concluding Remarks
In this study I have addressed two main research questions about EMI programs
at the USC. The first one aimed to identify the beliefs of the participants about
content learning in English in the different academic areas. The data reported
here indicate that they share positive views about the implementation of EMI
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83
courses, mostly due to the utilitarian use of English. A key finding in this study,
however, is that the academic field of the students, as well as their linguistic
experience, had a bearing on responses, as did the type of English instruction the
teachers delivered. The primary implication of these findings is the need for
customised pedagogies in EMI programmes at the USC.
As regards the second question, the perceptions of students and teaching staff
about the EMI experience revealed various issues regarding the implementation
of this methodology, such as inadequate linguistic preparation, inconsistent
pedagogical practices and organisational difficulties. These data mirror the
results of previous studies conducted both in Spain and abroad (Dafouz et al.
2016; Kirkgöz and Dikilitaş 2018; Pérez-Llantada 2018; Doiz et al. 2019; Arnó-
Macià and Aguilar-Pérez 2021; Akincioğlu 2024). Thus, further evaluation and
adjustment of the implementation policies of these programmes at the USC is
required to tackle these issues.
The findings of this study not only contribute to the existing body of knowledge
about learning through EMI but also carry significant implications since they
could inform the process of curricular adaptation or design of EMI programmes
to better align them with the learners’ and educators’ needs. In addition, these
results could also provide insights for teacher-training initiatives and for more
effective policy implementation including, for example, more resource allocation
and better instruction and assessment practices. Within the classroom context,
these findings could also be used by instructors to implement interventions to
foster motivation, to use more effective pedagogies and to design materials that
are better adapted to the students’ learning needs.
While this project provides valuable insights regarding EMI programmes at the
USC, it also has some limitations such as its exploratory character and the lack of
participation of actors other than students and teachers. To overcome these
limitations, future research should comprise a more in-depth analysis of the
impact this methodology has on students’ learning, and further examination of
the implementation policies involving other stakeholders such as administrators
and university councils. Finally, this study could be replicated in other institutions,
thereby permitting the emergence of evolving solutions and fostering increased
cohesion and functionality in EMI programmes across the Galician region and
more broadly in Spain.
Acknowledgements
Funding from the following institutions is highly appreciated: Regional
Government of Galicia (grants GPC2015/004, ED431D 2017/09, ED431B
Yonay Rodríguez Rodríguez
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 67-89 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
84
2018/05, ED431B 2021/02), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and
Competitiveness (grant FFI2015-64057-P) and the Spanish State Research
Agency (grants PGC2018-093622-B-I00 and PID2021-122267NB-I00).
Notes
1. In NVivo, a reference (ref) is the
number of times an answer or argument was
repeated.
2. Questionnaire-Student # (QtSt252).
3. GE or EMI Interview-Instructor #
(GEIntT12 or EMI-IntT12).
4. Translanguaging: the use of the
full linguistic repertoire of communicative
strategies that speakers possess from the
various languages that they know (Taken and
adapted from www.dicenlen.eu).
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Received: 22/03/2024
Accepted: 29/10/2024
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 91-112 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
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INMACULADA FORTANET-GÓMEZ
Universitat Jaume I
fortanet@uji.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8981-565X>
VIKTORIIA DROBOTUN
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
v.drobotun@knu.ua
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5628-6381>
COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL
LEARNING (COIL) BETWEEN SPANISH
AND UKRAINIAN STUDENTS: NEW TASKS
AND NEW RELATIONSHIPS
APRENDIZAJE INTERNACIONAL COLABORATIVO
EN LÍNEA (COIL) ENTRE ESTUDIANTADO ESPAÑOL
Y UCRANIANO: NUEVAS TAREAS
Y NUEVAS RELACIONES
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202511126
Abstract
Nowadays, our professional lives face challenges that inevitably require a quick
reaction and a shift in the field of education. Moreover, globalisation and the
ongoing war in Ukraine motivate teachers to look for new opportunities to
communicate across cultures. This research aims to analyse students’ perceptions
of the effects of collaborative online international learning (COIL). The study
participants were 12 fourth-year Ukrainian students from Taras Shevchenko
National University of Kyiv who were taking the course on Academic English
within the Languages, Literature and Translation program and a group of 20
Spanish fifth-year students from Universitat Jaume I who were enrolled in the
Business English course as part of the dual degree in Business Administration
and Law. The methodology consisted of three stages. Firstly, participants used
online communication tools to establish contacts with partners. Secondly,
students discussed the topic of corporate sustainability on Zoom. Thirdly, each
group used online collaborative teaching (OCT) to write an opinion essay.
Results from the final questionnaire after the COIL experience confirmed that,
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despite the difficulties due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, students’ perceptions
of their experience of COIL were positive. They were more motivated and
believed the activity had helped them to improve their writing and speaking skills
as well as their intercultural competence.
Keywords: collaborative online international learning, online collaborative
teaching, IT tools, intercultural competence, students’ learning self-perception.
Resumen
Actualmente, nuestra vida profesional se enfrenta a retos que inevitablemente
requieren una rápida reacción y un cambio en la educación. Además, la
globalización, y la guerra en curso en Ucrania, motivan al profesorado a buscar
nuevas oportunidades para la comunicación intercultural. Esta investigación
pretende analizar los efectos que produce en el estudiantado una experiencia de
aprendizaje internacional colaborativo en línea (COIL por sus siglas en inglés).
Los participantes en el estudio fueron 12 estudiantes ucranianos de la Taras
Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ucrania) de una asignatura de Inglés
Académico en el cuarto curso del programa de Lenguas, Literatura y Traducción,
y 20 estudiantes españoles de la Universitat Jaume I matriculados en Inglés para
los Negocios en el quinto curso del doble grado de Administración de Empresas
y Derecho. La metodología constó de tres fases. En primer lugar, los participantes
se comunicaron en línea para establecer un primer contacto. En segundo lugar,
debatieron sobre sostenibilidad corporativa en Zoom. En tercer lugar, cada grupo
redactó un ensayo de opinión en colaboración. Los resultados del cuestionario
final confirmaron que, a pesar de las dificultades debidas a la guerra en Ucrania,
la percepción del estudiantado sobre su experiencia con COIL fue positiva.
Estuvieron más motivados e indicaron que esta actividad les había ayudado a
mejorar sus destrezas orales y escritas, y su competencia intercultural.
Palabras clave: aprendizaje internacional colaborativo en línea, enseñanza
colaborativa en línea, herramientas informáticas, competencia intercultural,
percepción del aprendizaje por los estudiantes.
1. Introduction
COIL (collaborative online international learning) is considered to be “a new
teaching and learning paradigm that promotes the development of intercultural
competence across shared multicultural learning environments” (Rubin and
Wilson n.d.). COIL requires the engagement of a global network to provide a
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context for virtual communication and collaboration among participants. This
type of online learning gathers at least two groups of representatives from
different cultural backgrounds and educational programs located in another city,
country, continent and even time zone. Furthermore, participants in COIL
initiatives may study different subjects, which means that an interdisciplinary
approach is also one of the components of COIL. This type of collaborative
learning can be synchronous or asynchronous, and language is the aspect that
unites the participants. The beneficial outcomes of participation in COIL appear
to be intercultural information exchange and practice with both previously and
newly gained skills (Hackett et al. 2023).
Another valuable point is the opportunity to receive information about the world
through eyes, senses, emotions and understanding directly from those who
experience them. In such a way, we can form images and perceptions of the world.
That is why COIL can promote students’ intercultural awareness and foster their
curiosity and motivation to learn more.
After gaining the experience of working outside the classroom during the two
years of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators and students have become more
acquainted with a wide range of educational IT platforms and tools. COVID-19
forced teachers to understand that the world, which was previously perceived as a
‘small global village’ where people had a great number of opportunities to travel,
work, study and actually explore, may at a certain times force us into isolation,
causing us to become unreachable.In this setting, teachers, now equipped with
the skills to work online, feel more confident and ready to gain new experience in
implementing the COIL methodology in their classrooms.
COIL fosters communication and collaboration across cultures without requiring
physical border-crossing and can broaden students’ awareness of cross-cultural
communication and foster multicultural literacy. Students may participate in
activities abroad, not only by acquiring new knowledge and improving skills
developed previously, but also by sharing ideas, knowledge and experiences while
staying at home and attending classes at their university. Moreover, this kind of
activity requires the involvement of modern means of communication that are
tightly connected with IT programs, platforms and applications, thereby enhancing
students’ digital literacy. In other words, COIL may help to raise a generation of
technologically savvy global citizens with profound knowledge of others.
2. Literature Review
In the search for new angles and approaches for teaching and learning foreign
languages, growing attention is being given to COIL (O’Dowd 2016; Marull and
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Kumar 2020). Virtual exchange is considered to be an umbrella term for COIL
(O’Dowd 2018), which is broader. There is a wide range of terminology used to
denote technology-based learning and collaboration: online intercultural
exchange (O’Dowd 2016), telecollaboration (Sonnenwald et al. 1999; Lee and
Markey 2014; O’Dowd 2016), globally networked learning (Crabtree et al. 2008;
McNair and Paretti 2010), internet-mediated intercultural foreign language
education (Belz and Thorne 2006) and e-tandem (O’Rourke 2007) or teletandem
(Telles and Leone 2016). The authors of this research agreed to use the term
COIL, as for us, such notions as internationalisation and online learning are of
central importance.
As great attention is paid nowadays to global citizenship education around the
world, COIL approaches can be employed to foster “a flexible body of issues,
skills, attitudes, and sensitivities that enable individuals to be thoughtful,
responsible, participatory citizens of their local community, state, nation, and
world” (Cruz 1998: 28). This means that by applying COIL, instructors may
engage participants in meaningful interactions, such as dialogues between
students from different cultures. This approach fosters cross-cultural awareness
and helps students discover common ground while also encouraging an
appreciation of the uniqueness of their own and others’ perspectives. To reach
this goal, classroom discussions about messages or problems depicted in videos or
articles are beneficial, as they encourage students to draw on their knowledge and
share experiences. Furthermore, the received knowledge, which is the product of
collaboration with peers, could be a valuable source for further assignments, both
oral and written (O’Dowd 2016). Thus, this type of online collaboration and
communication has become vital for researchers and language learners as,
through partnerships and networks, students perform various tasks and improve
both their language skills and background knowledge of the topic.
O’Dowd (2016) delves into the tendency to involve university students in
collaboration exchanges in many ways. For instance, the use of English, French,
Spanish or other languages as a lingua franca can successfully build and develop
students’ intercultural and sociocultural competence and awareness of the role of
a language in intercultural communication. Such activities enable the development
of critical reflective skills of primary importance in our modern world, as they may
help sustain peace and the principles of democracy or build cultural and economic
contacts. Recognising COIL approaches helps improve soft skills and professional
knowledge in the younger generation, which in turn might contribute to mitigating
or preventing future economic crises and armed conflicts.
Moreover, King de Ramirez (2019) provides COIL project results among students
enrolled in universities located in the Arizona-Sonora Megaregion. Using various
platforms such as Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, Gaming, Snapchat and Instagram,
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participants collaborated in communication to discuss the political debates held
due to the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The aim of the project was to understand whether international online
communication could increase students’ awareness of intersections between local
and global communities. In this research, COIL was intended to remedy a general
lack of knowledge and communication between students who live in the Arizona-
Sonora Megaregion within 70 miles of the United States-Mexico Border in either
one or the other country. This can be considered an example of how collaborative
initiatives can foster the development of essential global competences, including
the ability to analyse international relations, critically appraise media and
recognise the intricate connections that shape global interdependence. All of the
aforementioned experiences demonstrate that COIL enhances global citizenship
and language skills (Marginson and Sawir 2011).
The successful implementation of COIL encourages educators to conduct
research and analyse the merits of COIL in different fields of science, as shown in
the research conducted by Rubin (Center for Innovation in Teaching and
Learning 2017), who implemented a four-credit COIL course on video
production for university students from Belarus and the US. The purpose of the
course was to identify and improve cross-cultural and professional competence.
As part of the research, each team of students produced a 4-minute film on the
theme chosen and later emailed the final video to the members of the second
team. The outcomes reflected an improvement in professional skills and
meaningful international experiences that enhanced cross-cultural sensitivity,
comprehension and perception of the different images of the world (Center for
Innovation in Teaching and Learning 2017).
Similarly, another group of educators implemented technology-based learning in
a virtual exchange project between the Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Hryhorii
Skovoroda State Pedagogical, Ukraine, and Trakia University, Bulgaria
(Rzhevskaya et al. 2020). The researchers found that students enrolled in non-
engineering fields of study used well-known tools for their collaboration, resulting
in a positive impact on their outcomes and gained further appreciation for
learning new IT skills for successful cooperation and communication. Therefore,
alongside improving language skills and communicating across cultures, students
acquired new knowledge in the field of digital literacy.
The study carried out by Orsini-Jones and Lee (2018) provides an account of a
COIL project dealing with the integration of global citizenship education into
the curriculum and assessment of language courses provided at Coventry
University, in the United Kingdom, and the Université de Haute-Alsace, in
France. Students from both institutions used a common learning management
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system, where they participated in activities related to developing strategies for
intercultural pragmatics and netiquette.
Previous research has highlighted that students perceive COIL as an excellent tool
to boost language skills, raise cross-cultural awareness, enhance professional
knowledge and skills and develop critical thinking and IT literacy (Nguyen et al.
2024). It allows educators to engage at least two groups of students from
universities in different counties or even continents to participate in discussions on
socially relevant topics and to work collaboratively through an online platform
using a lingua franca. Nguyen et al. (2024) found different ways in which students
perceived an improvement of English as a lingua franca. On the one hand, they
made an effort to make themselves understood and to understand their interlocutors
by means of the resources available in online communication. As other authors
(Çiftçi and Savaş, 2018) point out, in telecollaboration, learners’ abilities to
communicate and adapt interculturally can be boosted through problem-solving.
Furthermore, Nguyen et al. (2024) showed that students believed COIL had
helped them develop not only their English skills but also their attitudes, awareness,
knowledge and intercultural skills, making them more confident to use English.
3. Objectives and Research Questions
Though previous studies have explored the use of COIL, to our knowledge none
has dealt with COIL between Spanish and Ukrainian students, especially in
wartime. This research aims to determine whether students perceive that COIL
can create advantages for learning the English language and make them aware of
cross-cultural communication, while they learn new content and cultural aspects.
In order to reach this objective, the following research questions will be answered:
RQ 1. What is the students’ perception on how COIL affects English language
learning in interdisciplinary settings?
RQ 2. What additional benefits for global education do students report after
the implementation of COIL?
4. The Study
4.1. Participants and Context
The study participants comprised 32 students from two groups: one consisting of
fourth- and fifth-year students enrolled at Universitat Jaume I (UJI), Spain, and
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another from the Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology, Taras
Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in Ukraine (KNU). The students in the
first group belonged to the dual degree in Business and Law who took the English
for Specific Purposes (ESP) course titled Business English at UJI. The second
group consisted of 12 students enrolled in a degree in Turkish, Persian, Chinese
and English language and literature, and took a course in academic English at
KNU. Although the special circumstances of Ukrainian students (most located in
a country at war) were not taken into account for the development of the COIL
activity and the research study, they inevitably affected participants’ performance
in several ways.
In November 2022, the second author of this article was a visiting professor at
the UJI, teaching online at KNU, and together with the first author organised a
series of COIL activities between students of the two institutions. Firstly, the
students communicated online to establish contacts and find out information
about the other country’s customs and traditions as well as the university itself.
For this purpose, students at both universities were divided into 12 groups and
provided with the email addresses of their interlocutors to conduct the first online
meeting outside the classroom. Then, all students had an online class (Google
Meet) as part of their coursework. In the case of the KNU students, it was based
on the course book Global: Level Advanced, 2nd edition by Lindsay Clandfield and
Amanda Jeffries, Macmillan, 2016, and Academic Writing, A Handbook for
International Students, 3rd edition by Stephen Bailey, Routledge, 2011. Regarding
the students at the UJI, the class was about the specific disciplinary discourse of
business in English. In both groups, the goal was to introduce the characteristics
of academic discourse and to learn the strategies of source-based writing, the
ways scientists integrate their ideas into their written texts, using paraphrasing,
citations and stylistic devices to express different points of view; and rules for
organising a list of references according to the APA, 7th edition.
4.2. The Task: Instruments and Procedure
The task was divided into 3 parts. First, the students in each group were assigned
a partner from the other institution. As the number of students was not the same
in both institutions, some Ukrainian students were assigned 2 Spanish students.
The first part of the task consisted of establishing contact.
To facilitate this, all students were provided with a guide for the first virtual
40-minute interview, which included a list of 13 open-ended questions (see
Appendix 1). The file was published on Google Classroom (for Ukrainian
students) and Moodle (for Spanish students). This questionnaire was designed so
that students could collect information about their counterparts’ academic
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background, personal interests and perspectives on their studies. Students’
responses provided their partners with insights on the country and its culture and
traditions. Additionally, in order to foster successful academic collaboration, it was
essential for them to know more about their partners’ study habits and learning
preferences as well as their attitude toward time management and responsibility.
The aim of the second and third parts of the task was to learn about the discussion
topic of corporate sustainability and the norms of written and spoken academic
English. As preparation, students were provided with some instructions on the
conventions of academic English and two scientific articles on corporate
sustainability (Montiel and Delgado-Ceballos 2014; Michie 2018) which they
had to read during the following week. Then, as a second part of the task, they
were asked to participate in a live discussion on the topic, for which UJI students
were in the classroom and connected online through Google Meet with KNU
students, who were online and outside the classroom setting. To stimulate this
discussion, they were provided with some questions to answer:
1. What do you think “corporate sustainability” is?
2. Are many companies committed to it?
3. Why? Why not?
4. Which aspects of corporate sustainability do companies mainly pay attention
to: governance, product, economic and social impact, environment, energy
saving?
5. Do big and small companies implement corporate sustainability measures in
the same way?
6. How do you see the future of corporate sustainability?
After the discussion, students were given two more weeks to asynchronously
prepare a collaborative academic research-informed opinion essay on corporate
sustainability and then submit it as a Google Doc, as the third part of the task. In
order to fulfill this task, they were provided with the instructions appearing in
Appendix 2. Although an assessment of the quality of the essays is out of the
scope of this research, it should be pointed out that they were assessed according
to a rubric made known to the students and shared by both instructors, and the
mark received for this thask counted for 15% of the final grade.
Before concluding the collaborative writing task, the students were asked to
voluntarily fill in an anonymous questionnaire in a Google Form to analyse the
outcomes of their collaboration (see Appendix 3). All the respondents gave their
express consent to the processing of their data, and all personal and private
information was anonymised and treated confidentially. The questionnaire
consisted of 13 multiple-choice, open-ended and linear-scale questions, which
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were designed to evaluate students’ experience and perception of their collaborative
online learning.
In order to achieve the study aims and answer the research questions, we analysed
the anonymous answers provided voluntarily by students in the final questionnaire:
their perception on the contribution of COIL to their English language learning
and what it had meant as an intercultural and personal experience. Although 32
students participated in the COIL activities, the number of respondents to the
second questionnaire was 27 (18 Spanish students and 9 Ukrainians). The
answers were coded as Sp and Uk and assigned a number indicating the order in
which the response was received. In the next section, the responses to this
questionnaire will be analysed in order to answer the research questions.
5. Results and Discussion
Before answering the research questions, there are some data about the participating
students that need to be highlighted. It was essential to know whether the students
had any experience in participating in COIL activities; the answers to questions 1
and 2 would help predict obstacles and barriers to participating successfully. In the
case of UJI students, 90% acknowledged it was their first COIL experience, and for
56% of them, this was the first time they communicated with someone for whom
English was not their native language. In the case of KNU students, it was
surprising that for all of them it was the first time they had contacted foreigners
with whom they could only speak in English, even though for only 60% of the
students it was their first COIL experience. The explanation is that some students
had participated in previously organised virtual telecollaborations between Turkish
and Ukrainian students who majored in Turkish linguistics. That is why the
language of their communication was mainly Turkish; however, if
miscommunications happened, they applied their knowledge of English.
It was revealing to learn the participants’ preferences for communicating with each
other: they communicated using online video meetings, email or texting on social
networks. Unfortunately, the time chosen for the COIL activities in 2022
coincided with electricity outages throughout the territory of Ukraine, thus raising
the researchers’ concern about the impact of technical obstacles, which could cause
frustration and disappointment with the COIL experience for students. As a
result, the researchers did not insist on synchronous spoken communication.
However, students overcame these difficulties, communicating mainly by email or
texting, with about 50% successfully holding video communication on Zoom,
Meet or WhatsApp (questions 3-6). To meet the requirements of the thask, the
Ukrainian students tried to find cafes, restaurants or offices which had generators
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to produce electricity and cope with power cuts. That is why 90% of all participants
had a fluent exchange of messages, in which they shared information and organised
their work, especially the collaborative writing task.
The analysis of the questionnaire data (question 7) revealed similarities and
differences in the topics discussed. For instance, 100% of the Ukrainian students
concentrated their attention on exchanging information and organising
collaborative writing, followed by 89.9% who discussed the task performance and
77% who addressed personal matters (Figure 1). Similarly, 100% of the Spanish
students prioritised the topics on organising collaborative writing, while 88.9%
concentrated on exchanging information and 83.3% addressed attention to task
performance issues, whereas only 66.7% of Spanish students showed interest in
discussing personal matters (Figure 2).
7. What were the messages about?
9 answers
7. What were the messages about?
18 answers
Figure 1. Topics of messages by Ukrainian students
Figure 2. Topics of messages by Spanish students
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These findings indicate that participants from both universities recalled having
placed equal importance on the task-related discussion and collaborative writing,
in particular. However, the Ukrainian students reported placing greater emphasis
on information exchange and personal issues than their Spanish counterparts.
This highlights the importance of addressing both professional and interpersonal
aspects to foster collaboration in cultural contexts.
5.1. Students’ Reported Effect of COIL on Language Learning in
Interdisciplinary Settings
Based on the responses to the second questionnaire (Appendix 3), we found that
students evaluated the COIL activities very highly: 78% of students gave the
initiative a score of 5 out of 5 points, and 22% gave it 4 points (questions 8 and 10).
Students claimed that the COIL activities carried out were successful and fruitful,
prompting them to employ previously received knowledge and experience and to
focus on new knowledge gained from reading and listening tasks. The Ukrainian
students learned about the topic of corporate sustainability, which Spanish students
were familiar with, but they were not. On the other hand, Spanish students learned
about academic writing, a skill which was not new for the Ukrainian students.
Therefore, interdisciplinary settings, in our case Business English and Academic
English courses, created a fruitful environment where participants delved into
business approaches and modern concerns to save the planet. The process of
broadening their subject knowledge was not only undertaken through reading
articles, but also through oral communication. The topic of corporate sustainability
provided a context in which to receive and convey ideas in English (questions 9 and
11), according to the views of some Ukrainian students:
I deepened my knowledge in this field, listened to different points of view and
learned something new. [Uk_2]
It was interesting to hear foreign students’ opinions on corporate sustainability.
[Uk_4]
The live classroom discussion motivated students to practise their speaking skills.
Spanish students appreciated their partners’ active participation during the
discussion and valued the wish to sincerely express themselves on the topic, thus
finding whether the points of view coincided, as some of their opinions reflect:
It was interesting to hear the Ukrainian students and their opinions. Thanks to this
discussion, I could learn about their opinion. [Sp_7]+
I saw that many people think like me about corporate sustainability. Also, I saw that
Ukrainian students participated every time, unlike us, and I liked that. [Sp_3]
It was also at this time when participants of COIL could check and practise their
comprehension skills and learn that a different accent is not a barrier to understand
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a speaker if the participants in the conversation can negotiate meaning by asking
questions to check they have understood the message.
While performing COIL activities, participants completed exercises to learn new
vocabulary and discourse and practised its usage by asking and answering
questions in the discussion, which demonstrated the ability to use new vocabulary
and discourse, along with the subject knowledge of the topic of corporate
sustainability. More specifically, students explained in English the meaning of the
term “sustainability” and its growing importance in the modern world. In the
words of a Ukrainian student, the COIL classes equipped them with the
background knowledge on the topic, gave them information about the researchers
who carried out studies, and also further details about the main components of
corporate sustainability:
I have learned that corporate sustainability consists of 3 parts and that Adam Smith’s
economic theory does not require entrepreneurs to make positive social and
environmental impact on the world. [Uk 7]
Students reported that reading the articles, watching the video, and later
participating in the online discussion helped them to develop different language
and cognitive skills (Appendix 3 - question 13). One of the main learning
objectives of COIL was to encourage students to analyse and synthesise the
information from texts and use the knowledge gained in their essays. Thus,
students signified and conveyed in their essays the idea that entrepreneurs are
concerned about corporate responsibility and the implementation of its main
principles to make our world better.
According to the results of the questionnaire (Appendix 3 - questions 11 and 13),
both Spanish and Ukrainian students indicated that they had opportunities to
improve their academic writing skills by practising and using formal vocabulary
easily, as they expressed:
On an academic level, I think it has prepared us for future, because nowadays in
most companies you have to be fluent, and you are going to have to interact with
people from all over the world. [Sp 10]
It has helped me to learn English and have new experiences communicating with
new persons. [Sp_5]
I have applied the essay writing requirements that we received during our English
class. [Uk_3]
The whole topic of corporate sustainability was new to me, so I learned quite a lot
about it and at the same time practiced my academic English. [Uk_6]
Since English was the only language of their communication, students were
provided with a rich opportunity to share their knowledge and develop fact-based
arguments in English:
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I have learned to work with people who don’t speak the same language as me. To do
an opinion essay with another person only speaking English. [Sp_8]
As explained by the students, during their online conversations, cross-cultural
pronunciation differences sometimes required some clarifications and at the same
time forced them to rephrase and explain their ideas to avoid misunderstanding.
That is why the communication was natural and effective. What is more, in both
groups there were students who considered themselves introverts and for whom
speaking up in the classroom setting was a common source of tension. For these
subjects participating in COIL was a way of facing these challenges, and they
overcame communicative difficulties (question 13).
It helps us to get loose and it helps us to lose the embarrassment of talking to people
who don’t speak our language. [Sp_12]
Any communications with English speakers give you lots of skills. It is a great
opportunity to get out of comfort zone. [Uk_8]
All in all, students reported having learned about both the language and a relevant
topic for society such as corporate sustainability. They acknowledged the benefits
of collaborative writing and also those of speaking in English as a lingua franca
with other students.
5.2. Additional Student-Reported Benefits of COIL
Students acknowledged that by performing language-learning tasks, their soft
skills, which are of great importance in the modern workplace, had been boosted
(questions 11 and 13 in Appendix 3). In their answers to these questions, both
Spanish and Ukrainian students highlighted an important benefit of COIL: the
opportunity to work as a team, as the task required them to collaborate and
produce an outcome from their joint work — an informed opinion essay. Similarly,
students acknowledged the difficulties they had faced and how they had learned
time management skills, while arranging online meetings with a partner, making
plans and setting deadlines.
Then, some more soft skills they seem to have acquired are adaptability and
problem-solving, as can be gathered from their answers to question 13. Being in
different countries, having time differences and facing problems related to
internet connectivity and electricity, the students quickly adapted their timetables
and coped with the challenges they were faced with:
I learned that even tasks which seem impossible can be completed in time. [Uk_9]
The necessity to activate communication skills helped them to broaden their
knowledge about cultural aspects of both countries, Ukraine and Spain, everyday
lifestyle and the current state of life and business, as they acknowledged in their
answers to question 12.
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Analysing the feedback, we can state that, after finishing COIL activities,
participants of both universities seem to have become more cross-culturally
competent inasmuch as they have learned the characteristics of people in the other
country. Spanish students considered Ukrainian students brave, strong, very
intelligent and hard-working. Spanish students also mentioned that Ukrainians
put much effort to continue their studies in spite of the war in their country, with
the circumstances they must overcome every day and the suffering involved:
I didn’t have any specific ideas about how Ukrainian people were, but now I think
that they are very motivated and hard-working. Feeling this through the experience
was really motivating for me also. [Sp 15]
I think they are having a very bad time, and it is a situation, I would not wish to
anyone. Despite this, they are very predisposed and kind people. In addition, they
are very friendly for the situation in which they find themselves. I don’t think I
would take it so well. [Sp 12]
Then, they noticed that, though Ukrainian students majored in languages, they
could also show some competence to discuss business issues. Likewise, Ukrainian
students defined their Spanish peers as kind, friendly, sociable, open-minded,
easy to work with and they made a positive impression for being punctual and
respectful of deadlines:
Spanish students turned to be very open-minded, sociable, and easy to work with.
After this project I was left with a nice impression of Spanish culture and people. [Uk 5]
As for me, it was very interesting to communicate with Spanish students. During the
online meeting, it was interesting to observe how they communicate, how they
behave, what emotional state they have. [Uk1]
In addition, COIL aroused self-awareness. Students seem to have understood the
importance of appreciating and valuing their everyday life, and that the best way
to receive true information is by engaging with witnesses:
After this experience I realised that they are struggling much more with the Ukrainian
war than of what it is shown on TV. Despite of this, I think that all of them wanted
to work with us and were motivated, so for me it is very appreciated. [Sp 2]
The students’ answers reveal how they have developed intercultural competence
by learning about how their counterparts in the other country behave. All
participants reported in the anonymous questionnaire that they had a positive
and invaluable experience of collaboration with students from another country.
6. Conclusion
This paper studies COIL, an educational approach that connected university
students from two countries to collaborate in asynchronous and synchronous
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formats during four weeks. A final product of the initiative was a collaborative
academic opinion essay conducted by students of the UJI in Spain and KNU in
Ukraine.
The objective of this research was to find out if students perceived that COIL
could make them aware of cross-cultural communication and its advantages for
learning language, content and culture. In order to reach this objective, the study
tried to unveil, on the one hand, students’ attitudes regarding the way COIL can
affect English language learning, especially in interdisciplinary settings, as the
Spanish students belonged to an ESP course, while the Ukrainian students were
studying Linguistics. On the other hand, the research study sought to depict
additional benefits of COIL for global education recognised by students.
The implementation of COIL in these two universities proved that it can be an
extension of classroom learning and teaching in a virtual setting where
collaborative learning and peer guidance prevail. This study enabled active
learning and a constructive process in which the instructors’ influence on task
performance was limited to setting the goals, forming groups and choosing
learning materials, while participants sought ways to perform the task successfully.
Answering the first research question, students reported that the COIL approach
helped them to create multicultural learning environments and to apply English
to support communication in the virtual classroom. Live discussions and having
English as the only language to interact with their partners seem to have
compensated for artificial language learning and created the environment to
build content knowledge and individual accountability in students.
The English language became the bridge to connect students from the two
participating universities, countries and cultures. The relevant COIL activities
seem to confirm their efficacy in times of uncertainty, as in some cases participants
successfully maintained their collaboration asynchronously through texting
despite power outages in Ukraine. Students perceived that performing the tasks
had allowed them to improve their academic oral skills in the discussion sessions
and meetings, their reading skills by reading two scientific articles, and their
writing skills through the collaborative writing of an opinion essay which involved
text structuring, citation and referencing. As noted by the participants through
an anonymous questionnaire, COIL activities seem to have upgraded both their
oral and written English language skills. In addition, these activities were effective
in making them aware of their different English language levels, accents and use
of English, and made them realise the importance of learning in authentic
situations in which English is the only lingua franca for communication. In
addition, for most students, the COIL experience was the first occasion they had
to establish a relationship exclusively through the English language, and they
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gained self-confidence in its use, as previously noted by other researchers (Çiftçi
and Savaş 2018; Nguyen et al. 2024). Moreover, this activity seemed to motivate
students to learn new vocabulary and discourse to be active participants in
discussions and in studying the interdisciplinary content, in this case, corporate
sustainability.
As for the answer to the second research question, the results show that
participants felt they had developed soft skills such as the ability to collaborate.
Collaborative writing made them organise themselves to complete pairwork with
students from a geographically remote setting in order to create a single document,
a very useful skill nowadays. In the business world, organisation and negotiation
are essential and the perceptions gathered from students by means of a post-task
questionnaire showed that COIL could develop these skills. Majoring in different
disciplines (Linguistics and Business), the participants had different types of
subject knowledge and they were required to help and complement each other,
which developed tolerance and respect.
Another valuable outcome of the COIL activities was that they contributed to
developing cross-cultural competence. Students learned about another culture by
meeting students who were almost their same age. They appreciated the
opportunity to meet each other and eventually some of them might continue
their relationship.
Finally, using online tools in a creative way can be motivating for students. Most
of them appreciated the activity of writing an academic essay collaboratively, in
spite of the fact that, especially for the Ukrainian students, due to the war
situation it was not an easy task to keep in contact with the Spanish students and
carry out the activity.
Although sharing war experiences was not one of the aims of the activity, some
students held conversations about it. For Spanish students, it was a way to learn
first-hand from their fellow students what it means to live in the middle of a war
and maybe to avoid conflicts in the future, if ever they are in a position to do so.
For the Ukrainian students, it was a way to share their situation and to raise
awareness of the problems they have. In the case of the Ukrainian students, COIL
acted as a substitute for physical mobility, something that is not possible at the
moment due to ongoing war in the country and economic downturn.
This study shows some limitations. It involved the attitudes and perceptions of
students regarding one COIL activity held in a single subject. In the future, it
would be very interesting to conduct further research in order to compare
students’ perceptions with their actual improvement in English language
competence and in intercultural communication skills. In addition, it would also
be relevant to analyse the effect of a continuous plan of COIL in these courses,
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how effective it could be for language, content and the development of
intercultural communication.
To conclude, as other researchers have done before (Çiftçi and Savaş 2018;
Nguyen et al. 2024), we want to invite other English as a Foreign Language and
English for Specific Purposes instructors to introduce COIL activities in their
courses to allow their students to enjoy an international intercultural experience
using English as a lingua franca. It may be especially relevant and motivating for
those who cannot travel due to their personal circumstances, or restrictions
imposed in times war, as was the case in this research.
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Appendix 1.
Initial Questionnaire: Building Rapport with your Partner
1. Student’s name.
2. What is the name of your university?
3. When was your university founded?
4. What does its name mean?
5. How many students / departments are there at your university?
6. What do you study?
7. Why did you decide to major in Business Administration and Law/Linguistics? What
are the benefits and drawbacks of your specialization?
8. Tell me about some of the courses you are taking. Which is your favorite?
9. How long have you been studying English?
10. Do you prefer to work independently or as part of a team?
11. Have you ever missed a deadline? Why, and what was the outcome?
12. What are your interests and hobbies?
13. Where do you see yourself in 3 years?
14. What are your favorite national holidays?
15. What is your favorite national dish?
16. Any other questions
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Appendix 2.
Guidelines for the Collaborative Writing Task
COLLABORATIVE WRITING TASK: CORPORATE
SUSTAINABILITY
Directions
The following assignment requires you to use information from two sources (see
a list of references below) to discuss concerns that relate to a specific issue. When
paraphrasing or quoting from the sources, cite each source used by referring to
the author’s last name and the year of publication, and page, if you quote. Try to
paraphrase, summarise, or synthesise the ideas of other authors.
Assignment:
Read the selected articles carefully and then write an essay in which you identify
the most important concerns regarding the issue and explain why they are vital.
Your text must draw on information from several sources. In addition, you may
draw on your own experiences, observations, or readings. Be sure to CITE
sources whether you are paraphrasing or directly quoting.
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Appendix 3.
Final Questionnaire. Assessment of Collaborative Work
The anonymous answers to these questions will be used for research purposes and to
improve the international collaborative task you have carried out. Please tick if you agree
that these data are used for research.
I agree
1. Has this been your first communication experience with somebody with whom you
can only speak in English?*
Yes
No
2. Is this your first academic international telecollaboration experience?*
Yes
No
3. How did you communicate with your partner?*
Online video meetings
Email
Texting
Other:
4. How many online meetings did you have with your Ukrainian/Spanish partner?*
One
Two
Three
Other:
5. How many email exchanges did you have?*
One
Two
Three
Other:
6. How many texting exchanges?*
One
Two
Three
Other:
7. What were the messages about?*
Exchange of information
Personal matters
Organisation of collaborative writing
Task performance of collaborative writing
Other:
8. How much did you like the discussion held on Corporate Sustainability on the 14th of
November?*
Very little 1 2 3 4 5 Very much
9. Did you learn something new from this Discussion? What?*
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10. How did you like the collaborative writing task on Corporate Sustainability?*
Very little 1 2 3 4 5 Very much
11. What did you learn from this task?*
12. How has your idea about Ukraine and the people who live there changed after this
experience? *
13. Reflect on the whole telecollaboration experience: personally, methodologically,
content knowledge, etc.*
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ANSWERS
Received: 15/10/2024
Accepted: 4/03/2025
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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SHADIA ABDEL-RAHMAN TÉLLEZ
Universidad de Oviedo
abdelshadia@uniovi.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9546-9965>
THE MEDARCHY: MEDICAL DISCIPLINE
AND THE PANOPTICON IN CADUCEUS WILD
LA MEDARQUÍA: DISCIPLINA MÉDICA
Y EL PANÓPTICO EN CADUCEUS WILD
https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510413
Abstract
This article explores the paradoxical nature of biopower when social, political and
economic interests clash with individuality and autonomy. Special emphasis is placed
on the Foucauldian concept of the panopticon to examine the mechanisms of (self-)
surveillance as the most effective instruments of social control. Taking the recent
pandemic as the starting point for critical reflection, this article raises questions about
the purview of biopower through the analysis of the speculative novel Caduceus Wild,
published in 1959 by Ward Moore with Robert Bradford. This analysis first focuses
on the panopticon as the main instrument of discipline to contain the global health
crisis provoked by the coronavirus. Secondly, it examines the particularities of
healthcare dystopias. Finally, it explores the potential of the discourses of biopower to
transform the institutional authority of medicine acting in the name of public health
into an oppressive system of social control by adopting the form of a totalitarian
medical regime, as described in the fictional world imagined by Moore and Bradford.
Keywords: medicine, Panopticon, power, speculative fiction, discipline.
Resumen
El presente artículo explora la naturaleza paradójica del biopoder cuando los
intereses sociales, políticos y económicos entran en conflicto con la individualidad
Shadia Abdel-Rahman Téllez
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y la autonomía. Se presta especial atención al concepto foucaultiano del panóptico
para contemplar los mecanismos de (auto)supervisión como los instrumentos más
efectivos de control social. Tomando la reciente pandemia como punto de partida
para una reflexión crítica, este estudio plantea cuestiones sobre los límites y
jurisdicción del biopoder mediante el análisis de la novela especulativa Caduceus
Wild, publicada en 1959 por Ward Moore junto con Robert Bradford. El presente
análisis se centra, en primer lugar, en el panóptico como el instrumento disciplinario
más importante para atajar la crisis de salud global provocada por el coronavirus.
En segundo lugar, se examinan las particularidades del género de distopía sanitaria.
Finalmente, se explora el potencial de los discursos del biopoder para transformar
la autoridad institucional de la medicina para actuar en nombre de la salud pública
en un sistema opresivo de control social que adopta la forma de un régimen médico
totalitario, como el descrito en el mundo ficticio imaginado por Moore y Bradford.
Palabras clave: medicina, panóptico, poder, ficción especulativa, disciplina.
1. Introduction: Discipline and Illness
Amidst the unprecedented global crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,
governments worldwide took urgent action to protect their citizens and responded
with homogenous security policies, ranging from lockdowns and travel restrictions
to vaccination and testing campaigns (Holst and van de Pas 2023). Yet this
consensus reaction was not purely political, but rather guided by a single voice,
that is, the voice of the “biomedical empire”, as Barbara Katz Rothman puts it
(2021: 2). During this public health catastrophe, medicine reinforced its status as
an institution of power, influencing societal norms and behaviours. The new health
policies, albeit urgent and necessary, cannot be considered neutral or exceptional
protocols. This conflation of medicine and control seems to invoke the Foucauldian
concept of biopower, which extends beyond hospitals to target individual bodies
and the general population (Foucault 1978: 139). As this public health catastrophe
proved, the implementation of biopower is intimately linked to the principle of
panopticism, which sees constant surveillance as a characteristic of modern societies
aiming to incite individual or collective self-discipline. The concept of the
panopticon is not new. Yet in the face of modern health crises, of which COVID-19
is one in a series of such catastrophic diseases that include malaria, Ebola or mpox,
it is necessary to explore the implications of the control and regulation of everyday
life by biopower. This authority exerts control over fundamental aspects of human
life —including birth, fertility and death— and is manifested in various policies and
regulations, like the legalisation of abortion and euthanasia or the implementation
of one-child policies.
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Oscillating between the enforcement of authority and the intention to protect the
citizenry, the ambivalence of biopower has inspired the creation of fictional worlds
where medicine becomes systematic to the point in which it adopts a dystopic
tenor. The nature of the control performed by biopower becomes even more
complicated when we consider literary expressions that provide a critical perspective
to explore the power relationships and factors that regulate societies and individuals.
Representations of biopolitics and the panopticon in speculative and science fiction
include works like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1998) and The Heart
Goes Last (2015), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005), or Ninni Holmqvist’s
The Unit (2008), among others. However, a lesser known novel that imagines a
world under an explicit medical totalitarianism needs to be considered for critical
examination to understand the relationship between biopower, the panopticon
and health. Although lacking the literary quality of mainstream speculative
literature, Caduceus Wild, first published in 1959, offers a space to investigate the
discipline and normalisation exercised by medicine as an institution of power. This
article therefore aims to establish a correlation between the meaning of medicine in
both our (post-)pandemic reality and the fictional world of Caduceus Wild,
addressing the mechanisms and discourses used by biomedical power to enact
panoptic measures that restrict individuality and freedom. Considering the recent
pandemic as the starting point for critical reflection, this analysis focuses firstly on
the history of the panopticon as the main instrument of biopower; secondly, on the
particularities of the speculative genre of healthcare dystopias and stories about
medical totalitarianism; and finally, on the potential of the discourses of biopower
to transform the institutional authority of medicine acting in the name of public
health into an oppressive form of social control as Moore and Bradford depict in
their novel. This critical analysis of Caduceus Wild aims to explore the onset of
this fictional dystopic world controlled by medical power, paying special attention
to the forces that constitute the panoptic system of control of the public body, as
well as the counterforces that struggle to reclaim the individuality and autonomy
of citizens.
2. Panopticism and Medicine
In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault abstracted the substance of the
panopticon devised by Jeremy Bentham and used it as a metaphor of “a mechanism
of power reduced to its ideal form” (1995: 205), that is, the disciplinary authority
that governs modern societies. This utilitarian model was originally designed to
instil a feeling of being under constant surveillance, even if such surveillance does
not actually occur, encouraging self-discipline and self-regulation as a result of the
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internalisation of the mechanisms of external control. Inspired by Bentham’s
work, Foucault adopted the principle of panopticism, which was especially
relevant in the clinical context, explaining that the medical eye inherently has a
ubiquitous power to control individuals: “The medical gaze is a controlling,
dissecting gaze and it is made possible by an institution — the clinic” (Svenaeus
2000: 26-27). The birth of the clinic, in Foucault’s historical archaeology, is
intimately related to the transformation of the medical knowledge and the
prioritisation of the gaze in clinical practice, allowing a new level of control of
individuals and populations favoured by biopower, defined as the “power over
life”, which is articulated around “the anatomo-politics of the human body” and the
“biopolitics of the population” (1978: 139, emphasis in the original). In other
words, biopower demands the “precise control and comprehensive regulations”
of both the individual body and the population (1978: 137). Historically, the
emergence of biopower coincided with “the multiplication —and expansion— of
the human sciences, which are made to serve as the legitimating discourses of this
new form of power” (Cisney and Morar 2015: 4). Biomedical sciences have been
particularly pivotal in the articulation of biopower in the individual and collective
regulations and normalisations.
Irving Kenneth Zola noted the increasing consolidation of modern medicine as an
institution of social control achieved by “‘medicalizing’ much of daily living, by
making medicine and the labels ‘healthy’ and ‘ill’ relevant to an ever increasing
part of human existence” (1976: 210). In this context, Marshall Marinker’s article
“Why Make People Patients?” is relevant to the discussion about medical authority,
revealing the opposition between personhood and patienthood and the implication
that “patients are created by doctors” (1975: 81). The doctor’s ability to create
patients also indicates that diseases are creations of the medical practice, or, as
Foucault states, “fabricated” by medical discourse: “The sign [symptom] […]
assumes shape and value only within the questions posed by medical investigation.
There is nothing, therefore, to prevent it being solicited and almost fabricated by
medical investigation” (2003: 162). In a way, medicine has become a producer of
healthy bodies, enabling individuals to adhere to the social and moral standards of
well-being. As Zola also claims, the institutionalisation of medicine has become an
instrument of transformation of social practices and attitudes: “Medicine has
become an institution of social control and has led to increasing application of the
labels ‘health’ and ‘illness’ to social problems, as well as to widening areas of
everyday life” (1986: 213). The institution of medicine in fact imposes a disciplinary
power over the body:
Sickness is a threat to rationality, for it threatens social life and erodes self-control
[…]. Western medicine is thus directed towards controlling the body, keeping it
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from subsiding into the chaos and disorder threatened by illness and disease.
(Lupton 2012: 24)
In the medical paradigm, the transformation of the ill subject into a patient involves
the creation of the medicalised body, understanding medicalisation as any treatment
or remedy, invasive or not, that entails prescriptive instruction by a health
professional. However, medicalisation has been extended to several practices, even
those that are not even pathological nor a threat to the social order.
By presenting itself as objective, rational and beneficial to the well-being of the
population, the biopower embodied by the institution of medicine reinforces its
own legitimacy. Biopower, in this sense, reflects the Foucauldian concept of
power/knowledge, that is, the dynamic process of mutual legitimation, where
knowledge is not simply used by power but is also the means through which power
is exercised and maintained. According to Cisney and Morar, “No longer does
power emphasize the law as the product of an arbitrary dictate of the sovereign”,
but rather “functions under a different type of rule, one located in the natural
realm, a norm, legitimated by the sciences” (2015: 4, emphasis in the original).
Medicine, in this sense, is regarded as a “repository of truth” (Zola 1976: 210),
for it creates its own body of knowledge in order to justify its intervention in the
way individuals approach their bodies, health and habits. Biopower is normally
implicit and unobtrusive in everyday life, as it operates through norms, practices
and institutions without overtly appearing as a form of control. Yet, during the
COVID-19 health crisis, the biopower enacted by the medical institution
implemented an explicit system of control over individual bodies through
exceptional public health measures based on the surveillance of the general
population.
As Danielle L. Couch, Priscilla Robinson and Paul A. Komesarof argue, the
COVID-19 crisis precipitated the establishment of a disciplinary regime to ensure
compliance with the restrictions by the implementation of new surveillance
methods —namely smartphone apps— to improve “symptom tracking and contact
tracing” (2020: 810), which, together with the law enforcement, aimed to protect
the public order for the sake of public health. These surveillance measures were
quickly internalised by the population, who started to show “self-disciplinary
practices” like “handwashing, the maintenance of physical distance, new ways of
in-person greeting, a sense of revulsion or danger associated with personal contact,
mask-wearing and the protocols and good manners associated with Zoom
meetings, virtual parties, and on-line professional conference”, among many
others (Couch et al. 2020: 812). This power to dictate the response to the global
crisis was reinforced by the new knowledge continually produced by the biomedical
sciences since the outbreak of the pandemic, as the main awareness-raising measure
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among the general population was persistently spreading information about the
particularities of the coronavirus, routes of infection, symptoms, recovery and self-
isolation periods or the sequelae of the disease. The influence of biopower on
individual and public behaviour proved the ubiquity of the gaze and control of
institutions of power, including medicine. For that reason, this situation raises
questions about the limits and extent of biopower not only in the scenario of a
pandemic, but in everyday individual and collective life. Is it possible to imagine a
world where biopower is the main form of power and medicine is the only
institution of social control?
3. The Healthcare Dystopia
No pandemic or global health crisis, regardless of its severity, could ever precipitate
a world governed exclusively by biopower. However, despite the improbability of
this scenario, it is worth exploring the implementation of a disciplinary regime of
social control based on this form of power, where the authority of the medical
institution to act for the common good is regarded as unquestionable and supreme.
In speculative and science fiction, the subgenre of healthcare dystopias opens a
space to question the limits of individual freedom, rights and privacy as the price
for health. As in other dystopic stories, authors pessimistically imagine “the very
worst of social alternatives” as a reflection of the current situation in the
contemporary world (Baccolini and Moylan 2003: 6). Additionally, from a
rhetorical perspective, as Rob McAlear explains, new critical dystopias rely on a
“‘fear appeal’ in an attempt to persuade their readers of the necessity of intervention
in the present to avoid the possible horrors of the future” (2010: 24). Most
dystopias describe a disciplinary society where the body is under constant control
and regulation, like Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924) or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New
World (1932), which reflect “pronatalist and eugenic” concerns related to the
mechanisms of biopower to exert such control in a more explicit or oblique way
(Falcus 2020: 68). Health has been a major theme in dystopian literature, especially
in those stories where health has been used as a means of societal control. Health
dystopias, especially those that describe health dictatorships, provide new
perspectives on the balance between public health and personal freedom. In this
context, the concept of “healthism” —coined by Robert Crawford— gains
importance, as it works “as dominant ideology, contributing to the protection of
the social order from the examination, critique, and restructuring which would
threaten those who benefit from the malaise, misery, and deaths of others” (1980:
369). This healthist scheme has a strong social component, since “like racism or
sexism”, it is based on “the idea that one’s health is a measure of one’s value”
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(Welsh 2022: 12). Although the concept of healthism emphasises individual
responsibility for one’s health, it also encourages blaming individuals whose
choices go against what is considered acceptable healthy behaviours according to
medical and social expectations. From this viewpoint, the idea that subjects are
empowered to decide over their own health is illusory.
Either by blaming individuals for their health-related “choices” or imposing
prescriptive models of health, healthism shows that health can be used as a tool for
social control. Healthism can lose its individualistic nature in situations like the
COVID-19 pandemic, which illustrates how collective health can override individual
choice. This is precisely the premise of Corpus Delicti (2009) by the German writer
Juli Zeh —translated into English as The Method— the story of a totalitarian health
dictatorship called “Methode” established in Germany in an unspecified future. In
this fictional world, every aspect of citizens’ bodily and private life is controlled,
“from the regulation of fitness to the criminalisation of alcohol, caffeine, or tobacco
consumption to the administration of a compulsory dating service based on
immunological compatibility” (Smith-Prei 2012: 110). This novel portrays the
interrelationship between the panopticon, medical authority, healthism and social
control, that is, concepts that have been the object of critical inquiry in the last five
decades. Healthcare dictatorship, albeit uncommon, is not a new topic in dystopian
literature. Even before Foucault’s panopticism, Zola’s medicalisation or Crawford’s
healthism, a speculative novel written in the late 1950s questioned the social control
exerted by medical power over individual bodies.
Written by Ward Moore with Robert Bradford and originally published in four
instalments in The Original Science Fiction Stories magazine in 1959, Caduceus
Wild redefined the concept of “Big Brother” conceived by George Orwell in
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by describing a totalitarian medical regime. Following
the tradition of dystopic fiction that “opens in media res within the nightmarish
society” (Baccolini and Moylan 2003: 5), Caduceus Wild is set in an alienating
world governed by the “medarchy”, described as the ruling of the “sane and
healthful society where the doctor’s prescription was the law” (Moore and Bradford
1959a: 6). The novel follows the story of three rebels, Cyrus (a fifty-year-old
man), Victoria (a twenty-four-year-old woman) and Henry (Victoria’s younger
brother), who consider the medarchy an oppressive system and struggle to escape
the U.S. for England, where falling ill or not conforming to the normative model
of well-being is not a crime. Along their journey these characters face several
obstacles imposed by the medical dictatorship that enforces constant control on
citizens, who must carry their medical records with them at all times to prove their
compliance with health edicts. The novel juxtaposes the law of the caduceus
dictated by the medarchy and this group of “mallies”, or maladjusted, a minority
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committed to overturning this “cradle-to-grave regulation of a person’s life, in the
name of ‘health’” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 6). Thus, instead of a welfare state,
the world described in Caduceus Wild is a “healthfare” state that prioritises health
and well-being as a central aspect of governance. It is important to note, however,
that the medarchy was not actually a political system:
It [the medarchy] governed, but it was not government. The 86 States of the Pan-
American Union were still sovereign. Legislators still enacted laws; policemen
arrested, courts tried, jailers executed sentences. Only now there was something
above the law, above the government, and aside from it. Laws were laws but medical
regulations were paramount. (Moore and Bradford 1959c: 83)
The medarchy is institutionalised in “the Ama” (a term that goes unexplained in
the novel, but which may stand for the American Medical Association (AMA), an
institution founded in 1847), whose rulings govern not only life and death, but
also more mundane affairs, such as approving marriage licenses or procreation.
It is important to note that Caduceus Wild was revised and re-published as a book
by Moore in 1978. The original story and the novel should be considered two
different texts. As Moore explains in the foreword to the book, given the new
expectations about the future arising in the almost two decades since the publication
of the initial story, “an effort has been made to build the new novel upon the
ideological armature of the original, and to use, wherever possible, material
conceived for the original work” (1978, Author’s Note). Re-written after the
publication of Foucault’s The Birth of the Clinic in 1963, the novel may be
interpreted as a response to the growing interest in exploring the societal concerns
of its era regarding authority, power and the loss of autonomy, which historically
coincided with the proliferation of the civil rights movements in the U.S. In
medical and sociological contexts, Foucault’s archaeological work also opened up
a critical space for new discourses regarding medical knowledge and practice.
Published in 1975, Ivan Illich’s Medical Nemesis examines the limitations and
legitimacy of medical practice, exploring “what happened socially and culturally to
communities when their previous independence in matters of suffering and healing
is transformed to dependence on the medical system” (Downing 2011: 53). The
anti-psychiatry movement also gained prominence during the heyday of American
counterculture in the 1960s for denouncing paternalistic medicine as a
manifestation of patriarchal control, expressed through the medicalisation of non-
medical aspects of life that have social origins or the imposition of psychiatric
treatments against the patient’s will (Gere 2017: 197). It seems that in Moore’s
second novel these fears and anxieties were decisive in recreating his nightmarish
vision of a future ruled by an oppressive medical authority. In terms of the quality
of its social critique, therefore, the novel may be considered more mature than the
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original stories. Yet, although the differences between both texts call for a
comparative study, the purpose of this analysis is to explore the genesis of the
world initially imagined by this author, paying close attention to the agents and
institutions that make up the panoptic system of this healthcare dystopia.
Since the original stories of Caduceus Wild predate the formulation of the concepts
discussed in the first sections of this essay, an asynchronous interpretation will be
presented in order to engage critically with this text, for it can be considered a
fictional precursor to the critical discourses that emerged in the subsequent decades,
proving the prescience of speculative fiction. Therefore, instead of focusing on the
critical and theoretical discourses that may have influenced Caduceus Wild, it is
pertinent to contextualise the interpretation of this novel within the specific
sociopolitical situation in which it was written. The implicit reference to the
American Medical Association reflects the power wielded by the institution during
the 1940s and 1950s to suppress “those who questioned American medicine’s
status quo”, as these decades saw the rise of activism among medical students
defending a nationwide system of government-funded health insurance as well as
demands for training on the socioeconomic dimensions of medical care
(Chowkwanyun 2019: 127). During the period, the AMA was the most influential
institution in national health politics, a situation that is mirrored in the world of
Caduceus Wild. This health dystopia exemplifies the dangers of weaponising health
by paradoxically creating a universal healthcare system in which all citizens become
patients with no power, but the obligation to comply with the prescriptions of the
State, represented in the centralised control of the Ama. This universalisation
involves the homogenisation of the population and the creation of a discriminatory
system that punishes those who do not fit the normative (physical and ideological)
model of health. The dystopian tone of the novel establishes a correlation between
reality and a hypothetical dictatorial future, using fear to warn about the importance
of resistance and change. Unlike Corpus Delicti, which initially presents the
“Methode” in a utopic light as a benevolent dictatorship but is later contested by
the main character driven by an opposing utopian “impulse for corporeal freedom”
(Smith-Prei 2012: 114), the “ideal” society created by the medarchy in Caduceus
Wild is seen as unequivocally oppressive by the main characters. Nonetheless, it is
necessary to emphasise that both dystopic and utopic stories work under the same
principle, as both imagine “a future space within the text in an attempt to negate
the status quo and open critique” (McAlear 2010: 32). The three protagonists of
Caduceus Wild offer a counter-narrative that challenges the status quo of the
contemporary reality of the text, representing the struggle to resist authoritarianism
and reclaim freedom and autonomy. However, as will be seen in the following
section, this confrontation is only discursive, for the main characters do not bring
about change in the society they want to escape.
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4. The Rule of the Caduceus
The medarchy, as the expression of biopower, emerged out of the consolidation of
the sciences, which favoured the transformation of medicine from a “healing art”
into a discipline with unlimited potential:
‘Science’ in upper case, ‘The Age Of’, pulling medicine to its pinnacle. If science
could invent a breechloading rifle to kill a man a mile away, the Science could save
his life. If Science could wipe out whole cities, it established a right to rule those
spared. The doctor could perform a caesarean section and rip MacDuff untimely
from his mother’s womb; didn’t this give him authority to prescribe which wombs
should bear, and whose seed was unfit for procreation? (Moore and Bradford
1959a: 15-16)
Knowledge is the basis of the medarchy, as it served to legitimise the ubiquitous
medical authority. This system thus points to a change in the paradigm of power,
as Cyrus ponders: “A few hundred years ago, all you needed was numbers or muskets.
Now you needed knowledge. Lack of it keeps us under their [the health professionals’]
thumbs. More than that, it makes it ever harder to convince Patients that the Ama
could ever be wrong about anything” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 13, emphasis in
the original). Under the rule of medicine, knowledge, rather than military force,
becomes critical in shaping power. The control of knowledge therefore conveys
the power to control everything else, for only medicine can determine what is
accepted as truth. A branch of science based on the assumption that valid
knowledge can only be acquired by means of empirical methods, medicine
constructs the reality of disease, which is accepted as the only valid way to regard
human experience, as Michael Bury argues: “Modern medicine’s ‘positive
knowledge’ about disease is merely the product of the power which the medical
profession has to determine what is, and what is not, ‘true’ about disease” (2005:
20). This power/knowledge binomial sustains the myth of the infallibility of
medicine that characterises modern medical culture, as the systems of knowledge
of medicine and its operations of power are co-constructed and mutually
legitimised. Additionally, the monopolisation of knowledge by the medical
establishment reinforces the hierarchical nature of the doctor-patient relationship,
as it is based on the intellectual superiority of the healthcare professional, as Cyrus
suggests: “The philosophy of the Ama has only one: its subjects must be made and
kept physically healthy, intellectually quiet […] and socially adjusted. We are here
now because we’ve rejected those concepts” (Moore and Bradford 1959d: 93).
Paternalism in clinical practice is expressed in the dominance of the doctor
imposing therapeutic intervention over the patient, who is expected to be silent,
passive and compliant, showing blind trust in the doctor’s expertise. This fictional
account manifests the essence of the culture of modern medicine, which circulates
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not only in the hospital, but also in the social discourses of sickness, reinforcing the
superiority of the doctor’s knowledge over the patient’s voice. Yet this dominance
is enacted in acknowledgment of the good intentions of medicine: to cure the
patient and restore health.
The nature of modern medicine reflects the foundation of the medarchy in
Caduceus Wild, where the supremacy of this disciplinary regime was based “on the
acquiescence of the Patients, on acquiescence based on the assumption that the
Ama was purely benevolent — that those who opposed it were hurting themselves”
(Moore and Bradford 1959a: 27). This statement reflects the essence of Marinker’s
intention when investigating why doctors make people patients since, as the author
concluded, ill subjects transform themselves into patients to “establish a healing
relationship with another [the doctor] who articulates society’s willingness and
capability to help” (1975: 84). Yet, a clarification is required here, for, although ill
subjects voluntarily enter the medical paradigm and become patients, they do not
always consent to becoming a passive and depersonalised object of the medical
gaze and surveillance. In this sense, it is important to note that being ill is a mode
of experience, while being a patient is the role assigned in a specific context. In this
sense, the answer to Marinker’s question about “why make people patients?” relies
on the fact that the doctor’s authority and knowledge are elicited by the patient’s
need for help to restore health. In fact, when describing the origins of the
medarchy, Moore and Bradford picture a setting where only medicine could save
humanity in the aftermath of a global disaster:
Most people like to be doctored, to be told what to do and what not to do. Saves
thinking. Like the army used to be. Remember, that’s how the Medarchy happened
in the first place: we begged them to take over when responsibility got too much for
us, with all the radiation sickness and bacteriological warfare. (1959a: 41)
The passivity inherent to patienthood indicates that patients, in some way, are
“expected to give up his or her jurisdiction of the body over to the doctor”, who by
means of their knowledge about diseases make decisions to cure and fix the diseased
body, imposing diets, medication or new habits (Lupton 2012: 24). The priority of
medicine, thus, is to restore health and well-being, two notions that are regarded
strictly in biopsychosocial terms, as “something which could be produced by a fully
developed technology in a perfect society” (Mordacci 1998: 28, emphasis in the
original). In Caduceus Wild medicine is the enabler of that utopian society, as it acts
as a technology aimed at improving health and producing healthy bodies. However,
as the novel reflects, there is ambiguity regarding what constitutes the “good”
pursued by medicine:
only for the good of mankind, of course — only to make people healthier, happier,
longer-lived. If in the process the doctor became an object of veneration […], no
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harm was done; patients recovered more quickly when they had perfect faith in the
physician. So who took fright or even noticed when the kindly, overworked healer
became priest and despot? (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 16)
In the disciplinary regime imposed by the medarchy, personal freedom and the
role of the individual in facing illness is suppressed, proving the risks of reducing
the experience of illness to a purely clinical event. The power of medicine to
control the body is oriented to the production of medicalised bodies that are no
longer perceived as a threat to social stability. Preventive and protective health
behaviours, thus, are promoted by both medicine and society to encourage bodily
control and surveillance. In Caduceus Wild these measures reflect not only the role
of medicine in the conservation of health, but also the social and cultural models
of corporeality, such as the prohibition of “all hair below the eyelashes as
unsanitary”, enforcing “the use of depilatories on the entire body” (Moore and
Bradford 1959a: 30). The duty of the medarchy is to both force and help citizens
accommodate to the norms of this utopian society also by using medicine to
impose social control:
Performing ‘indicated’ hysterectomies, sterilizations, abortions. Adjusting Patients
to a society that may not be to their taste, conditions they might improve, handicaps
they could overcome. Quieting the indignant with psycho-pharmacology and the
outraged with electro-tranquilization. Forcing the dissident to testify against
themselves with parapentathol. Killing those who have ‘outlived their social
usefulness’, or suffer prolonged pain — or perhaps have maladies they are
incompetent to diagnose. (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 37)
It is necessary to note that in this medical regime medical knowledge and power is
restricted, despite the social expectations regarding the biomedical sciences as
infallible and unambiguous. Yet, regardless of the extent of the social control
medicine can exert, even in fiction, this form of power presents structural limits,
for, despite modern medicine’s pursuit of “technical-scientific approach to illness”,
the belief of unending progress and the promise of perfection is only a myth
(Mordacci 1998: 28).
In Caduceus Wild, medicine promises health, but in exchange patients must accept
control by medical rule. However, it is important to note that despite the
dominance of the medical sciences over society, in the medarchy the medical
profession seems to be decentralised, for the actual control of the population is
exercised by different disciplinary agents:
When the doctors took over, it was just because they were needed. But you can’t run
a society with just doctors and nurses and laboratories. You have to have discipline,
if only to keep the Patients in line. Hence the orderlies. But the orderlies were no
good for checking charts, spotting non-cooperative individuals, cranks. So we got
the trained Medical Police. But what could MPs do about mallies who conspired,
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propagandized, actively resisted? Answer: the subcutes. (Moore and Bradford
1959a: 39)
The healthfare state depicted in the novel certainly retains the original connotations
of the panopticon described by Bentham in the context of the penal institution,
where disciplinary officers were responsible for the surveillance and control of
prisoners. Thus, “those who become orderlies, MPs or subcutes — they’d have
been cops or prison guards” (1959a: 38). The “orderlies” were the forces in
charge of maintaining the social order by inspecting and identifying those suspected
of non-compliance with medical laws. The Medical Police were agents identified
by wearing a black pin with a caduceus. The term “subcute” is an acronym of
“Surgical - Bactericidal - Custodial Technicians”, described as “more dangerous
than orderlies”, for they act undercover agents of sorts, as they do not wear
uniforms or pins, as their name suggests —probably referring to the medical term
“subcutaneous”— meaning that they are beneath the surface of the medarchical
system. With these representatives of the medarchy, the panopticon becomes
tangible for the Citizen-Patient. As Cyrus notes, “[n]ot caduceus, but the
ophthalmoscope ought to be the ubiquitous symbol of the medarchy. Sees all, knows
everything, peers into insides. Big Brother, MD” (1959a: 8, emphasis in the original).
The ophthalmoscope, however, does not solely represent the everywhereness of
the clinical gaze, but also knowledge, control and the ability to see hidden truths.
Despite the parallelism with the penal panopticon mentioned above, the medical
panopticon in Caduceus Wild has its own particularities. Unlike the penitentiary
system, the medarchy is depicted as a form of dictatorship where the rights of
patients were restricted, as their only obligation was to get well and remain healthy:
Laws were laws, but the lawbreaker was no longer a criminal, able to hold some
remnant of pride, to pay a debt to society by serving a sentence. Now he was just
another maladjusted individual, protected by no legal presumption of innocence,
but having testimony wrenched from him by a medical examiner whose opinion
carried the ultimate weight with judges and juries, even in the face of old-fashioned
evidence. (Moore and Bradford 1959c: 83)
The aim of the medarchy, thus, is to produce socially useful subjects. This approach
echoes Talcott Parsons’ structural-functionalist model of health developed in the
1950s. According to this model, illness is conceived as a social deviance in which
subjects temporarily adopt the “sick role”, a status that exempts them from social
obligations and expectations regarding normal roles (Williams 2005: 124). The
normative expectations related to the sick role are a form of social control, since
ill subjects are forced to abandon their other roles in order to focus on the goal
of re-establishing health. Following Varul’s ideas, “substituting the multiplicity of
everyday roles, the sick role bridges periods of incapability by establishing a single
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role that enabled conformity within the deviance of illness” (2010: 76). In the
medarchy, the adoption of the patient role, not as negotiated between the
individual and society but as imposed by the medical establishment, ensures that
subjects accommodate to the social expectations and behaviours as a preventive
mechanism to maintain social stability. This necessarily involves the loss of
individuality and autonomy of patients, tipping the scales in favour of public health
over personal freedom. Additionally, in contrast to the sick role, which is only a
transitory status before the restitution of normality, the patient role in Caduceus
Wild is actually the representation of the Parsonian “health role”, which is ongoing,
for the healthy person is expected to be “adhering to a regime and deferring to
competent authority for the definition of that regime” (Frank 1991: 208). From a
contextual perspective, it is also important to remark that Parsons constructed the
notion of the sick role upon the coalescence of the Calvinist and capitalist North
American scheme of thought that emerged at the turn of the 21st century, which
is also tangible in Moore and Bradford’s novel. The characters live in a society
where “youthfulness, activism, and independence” are the most valued attributes
of citizenship (Turner 2001: 261). This model thus conjures an archetype of
normality and health as the foundation of “the world of strength, the positive
(valued) body, performance and production, the non-disabled, and young adults”
(Wendell 1996: 40). Since the world is made bearing in mind an able-bodied,
male, young subject, it can be said that deviations from health are certainly social
constructions. In other words, it is society which produces maladjusted individuals.
In the medarchy this is expressed in the pathologisation of behaviours considered
as deviant. As Dr Tree, defender of the medarchy, explains to Cyrus, the Ama has
the moral obligation to protect collective well-being by controlling and guiding
every aspect of the individual’s life:
You can’t afford to let the sentimentalist keep his deformed child, or grieve
excessively over his poor old mother who ought to have been euthanized years ago,
or worry himself into a breakdown over the possibility of being cuckolded — because
every one of these ‘private’ concerns touches the general welfare somewhere.
Suffering, discontent, maladjustment, can be spread as surely as typhoid or smallpox.
And carriers must be isolated and cured. Or at least have his malady arrested. It’s the
only ultimately humane course. (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 69)
Patients are in a constant state of control, as the main task of the orderlies, subcutes
and MPs is to identify, capture and cure the maladjusted, that is, “those who
refused to adjust themselves to the sane and sanitary regimen of the medarchy”
(Moore and Bradford 1959b: 62). The three main characters, Cyrus, Victoria and
Henry, were part of the subgroup of mallies, who “could do little more than rebel,
and try to convince the majority that the rule of caduceus wild robbed man of all
dignity” (Moore and Bradford 1959b: 62). Yet, apart from the mallies, another
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group named “mercifuls” are also targeted by the medarchy. The mercifuls were
always “on the lookout for suffering people they could ‘help’”, as they believed
that euthanasia was the only way to relieve some patients of their misery, a stance
that they regarded as a way to oppose the Ama, but which in reality only reflected
the acceptance of the actions of the medarchy by only “palliating it, instead of
removing the cause” (Moore and Bradford 1959c: 102). The mercifuls, in a
certain sense, consider that subjects can recover their dignity through death, seen
as a way of escaping the disciplinary medical system. The mallies, in contrast,
aimed to destroy the medarchy by not complying with its rules and prescriptions.
Despite their ideological differences, however, if captured by the forces of order,
both mercifuls and mallies were not jailed but “cured, robbed of their memories
and individualities” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 6). In this sense, like other forms
of dictatorial regimes, the medarchy, by imposing a normative model of behaviour
and health, has the power to depersonalise citizens:
Angers, passions, ideals, hopes, determinations, fears. All urgency, all the inner
burning, all caring wiped out by an impersonal current carried in an impersonal
electrode manipulated by an impersonal technician employed by a benevolent and
compassionate society. Because you were part of that society, and if you were diseased
the entire body was afflicted. (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 26)
In this dystopic world, to be cured, necessarily involves being stripped of one’s
individuality, something not different from the situation undergone by patients in
modern medical practices. The hierarchical relationship in the clinical setting
provokes the anonymisation, or even the dehumanisation, of the patient, regarded
not as a subject, but rather as a body needing treatment. As authors of the positivist
medical discourse, doctors are able to establish a relationship of power with
patients, which is clearly reflected in the symbolism in the clinical context noted by
Erving Goffman in his essays on the medical practice in mental institutions: “First,
you can certainly tell the players by the uniforms they wear, with varying insignia
(some subtle, like in certain institutions the not wearing of a uniform) distinguishing
the ranks. Patients, on the other hand, are, in all senses of the word, often stripped
of their identity”, which is hidden under a hospital gown (Zola 1986: 214). This
dichotomy between the identifiable roles of the staff and the anonymised status of
patients is mirrored in Caduceus Wild, where the agents of the Ama are recognised
by their uniforms or their pinned caduceus, whose colours indicate their rank. Like
in the reality of modern medical practice, this visual differentiation helps to identify
the agents within the system, fostering a sense of order and hierarchy and
reinforcing the subordination of the patient to medical power.
The medical panopticon in Caduceus Wild also reproduces the religious
connotations of the original panopticon penitentiary. Bentham’s surveillance
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system was based on a “hierarchy of three stages” with “a secular simile of God,
angels and man” (Evans 1971: 22). In the medarchy, the same hierarchical system
is tangible, with medical professionals being considered demigods; the MPs,
subcutes and orderlies as guardians (a title the mercifuls aimed to supplant by
being “compassionate” to patients in suffering); and the patients as mortals
needing guidance and salvation after a global catastrophe. In fact, the medarchy is
grounded in the same principle of Bentham’s ideation of the panopticon, defined
as a “system that provides the basis for a rational order of things in a situation that,
without such careful circumscriptions, was often rendered into a diabolical chaos
by the irrationally disposed passions of men” (Evans 1971: 22). The mallies and
their rebelliousness against the medical establishment, thus, were not considered
“merely subversive — they were virtually blasphemous” (Moore and Bradford
1959a: 14). In the fictional world ruled by the Ama, the medarchy transcends the
system of power to become the object of religious devotion with the foundation of
the “Church of the Caduceus”, a consequence of the idolisation of the medical
profession by patients who “had been enamored of medicine as an ultimate end
and implemented their worship by annoying doctors beyond normal expectation”
(Moore and Bradford 1959a: 25). The transformation of this hierarchical social
and political system into a theological system reflects the internalisation of the
discipline or dogmas of the Ama in a fraction of the population, the self-proclaimed
“Caduceans”. Thus, “[w]ith spiritual strength added to the medarchy’s material
appeals, the healthfare state would be just about invincible” (Moore and Bradford
1959a: 25). The supreme object of worship for this congregation was the spiritual,
immortal and unchanging figure of the “Great Physician”, to whom Caduceans
prayed. This veneration of the medical profession is clearly a projection of the
imprint that religion has left on modern medical culture, for “Great Physician” is,
in fact, a title popularly attributed to Jesus by Christians to praise his role as a
healer of both physical and spiritual sickness. More recently, fictional religious
discourses have been articulated around doctors, who are seen as the only providers
of health and well-being. This sense of devotion is the subject of religious hymns
about the myth of infallibility and unlimited knowledge of the medical practice:
“There is only one way,/ There is only one way/ To be healthy and happy:/ ‘See the
doctor’, we say” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 48, emphasis in the original); “Rock
the surg’ry prescribed for me/ Heal me like the Great MD;/ Heal my bone and
insides;/ All health in Medicine resides” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 49, emphasis
in the original). These hymns also served to reinforce the indisputability of the
power of the medarchy: “When the charts are read up yonder, I’ll be there;/ Vaccines,
antitoxins, x-rays everywhere./ When my chart is read up yonder, let the Great
Physician ponder./ I’ll be healthy, I’ll be happy” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 52,
emphasis in the original). Additionally, these chants aimed to reflect the very
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nature of the disciplinary power of the medical profession, whose actions were
justified by their authority to act in the name of health: “Shots will help me, this I
know,/ Because the doctor tells me so;/ He is wise and kind and strong;/ He will cure
me all life long.// Shots will help me,/ Checks will guard me,/ Pills will cure me —/
Doctor tells me so” (Moore and Bradford 1959a: 65, emphasis in the original).
Caduceus Wild highlights the connection between medicine and religion; even
today the medical profession is believed to be a response to a “calling” like
clergymen’s vocation — or nuns’ vocation in the case of nurses. Considering
doctors as objects of worship, in this sense, may point to a change in the perception
of medical practice, confronting the pragmatic vision of medicine as a purely
mechanical or technical science and the belief that “medical treatment should
entail a nearly mystical bond of healing accompanied by exalted human sentiments”
(Osmond 1980: 555). Yet, in Caduceus Wild, the deification of doctors, the
devotion for their workings and the reverence paid to their tools to heal are not
contradictory or incompatible, as the hymns quoted above express. The idealisation
and idolisation of the medical profession fuelled by the myth of infallibility seems
to be based on the patient’s blind trust or, as this novel suggests, faith in healers.
Contemplating these forms of social control and (self-)discipline that transcend
the clinical space, the three main characters struggle to elude the rule of the
caduceus in a world where the line between healing and control becomes
ambiguous. The ending of the story, however, fails to encourage real social change
in the real world, as the three main characters reclaim their freedom by fleeing the
medarchical system rather than dismantling it. Yet, despite its straightforward plot,
Caduceus Wild encourages readers to question the extent of surveillance necessary
for societal well-being or the cost of enforcing biopower. This story invites readers
to reflect on the balance between authority and individual agency, echoing
Foucault’s timeless theorisations about power dynamics. More importantly, this
work of fiction questions the meaning of the role of the patient, traditionally
regarded as a passive recipient of medical decisions. The determination of the main
characters to reject this system by not trusting medicine blindly points to the
importance of the re-humanisation of medical practice, which should regard
patients as individuals rather than as sites of (social) control.
5. Conclusions: Speculative Realities
Caduceus Wild encourages readers to question the nature of biomedical authority
by imagining a world where medical prescriptions are law. The counter-narrative
presented by the main characters, particularly Cyrus, challenges the
conceptualisation of medicine as a supreme science and the idealisation of the
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medical profession, pointing to the potential dangers of a system governed by an
unruly or wild —as the title of the novel suggests— medical power. As part of the
dystopic genre, this speculative novel relies on the power of fear to encourage
resistance to the status quo. Yet, although this fictional story portrays Moore’s
interpretation of the anxieties that dominated North American society in the late
1950s, the reading of this text in the post-pandemic era reveals that the essence of
those tensions rooted in biopower are ever-present.
In this context, the genre of speculative fiction serves as an instrument to explore
alternative realities where societal norms are subverted by characters who reveal
the injustice and oppression exerted by power structures presented as normalised
and beneficial. As seen in this critical analysis, Moore captures this collision
between utopianism and dystopian resistance, two stances embodied, respectively,
by the defenders of the medarchy as the ideal form of government, and the main
characters who rebel against this system. Readers navigate the world of the
medarchy through the eyes of three mallies who represent the disruption of order
and stability in a society that fears individuality. This novel, in this regard, confirms
the value of the dystopian genre, as the view of the rebellious main characters
counterbalances the utopian reality presented as benign and inoffensive. Dystopia,
as McAlear notes, “prevents Utopia from becoming totalitarian spatially”, for it
creates “the possibility of redescribing any system as fearful” (2010: 37). Caduceus
Wild certainly accomplishes its dystopian purpose, situating a fictional utopian
system in America, where dystopian resistances emerge within a totalitarian regime
that transforms the mallies into marginalised insiders that threaten the dominant
ideology. Despite its lack of popularity and influence in the literary and academic
world, Caduceus Wild ignites a debate about the impact and limits of biopower,
proving that dystopian fictions function as political allegories that forewarn of
darker futures and call for action and agency.
Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by the post-doctoral fellowship programme
“Margarita Salas” for the training of young PhD holders within the framework of
grants for the requalification of the Spanish university system, awarded by the
Ministry of Universities of Spain and financed by the European Union
(NextGenerationEU) to conduct a research stay at the University of Málaga. The
author of this essay also wants to acknowledge her participation in the funded
research project Illness in the Age of Extinction: Anglophone Narratives of Personal
and Planetary Degradation (2000-2020) (Ref. PID2019-109565RB-I00/
AEI/10.13039/501100011033).
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Received: 02/04/2024
Accepted: 20/11/2024
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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JUAN VARO ZAFRA
Universidad de Granada
juanvaro@ugr.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6966-2158>
THE MISE EN ABYME IN THE DROWNED WORLD
BY JAMES G. BALLARD
LA MISE EN ABYME EN THE DROWNED WORLD
DE JAMES G. BALLARD
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510824
Abstract
At the beginning of the 1960s, the New Wave of British science fiction sought to
revitalise the genre by incorporating more contemporary themes (drugs, sex,
criticism of consumerist society and the media) as well as new narrative and
expressive formulas, with the aim of entering the mainstream. James G. Ballard
was a forerunner of this trend thanks to a series of stories and experimental novels
that embraced the worldviews of surrealism, situationism and nouveau roman.
The mise en abyme, a recurring technique in this new body of work, was
incorporated into the early novels by Ballard, a process which culminated with
The Drowned World, in which the technique became highly complex. This article
examines the three cases of mise en abyme in the novel, beginning with a
theoretical discussion of this literary device, adding a certain Heideggerian
approach related to the image of the world in art. The article then goes on to
analyze in detail the paintings that operate as mises en abyme in the novel,
classifying them and reflecting on their relationship with the work as a whole and
the reader, as well as the significance in the renewing context of science fiction of
the decade.
Keywords: Ballard, mise en abyme, The Drowned World, science fiction.
Juan Varo Zafra
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Resumen
A comienzos de los años sesenta, la New Wave de la ciencia ficción británica
pretendió renovar el género incorporando nuevos temas acordes con la época
(drogas, sexo, crítica a la sociedad de consumo y a los medios de comunicación) y
nuevas fórmulas narrativas y expresivas con el objetivo de incorporarse a la
literatura mainstream. James G. Ballard se situó a la cabeza de este movimiento
con una serie de relatos y novelas experimentales que hacían suyos los postulados
del surrealismo, el situacionismo y el nouveau roman. La mise en abyme, técnica
recurrente en las nuevas narrativas, se incorporó a las primeras novelas ballardianas
y especialmente a The Drowned World, en la que adquirió un alto grado de
complejidad. Este artículo examina los tres casos de mise en abyme de esta novela,
a partir de la discusión teórica sobre esta figura a la que se ha añadido un cierto
enfoque heideggeriano relativo a la imagen del mundo en la obra artística. El
artículo analiza pormenorizadamente las pinturas que operan como mises en
abyme en la novela, las clasifica y reflexiona sobre su relación con el conjunto de la
obra y frente al lector, así como su significación en el contexto renovador de la
ciencia ficción de la década.
Palabras clave: Ballard, mise en abyme, The Drowned World, ciencia ficción.
1. Introduction
In the 1960s, the work of author James G. Ballard not only consolidated him as
a writer of science fiction, but also, along with Michael Moorcock, a leading
figure of the New Wave movement. New Wave writers such as these were
committed to revitalising the genre, mainly through the magazine New Worlds.
Moorcock and Ballard, accompanied by authors such as Brian Aldiss, John
Brunner, Thomas M. Dish, Judith Merril and John Sladek, brought science
fiction into the hedonistic and troubled atmosphere of the sixties, in which
anxieties surrounding the Cold War, the Space Race, consumerism, psychedelic
drugs, pop culture and sexual liberation were recurring themes. They regarded
the era as acutely science-fictional, in which the future had become present,
exciting and terrifying at the same time (Greenland 2012: 180-195).New Wave
writers opted for an experimental style akin to postmodern fiction (McHale
2004: 59-72; Peregrina 2015) in reprising the avant-garde (Huyssen 2011: 10)
and a desire to conflate elite and popular art, formalism and kitsch (Compagnon
1990: 112). In short, the movement espoused some of the hallmarks of the so-
called second postmodernism: i) The affirmation, as values, of catastrophe, as
non-programmed difference and nomadism, as an uncompromising voyage
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through all territories, including the past, with no sense of the future; ii) A break
with technological optimism; iii) The critique of the media; and iv) The blending
of popular art with the modern tradition, without temporal, historical or
hierarchical categories (Compagnon 1990: 163-166).
Between 1962 and 1966, Ballard published four novels1 which, on the one hand,
echoed post-war British dystopian and catastrophist sensibilities and, on the
other, laid the foundations of a disturbing and Dionysian literary world of his
own, which would reach its pinnacle in the following decade. First, these novels
acted as an extension and counterpoint to the works of John Wyndham (Oramus
2016) in the context of Cold War paranoia —the natural or cosmic catastrophe as
a transcript of the consequences of a nuclear conflict— and the crumbling of the
British Empire (Hammond 2017: 50, 65, 116; and concerning Western civilisation
in general, Oramus 2015). Second, Ballard’s novels and short fiction of the 1960s
are metaliterary exercises that critically update the genre from the aforementioned
postmodern consciousness (Broderick 1995) that questions the being of the
world, and in which disaster is a rhetorical resource that enables a vision of human
nature with a characteristic ferocity that remains unsettling even today. In this
way, catastrophe allows Ballard’s passive and disoriented characters2 to emerge
from the inauthenticity, in the Heideggerian sense, of everyday life and embrace
an existence marked by solitude, inner exploration and universal entropy as the
axes of the recreation of the world3. Ballard forms what Fredric Jameson has
called “an ideological myth of entropy, in which the historical collapse of the
British empire is projected outwards, in an immense cosmic deceleration of the
universe itself as well as its molecular components” (Jameson 2005: 321).
Strangely, Jameson makes no reference in this analysis to inner space, an essential
concept in Ballard’s work of the time. For what is decisive in the Ballardian
panorama brought about by disaster is not so much the allegorisation of the
frustration of loss of empire as the savage liberation of inner space now fused with
outer reality, opened up by catastrophe, in what amounts to a return to an Adamic
world in which paradise and hell have lost their exclusive meaning. In this very
personal way, Ballard enters the realm of thought which, in the second half of the
twentieth century, makes disaster a dark, anti-Enlightenment epitome of
modernity, where authenticity emerges in the post-catastrophic world, after the
abolition of the past (Huyssen 2011: 53):
Each one of those fantasies represents an arraignment of the finite, an attempt to
dismantle the formal structure of time and space which the universe wraps around us
at the moment we first achieve consciousness […] in the cataclysm story the science
fiction writer joins Company with them [infant and madman], using his imagination
to describe the infinite alternatives to reality which nature itself has proved incapable
of inventing. The celebration of the possibilities of life is at the heart of science
fiction. (Ballard 1997: 209)4
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These differences from the preceding disaster novels were accompanied by a
formal revolution that associated the New Wave with the historical avant-garde
and the narrative techniques of the nouveau roman. According to Brian Aldiss,
the connection between 1960s science fiction and the avant-garde was first forged
when Penguin Books, following the idea of art editor Germano Facetti, launched
a new collection of novels in the genre, using works by Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso,
Roy Lewis, Yves Tanguy and Paul Klee, among others, to illustrate the covers
(Aldiss 1973: 245-246).
Bearing these ideas in mind, in this paper I aim to address one of the most
fruitful aspects of this convergence of sources in James G. Ballard’s disaster
novels: the mise en abyme. In adopting this technique, Ballard seemed to pursue
the following objectives: i) To delve into the previously mentioned assumptions
concerning the projection of the interior space onto fictional reality with surrealist
painting; ii) To provide the story with a metafictional dimension that makes The
Drowned World an acerbic commentary on the genre; and iii) To highlight the
artificial and performative nature of catastrophe as a celebration of vital liberation
that Ballard associates with science fiction. I hope to demonstrate that Ballard
finds in the mise en abyme a subtle way of communicating with the reader by
creating a metalepsis of discourse (Cohn 2012: 105-106) that allows the narrator
to enter the diegetic world and break the illusion of reality (Genette 2004: 27).
However, he does so tacitly by using surrealist paintings and without addressing
the reader directly. Exposing the artificiality of diegesis, the Ballardian mise en
abyme reveals the carnivalesque and liberating nature of catastrophe. In this way,
the author breaks with both the pessimistic inclination of the genre and the
conservative conception of the “cosy catastrophe”, just as Aldiss describes John
Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids (Aldiss 1973: 335).
2. Abyss in the Inner Space: A Theoretical Overview
The extensive body of theory around the mise en abyme reveals the complexity of
the figure and the difficulty of establishing its meaning in a way that clarifies all
the ambiguities attached to the term since Gide’s intuitive description at the end
of the nineteenth century. Gide pointed to a figure by which the subject of the
play was transposed on the scale of the characters, and served as its frame (Snow
2016: 18). Its relation to heraldry allows us to consider the mise en abyme as a kind
of emblem, in the sense that it exposes the deeper meaning and purpose of the
work in iconic form.5 In this way, the mise en abyme creates an instantaneous
symbolic alliance between a passage inserted in the text frame —in the case of
literature, the one which concerns us here— and the whole, in which the passage
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provides the image that allows the reader to reflect on the work. At the same
time, it interrogates the characters as to the reality and circumstances in which
they are located, hence, perhaps, its value in the field of postmodern writing and
its ontological dimension, establishing a link between two universes belonging to
different levels of reality: “Mise-en-abyme, wherever it occurs, disturbs the orderly
hierarchy of ontological levels —worlds within worlds— in effect short-circuiting
the ontological structure, and thus foregrounding it” (McHale 2004: 14).
Contrasting with the heraldic metaphor, in 1977 Lucien Dällenbach proposed
the metaphor of the mirror, defining mise en abyme as “any internal mirror in
which the whole of the story is reflected by simple, repeated or specious
reduplication” (Dällenbach 1991: 49). The mise en abyme, as a reflection, brings
together in condensed form the whole or part of the work, according to a broad
criterion of similarity, with the resulting ontological effects. However, it also
becomes an authorial commentary or note that reveals the work’s theme or some
significant aspect. In this sense, the mise en abyme is, in my opinion, a figure of
thought that forms a hyponoia, or a re-reading of the main text or framework by
the author. Since he is an instance that guarantees the anomalous nature of mise
en abyme concerning the work as a whole. This intentional dimension makes it a
peculiar kind of narrative metalepsis (Genette 1989: 288-289) in that it can be
considered an interference in the diegetic world by the author in the form of an
allegorical commentary addressed to the reader. Thus, if for the characters it can
be an exemplum of their fictional reality (Bal 1978: 120), for author and reader it
is an allegory that, given its specular nature, turns the frame text into another;
because if the mise en abyme is an icon that reveals the immediate meaning of the
work, this, conversely, becomes an allegory that encloses or unfolds the hidden
meaning revealed by the mise en abyme. Jean Ricardou rightly wonders the
following: if mise en abyme reveals certain major aspects of fiction of which it is
part, would not it be so because the plot has been constituted at the referential
level according to its demands? In this case, the mise en abyme would be the matrix,
and the macro-history the mise en périphérie of a micro-discourse (Ricardou 1990:
65). In some cases, the unfolding may offer a counterpoint or contradict the
framing narrative, to the point of establishing an ironic or paradoxical relationship
with it (Ricardou 1990: 83-85) as a form of the specious mise en abyme suggested
by Dällenbach. Snow relates the mise en abyme antithétique to the antimimetic
tendencies of the nouveau roman, a movement to which Ricardou mostly refers in
his examination of the figure (Snow 2016: 49-50).
A particularly fitting case of mise en abyme is produced through an artistic work,
which exists in the empirical world and is inserted into the fictional text. This is
the case of The Drowned World and its metaphorical use of surrealist paintings.
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This is an intermedial phenomenon in which the figure is broken down into a
symbolic ekphrasis that juxtaposes the world of the artwork and the framing
literary work, and the real world of the author and reader. But this symbolic link
elaborates on an anomalous circumstance: an object from the real world also
exists in the fictional world and has in this world, in addition to its own aesthetic
value, the function of reflecting the world of the work and commenting on it in
the empirical world of the author and reader, which brings them back to the
world of the work, which is presented under a new guise. The work of art inserted
into the text operates as a quotation, that is, a statement that, divorced from its
original context, is repeated in the new one, but no longer as a statement but as a
sign (Compagnon 2020: 85), and imposes on it a recognizable symbolic reading
that excludes or defers others. This was the subject of discussion between Bal and
Dällenbach. Bal considered that Dällenbach appealed to an external consciousness
that directed the reading and imposed an interpretation, which would be an
allegory. In Iddo Dickmann’s view, the intent is to avoid the substantialism of
those who are obsessed with this notion and intend to find it everywhere,
subordinating the text to its substances, applying prior categories of similarity
between the reflection and the reflected (Dickmann 2019: 17-18). In my view,
this is an essential feature of the mise en abyme, which elevates it above the
common quotation. Even in the case of a partial mise en abyme affecting a certain
aspect of the story as Tena Morillo (2019: 483) points out, the commentary it
imposes affects the text as a whole. In this case, I find that the metaphors of the
heraldic shield and the mirror give way to a new metaphor: that of the Moebius
strip in which the inner reality of the work is transformed without breaking the
continuity with the outer reality and, on its return, back into it.6
It seems obvious, on the other hand, that the fact that the object operating as a
reflection of fictional reality is presented as an artistic work (Dällenbach 1991:
88) is sustained only because author and reader —not necessarily the characters—
share an idea of artistic representation that goes beyond the ornamental dimension
of the object. An idea of art as an event must be shared for such a specular function
to be possible. In this manner, the aesthetic comprehension of the artistic work
enables it to be transformed into an object of experience and, furthermore, into
an expression of human life. This globalising extension of the image is based, as
Heidegger points out, on the way the thing appears as a system before the
spectator (Heidegger 1998: 63-90). The systematic conception of the image of
the world turns the artistic mise en abyme into an epistemological model insofar
as it conceives of the world in its totality as a reflection. Therefore, if the reader
understands the epistemological value, concerning the work as a whole, of the
artistic piece located in the fictional reality, it is because he understands that
the being of the entity is found in representability (Heidegger 1998: 73), which
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is examined by the inner eye of the subject and compared with the external reality
(Rorty 2001: 50-51). In this sense, I explained above the enunciative nature of
the artistic work. When the reader compares the relation between the reality of the
work and the artistic image that operates as mise en abyme, they do essentially
the same as when they compare the images printed on the retina and the entities
whose models are these images. At the same time, understanding becomes a
mirror and an inner eye; in the same way, the image placed in an abyss unfolds
before the reader into a mirror of the fictitious reality and an eye that examines
and judges it. Now, the aesthetic dimension of the duplicated work of art —the
literary text and the piece inserted in it— adds value to this epistemological
approach insofar as it makes it possible to establish the relationship between both
realities in the iconicity or symbolic value of both representations, based not on
the reliable reflection, but on analogy, contradiction or irony by a systematic
apprehension that justifies the explanation of apparently incompatible things
(Gadamer 2001: 164-165). I argue that it is the symbolic capacity of the object
inserted in the work that allows the process of semantic overload of the reflex to
which Dällenbach alludes, by virtue of which the object functions on two levels:
that of the narrative, where it continues to signify, the same as any other utterance;
and that of the reflex, where it enters as an element of a meta-signification thanks
to which the narrative can take itself as a subject, reflecting the utterance itself,
the enunciation or the code (1991: 57-59).
From the moment that the mise en abyme operates as an instrument linking the
author to the reader, but is totally or partially alien to the characters, who lack the
distance (because they are within the fiction) to understand its nature, it becomes
an ironic parable of sorts, since fiction reveals its frames, and shows its otherness
in the face of unfathomable reality:
As a second sign, in fact, the mise en abyme not only brings out the signifying
intentions of the first (the story that conveys it), but also makes it clear that this
(not) is (but) sign and that it proclaims as such any trope, albeit with a vigour
increased a hundredfold by its size: I am literature; I, and the story that contains me.
(Dällenbach 1991: 74)
The work speaks to the reader, thus breaking its fictional isolation. But it is this
same ironic potential that makes the turn from the epistemological to the
ontological possible by questioning fictional reality through the symbolic erasure
of the work of art which, inserted in fiction, crosses it until it reaches the reader;
and, therefore, that of the world of reference, insofar as it questions, by reproducing
it, the epistemological system of the image of the world in its dual function of eye
and mirror. Yet this is not always the case: sometimes the mise en abyme does not
produce this ontological anxiety in the reader, but rather can operate as an
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instrument that reveals the fictionality of the work, showing its codes and
artifices, thus reinforcing the ontological difference between the empirical world
and the fictional world. Parabasis generates a distance, it does not suppress it. In
these cases, the breaking of the boundary between fiction and the author’s world
has the aforementioned satirical anti-idealistic character that questions the scope
of mimesis (Alter 1975: 3-4, 11).
3. Multiple Reflections of Disaster: The Setting in the
Abyss in The Drowned World
Mise en abyme was incorporated into the rhetorical uses of the New Wave as a
fundamental element of the commitment to style advocated by Moorcock and
Ballard (Greenland 2012: 166), in the search for an entropic text, voluntarily
disorganised, which eluded structural unity by resorting to diverse dialects and
approaching cubism in the representation of a reality formed by the juxtaposition of
multiple planes. The problem was posed as a search for rhetorical strategies to make
this contemporary science-fictional reality plausible. The mise en abyme, with its
disruptive character of narrative continuity, its ontological ambiguity, and,
sometimes, its intermedial nature, became a privileged instrument in the shaping of
a style that allowed the re-reading of the science-fictional tradition to be incorporated,
fusing it with the exploration of new roots in surrealism and psychoanalysis.
In her study on surrealism in the work of James G. Ballard, Jeannette Baxter
(2008) has explained in depth how the British author assimilated the ethos of
surrealism from the Situationism of the 1950s and 1960s. From the former, he
adopted not only the psychoanalytical dimension as a way of exploring inner space,
but also its political aspect, seeking to destabilise and discomfort the reader
through the proclamation of the death of affection and the exhibition of its
Dionysian consequences of sex, violence and annihilation; and, finally, the
recreation of dreamlike landscapes in the post-apocalyptic world of his works,
often expressed through avant-garde techniques such as collage, with the dual
influence of Paolozzi and Burroughs. From Situationism, he took the concept of
derivé, which expressed the constant change in the landscape that harasses the
subject and forces them to interact actively with the environment, transforming it.
These elements enabled him to develop a landscape technique that foregrounded
tormented and allegorical spaces in his apathetic and solipsistic characters. Ballard
constructs variants of works by William Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Joseph Conrad and William Golding, which serve as foundations on which to
deploy a vision of space that is problematic in its relationship with time from
which the science-fictional component of these novels is derived. Ballard’s disaster
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novels are representations of the same assumption: global catastrophe. This
generates natural and psychic forces that are as terrible as they are liberating,
affecting the categories of time and space, as well as that of the human being in
the physical realization of his inner space.7
Each of these novels deals with a specific time and focal element:8 The Drowned
World, the past and water; The Drought, the future and sand; The Crystal World,
the present and glass (Wilson 2017: 61). If The Drowned World proposes a natural
involution that returns the world to the Palaeocene, in what is a radical alternative
to the already exhausted theme of time travel in science fiction, The Drought
presents a desert world that is also a journey to a desolate and hellish future;
finally, The Crystal World recreates a world in which the present is eternally
crystallised as a consequence of an ambiguous space disaster.
The Drowned World was published by Penguin in 1965, with a cover reproducing
Yves Tanguy’s Le Palais aux Rochers, which foreshadowed the content of the
work: disaster breaks down the boundaries between the physical and psychic
worlds, generating landscapes that are a projection of the characters’ mental state.
Thus, Chapter 5, “Descent into the Deep Time”, analyses dreams as organic
memories of millions of years (2008: 74), recovered in the regression that affects
the world and human beings:
Just as the distinction between the latent and the manifest of the dream had ceased
to be valid, so had any division between the real and the superreal in the external
world. Phantoms slid imperceptibly from nightmare to reality and back again, the
terrestrial and physic landscapes were now indistinguishable, as they had been
Hiroshima and Auschwitz, Golgota and Gomorrah. (Ballard 2008: 73-74)
The use of surrealist painting as a representative icon for the physical and mental
landscapes of the novel is effected by the double parallelism between exterior and
interior space, on the one hand, and between these landscapes and those of the
bleakest historical catastrophes, which, in turn, refer to the settings of surrealist
painting, on the other. For Jeanette Baxter, The Drowned World is Ballard’s most
pictorial novel, a collage of surrealist images that takes the form of a palimpsest
of visual geographies, among which Europe after the Rain (2008: 17-27) is
decisive. Although Max Ernst’s painting is not quoted in the novel, the
description of London after the waters that had turned it into a lagoon have been
pumped out undoubtedly evokes its landscape. Indeed, the list of painters cited
in the novel includes Delvaux, Ernst and an anonymous painter “of the school of
Tintoretto”. The two surrealist painters appear in Chapter 2, “The Coming of
the Iguanas”: Kerans, the protagonist, discovers in the house of Beatrice Dahl,
a typically Ballardian female character, two paintings by Delvaux and Ernst
hanging opposite each other:
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Over the mantelpiece was a huge painting by the early 20th-century Surrealist,
Delvaux, in which ashen-faced women danced naked to the waits with dandified
skeletons in tuxedos against a spectral bone-like landscape. On another wall one of
Max Ernst’s self-devouring phantasmagoric jungles screamed silently to itself, like
the sump of some insane unconscious. (Ballard 2008: 29)
Baxter claims that Delvaux’s painting is The Worried City of 1941 (2008: 32).
However, although the painting is reminiscent of The Worried City, I believe it is
nothing more than an invented combination of recurring motifs of the Belgian
painter: skeletons, naked women and dreamlike landscapes. Baxter’s painting
does not depict skeletons in formal dress dancing with women but does include
other important elements that Ballard would have mentioned, such as the
presence of an enigmatic figure dressed in black in the center of the composition
and naked men in various poses. Baxter interprets Beatrice Dahl’s painting
following the episode narrated in chapters 10-12 of the novel, to which it
undoubtedly has a mise en abyme relationship. Nevertheless, he follows a reverse
order in his reading: he does not recognise in the events the elements of the
painting but rather completes the description of the painting with those elements.
Consequently, he makes an a fortiori interpretation of the painting by placing not
contemplated elements in it in order to complete the concordance with these
events. Thus, in her reading of Chapter 11, she identifies the character in black in
Delvaux’s real painting with Strangman, the aviator and pirate who imposes
himself on the rest of the characters from his appearance in Chapter 7.9 Strangman
is another Ballardian archetype that Dominika Oramus interprets to be a variant
of Kurtz from Heart of Darkness (Oramus 2015: 196).10 The skeleton in Ballard’s
painting is a reflection of Strangman, but Strangman is not the embodiment of
the character in black in The Worried City. For the painting described by Ballard
is neither The Worried City nor any other painting by Delvaux that I have been
able to identify. It is a picture painted by the Delvaux of this fictional world, not the
real one. The significance of the painting as a mise en abyme is revealed in chapters
11 and 12, entitled “The Ballad of Mistah Bones” and “The Feast of Skulls” in
which Kerans is tortured on Strangman’s orders in a mock-up of Delvaux’s
fictional painting. This is a prospective particularising fictional mise en abyme
(Dällenbach 1991: 76, 78, 120): it anticipates later events as part of an isotopy
resulting from an exercise of condensation and displacement similar to dream
processes (Dällenbach 1991: 75).
The painting, also an unidentifiable work by Max Ernst and which hangs in
Beatrice Dah’s flat, represents the future. Baxter (2008: 34-35) explains that the
painting proleptically foreshadows the end of the novel: the southern jungles to
which Kerans heads at the end and where he will die. Only the landscape survives,
although the imprint of the protagonist’s unconscious, the inner space, will
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remain imprinted on it. It is a generalising mise en abyme that expands the
meaning of the context to a level it would not reach on its own (Dällenbach 1991:
76). Contemplating the painting yields a first level of recognition:
For a few moments, Kerans stared quietly at the dim yellow annulus of Ernst’s sun
glowering through the exotic vegetation, a curious feeling of memory and
recognition signaling through his brain [...] the image of the archaic sun burned
against his mind, illuminating the fleeting shadows that darted fitfully through its
profoundest depths. (Ballard 2008: 29)
This recognition, despite its psychoanalytic formulation, is rooted in the aesthetic
experience of the work of art as an experience.11 But its full meaning is achieved
in the last chapter of the novel, “The Paradises of the Sun”, when Kerans enters
the jungle on his way south. The reader then realises that Ernst’s painting explains
not only the protagonist’s mental confusion but also the landscape resulting from
the catastrophe. The work of art becomes the link between the individual and the
world. Kerans does not recall the painting in this chapter, because his commentary
is not addressed to him, but to the reader. In Heideggerian terms, the mise en
abyme of the painting reflects the totality of the world once the internal and
external dimensions have been placed on equal footing: the reader identifies the
world with its representation.
It is a generalising and metatextual mise en abyme, which broadens the semantic
framework of the work and reveals its code, “since it makes intelligible the way
the story works [...] without copying the text that fits it” (Dällenbach 1991: 120):
it reveals how the novel is an expression of the projection of inner space in a post-
apocalyptic scenery. The painting fulfills the condition of the metatextual mise en
abyme: its elements must be assumed by the text indubitably so that the
reflection can serve as instructions for use, “so that the text can fulfil its task:
to redo, as in a mirror, what its symmetrical reverse did before: to take the work
for what it wishes to be taken for” (122). For this same reason, the painting is also
a transcendental mise en abyme or mise en abyme of the code because it creates it,
finalises it, founds it, unifies it and fixes for it, a priori, the conditions of possibility
(123).12 Ernst’s painting thus meets the conditions set out by Dällenbach (123)
for this figure: i) It does not point to the original metaphysical reality but regards
it as a fiction that, within the text, acts as an origin: the post-apocalyptic physical
landscape is at the origin of the destroyed consciousness of the character with
whom it is confused; ii) This substitutive fiction is always both cause and effect of
the writing that actualises it. Thus, the painting of the sun and jungle points to
the material realization of inner space, which is the feature of catastrophe that
really interests Ballard in his disaster novels; and iii) Metaphor and writing
correspond in such a way that metaphor is the sublimated double of writing: the
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novel behaves as the narratively unfolded mise en abyme, and the latter, in turn, as
the non-narrative concentration of the text. Both depend on how the text
establishes its relation to truth and the concept of mimesis, a condition that is
accredited by Ballard’s relation to surrealism and the nouveau roman and his
move away from realism as a way of renewing the discourse of science fiction.
Ballard believed he found in this procedure a valid formula for representing inner
space in those years of strong surrealist and psychoanalytic influence. Therefore,
in his next novel, The Drought, he repeated the exact same strategy. As in The
Drowned World, in Chapter 2, “Mementoes”, he introduces a painting that will
serve as a transcendental mise en abyme, although on this occasion it is a real
painting, the photograph of which decorates the protagonist’s house, Jours de
lenteur by Yves Tanguy, and of which the following is said: “With its smooth,
pebble-like objects, drained of all associations, suspended on a washed tidal floor,
this painting had helped to free him from the tiresome repetitions of everyday
life. The rounded milky forms were isolated on their ocean bed like the
houseboat on the exposed bank of the river” (Ballard 2012: 24). And, as in The
Drowned World, the last chapter is titled like the painting, Jours de lenteur, in
which the ending is similar: the death of the protagonist in a landscape that is
both the realization of his inner world and the material projection of Tanguy’s
painting.
The third mise en abyme in The Drowned World lacks the transcendental scope of
Ernst’s painting, but is interesting for its complexity of meaning and the
dynamism of its relationship to the fictional reality of chapters 10 to 12 of the
novel. It is the painting The Marriage of Esther and King Xerxes that Strangman
has on his boat. The painting appears in Chapter 10, “Surprise Party”. Strangman
invites Kerans and Beatrice to his ship. The plunderer has carefully prepared a
party in a setting that plays out his desire. Among the treasures he has plundered
is the aforementioned painting:
Its title was The Marriage of Esther and King Xerxes, but the pagan treatment and
the local background of the Venetian lagoon and the Grand Canal palazzos coupled
with the Quinquecento décor and costume, made it seem more like The Marriage of
Neptune and Minerva, no doubt the moral Strangman intended to point out. King
Xerxes, a wily, beak-nosed elderly Doge or Venetian Grand-Admiral, already seemed
completely tamed by his demure, raven-haired Esther, who had a faint but none the
less perceptible likeness to Beatrice. As he cast his eyes over the crowded spread of
the canvas with its hundreds of wedding guests, Kerans suddenly saw another
familiar profile — the face of Strangman among the hard cruel smiles of the Council
of the Ten [...] The marriage ceremony was being celebrated aboard a galleon
moored against the Dogo’s Palace, and its elaborate rococo rigging seemed to
merge into the Steel hawsers and bracing lines of the depot ship. (Ballard 2008: 118)
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Ballard superimposes the biblical and mythological scenes in his fictional
painting, tacitly alluding to the annual festival of the Sensa, which celebrates the
alliance between the Republic of Venice and the sea, describing the galleon in the
painting in terms that unmistakably identify it with the Bucintoro, the Republic’s
gold-covered galley used in that celebration. Ballard’s imagined painting shares
features of Tintoretto’s Esther before Ahasuerus, Tiepolo’s Neptune Offering Gifts
to Venice and Canaletto’s The Bucintoro, as well as various invented motifs.
In this mise en abyme, the characters are aware that the painting reflects them.
Kerans explains the meaning of the painting and Strangman corroborates his
interpretation: Beatrice must pacify the waters, just as Esther must pacify the
Persian emperor and Venice must pacify the sea. However, Beatrice refuses to play
that role (2008: 118), causing The Marriage of Esther and King Xerxes to be
revealed not as a frustrated mise en abyme but as a misinterpreted mise en abyme
by the male characters: the reflection occurs, but it is deceitful. In the first
instance, Beatrice/Minerva/Esther symbolically removes the waters, but it is
all an illusion, not a mise en abyme but a mise en scene by Strangman, with the
careful preparation of the set, the dinner and the surprise effect of the descent
of the waters of the lagoon. For in the trompe l’oeil prepared by Strangman, the
water level drops, not because of Beatrice’s magical presence, but because he
makes the water pump to the astonishment of his guests. The darkness of the
night erases Xerxes/Neptune, the false motifs of the allegory in abyme, from
the painting, leaving Esther/Minerva and the Venetian counselor/Strangman, the
real actors in the drama invented by Strangman, illuminated. Now the mise en
abyme is realised with the true reflection of the actors in the play, or so it seems.
The fading diegetic light of dusk has revealed the true meaning of the painting
with regard to the balance of power of the characters in this chapter: Xerxes/
Neptune, who in the following chapter will be identified with Kerans, is
obscured by his passivity, and Beatrice/Minerva/Esther and Strangman/
Venetian counselor, the real characters in conflict, are illuminated against the
shadowy background of the painting.
In the second instance, the painting will show the reader its deeper meaning. The
title of the following chapter, “The Feast of Skulls”, contains a new reference to
Delvaux. However, it is the fake Venetian painting that takes on new and
unpredictable value as a mise en abyme. If in Chapter 10 Ballard had used the change
of light in the diegetic temporality to highlight the characters in the painting that
interested him at the time (the counselor and Esther, as transcripts of Strangman
and Beatrice), now he recomposes the image, staging the other motif evoked in
the painting: the submission of Neptune. Strangman’s men disguise Kerans as
Neptune and torture him in a carnivalesque procession that parodies the sea
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god’s submission to a city that has been stolen from him: “almost as if he [Kerans]
were an abducted Neptune forced against his will to sanctify those sections of the
drowned city which had been stolen from him by Strangman and reclaimed”
(2008: 140). He is finally left in the sun to die. His resistance instils fear in the
pirates, who see him as an incarnation of the god. This is an intuition that points
to the change experienced by Kerans in the process from apocalyptic catastrophe
to the frustrated but symbolic sacrifice that will liberate the inner space and
redeem him as a new man after the global disaster. After a series of vicissitudes,
Kerans returns to Strangman’s ship and hides behind the painting. The two
realities seem to merge: Strangman’s lieutenant sees him but believes him to be
one of the figures in the painting. From here, he will emerge as a man of action.
Later, in chapter 14, “Grand Slam”, he will flood the city again, as the Neptune
released out of the painting. In this way, the Venetian painting that superimposed
two images, the real one —Esther/Jerxes— and the evoked one —Minerva/
Neptune— is also the bearer of two meanings with respect to the novel-frame:
Neptune’s submission to Minerva/Beatrice, which responds to Strangman’s
mixtification, as betrayed by the evening light; and, ironically, the revenge of
Neptune/Kerans who recovers the city for the waters, while resolving its state
of prostration and passivity by pushing it toward its final decision.
4. Conclusion
The Drowned World contains three different examples of mise en abyme based on
pictorial works either invented or left ambiguous by the author. Each corresponds
to a different type of mise en abyme, that is, the particularising fictional, the
transcendental metatextual and the generalising fictional. In the latter, which
concerns the “painting of the school of Tintoretto”, Ballard incorporates a series
of dynamising elements that develop the iconic relationship between painting and
fictional reality. The images unfold in a series of deformed reflections that in their
multiplicity fragment the narrative, breaking down the invisible wall between the
artistic work and the world that frames it. Regarding the particularising fictional,
the painting represents a biblical scene but evokes a mythological one, which is,
in turn, a symbol of a Venetian festival. This multiplication of meaning affects the
characters represented in it, favoring an initial interpretation that is not the one
that will later be shown to the reader: the association of Beatrice with Esther and
Minerva; and the waters of the lagoon that have flooded London with those of
Venice. However, the diegetic light illuminates a relevant aspect: Strangman’s
intervention, which is a crossover between fictional (the painting) and real
elements in the fictional world (the evening light). This commentary is beyond
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the comprehension of the characters. Secondly, the mise en abyme of the painting
breaks the boundary with the real world of the novel, with a character, Kerans,
who seems to enter and leave the painting, assuming the physical incarnation of
Neptune, a figure evoked but not represented in it. Ballard aims to show a
fictional world that folds in on itself, with few links to the empirical world: the
pictures are fictional and their operability in the fictional world comes at the
expense of their relationship with the world of reference. Finally, this structure
must be seen in the context of the revival of science fiction in the 1960s and the
acceptance of generalised instruments by the nouveau roman, in an effort to
endow the genre with a literary status of high literature.
Notes
1. The Wind of Nowhere (1962),
The Drowned World (1962), The Drought
(1964) and The Crystal World (1966). During
this period he also published the following
collections of short stories: The Voices of Time
(1962), Passport to Eternity (1963), The
Terminal Beach (1964) and The Impossible
Man (1966), as well as articles and reviews in
various publications.
2. Brian Aldiss has pointed out
how Ballard broke with both the heroes of the
pulp and adventure novels in the vein of
Joseph Conrad by opting for protagonists
without initiative or hope (Aldiss 1976: 42-44).
3. Thus we read the end of The
Drowned World: “So he left the lagoon and
entered the jungle again, within a few days was
completely lost, following the lagoons
southward through the increasing rain and
heat, attacked by alligators and giant bats, a
second Adam searching for the forgotten
paradises of the reborn sun” (Ballard 2008: 175).
4. The text is from the 1977 article
“Cataclysms and Dooms”.
5. I concur with Mieke Bal’s
description of the mise en abyme as a kind of
icon insofar as it appears as a discrete whole
within the work in which it is inserted and to
which it points, constituting an interruption or
a temporary change in the discourse (Bal
1978: 124).
6. In a similar vein, Dickmann
speaks of Klein’s bottle to refer to the
mutability of narrative levels of mise en
abyme (Dickmann 2019: 33).
7. This is how he puts it in the first
chapter of The Drowned World: “Sometimes
he wondered what zone of transit he himself
was entering, certain that his own withdrawal
was symptomatic not of a dormant
schizophrenia, but of a careful preparation for
a radically new environment, with its own
internal landscape and logic, where old
categories of thought would merely be an
encumbrance” (Ballard 2008: 14).
8. I leave aside the early and not
very satisfactory The Wind of Nowhere.
Ballard would later disown it.
9. However, it is clear that
Strangman, who always wears white, neither
fits the character in The Worried City, nor is he
a skeleton, as Ballard describes him and as he
is metaphorically referred to in Chapter 11
(“Mistah Bones”).
10. Surprisingly, Ballard stated in
an interview with James Goddard and David
Pringle that at the time of writing The
Drowned World he had not yet read Conrad
(Goddard and Pringle 1976: 16). On the other
hand, the character of the aviator is a constant
in Ballard’s work, always representing a
powerful and enigmatic presence that attracts
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and disturbs the protagonist (this is the case
in The Atrocity Exhibition, and in the stories
“News from the Sun”, “One afternoon at Utah
Beach” and “Low-Flyng Aircraft”), an unfolded
alter ego that from the late 1970s onwards
often merges with the protagonist (see The
Unlimited Dream Company and the stories
“Notes toward a mental breakdown”, “Myths
of the Near Future”, “Memories of the Space
Age”, “The object of the attack” and “The Man
who walked on the Moon”).
11. The work of James G. Ballard is
rooted in psychoanalysis. Critics have
explained the meaning of catastrophe through
a Jungian lens in their first novels: “The
Modern division of the conscious and
unconscious is explicitly seen in terms of
catastrophe, for a suppression of the
unconscious means its return in distorted
forms” (Luckhurst, 1997: 52). Regarding The
Drowned World, the author would confess in a
1971 interview: “I wanted to look at our racial
memory, our whole biological inheritance, the
fact that we’re all several hundred million
years old, as old as the biological kingdoms in
our spines, in our brains, in our cellular
structure”. It is interesting to note that this
confidence in the memory of the species is
also present in other New Wave novels, such
as Hothouse (1962) by Brian Aldiss. On the
other hand, it is true that Ballard resorts to
what he calls “intertextual landscapes” to
reinforce the meaning of the characters’
actions by exploring the psychological
meaning of their geographies (Luckhurst,
1997: 54). Now, in the case of the works of art
that articulate the mise en abyme in these
novels, this procedure is only possible due to
the particular consideration of the work of art
as an aesthetic experience. For a broader
discussion of Jung’s theories in The Drowned
World, see Francis (2011: 68-77).
12. Mieke Bal notes that this
category is a variant of the fictional mise en
abyme: since the object, the origin, and the
end of the text and its writing are located
outside the text, this object can only be
fictionalised, that is, replaced by a diegesis
that symbolises it. This fictionalisation
maintains a circular relationship with the
object of the fictional mise en abyme (Bal
1978: 122). Ballard maintains this relationship
between the painting and the conclusion of
the novel: painting and landscapes
correspond. However, the explanation of this
correspondence is only partially exposed; and
it is surely necessary to know Ballard’s texts
on inner space and its relation to surrealist
painting in order to grasp the full meaning of
the figure.
The myse en abyme in The Drowned World by James G. Ballard
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ALDISS, Brian W. 1976. “The Wounded Land: J.G. Ballard”. In Goddard, James and David Pringle
(eds.) J.G. Ballard. The First Twenty Years. Brad’s Head Books: 38-48.
ALTER, Robert. 1975. Partial Magic. The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre. University of California
Press.
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BALLARD, James G. 2012. The Drought. Liveright.
BAxTER, Jeannette. 2008. J.G. Ballard’s Surrealist Imagination. Ashgate.
BRODERICK, Damien. 1995. Reading, by Starlight. Postmodern Science Fiction. Routledge.
COHN, Dorrit. 2012. “Metalepsis and Mise en Abyme”. Narrative 20 (1): 105-114.
COMPAGNON, Antoine. 1990. Les cinq paradoxes de la modernité. Seuil.
COMPAGNON, Antoine. 2020. La segunda mano, o el trabajo de la cita. Acantilado.
DäLLENBACH, Lucien. 1991. El relato especular. Visor.
DICKMANN, Iddo. 2019. The Little Crystaline Seed. The Ontological Significance of Mise en Abyme
in Post-Heideggerian Thought. State University of New York.
FRANCIS, Samuel. 2011. The Psychological Fictions of J.G. Ballard. Continuum.
GADAMER, Hans G. 2001. El giro hermenéutico. Cátedra.
GENETTE, Gérard. 1989. Figuras III. Lumen.
GENETTE, Gérard. 2004. Metalepsis. De la figura a la ficción. Fondo de Cultura Económica.
GODDARD, James and David PRINGLE. (eds.) 1976. J.G. Ballard. The First Twenty Years. Brad’s Head
Books.
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Macmilllan.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. 1998. La época de la imagen del mundo. In Caminos de bosque. Alianza: 63-90.
HUYSSEN, Andreas. 2011. Modernismo después de la Posmodernidad. Gedisa.
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de ciencia ficción. Akal.
LUCKHURST, Roger. 1997. “The Angle Between Two Walls”. The Fiction of J.G. Ballard. St. Martin’s
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MCHALE, Brian. 2004. Postmodernist Fiction. Routledge.
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Received: 16/05/2024
Accepted: 28/11/2024
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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CARLOS DAVID VÁZQUEZ PÉREZ
Universitat de València
carvazpe@alumni.uv.es
<https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3505-517X>
HACIA LA CUBANIDAD A TRAVÉS
DE LA SANTERÍA: INFLUENCIA DE LA NOSTALGIA
COMO INSTRUMENTO MERCANTILIZADO
EN LA PROTAGONISTA DE LA NOVELA
SOÑAR EN CUBANO (1992)
TOWARDS CUBANNESS THROUGH SANTERIA:
THE INFLUENCE OF NOSTALGIA AS A MARKETED
TOOL IN THE PROTAGONIST OF THE NOVEL
DREAMING IN CUBAN (1992)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510510
Resumen
Maya Socolovsky afirma que “la nación cubana en las novelas de García es un
asunto altamente individualizado y personal” (Socolovsky 2013: 133, traducción
mía).1 Este estudio, sirviéndose de la descripción de nostalgia como método para
“desarrollar, sostener y recrear la identidad de las personas” (Sierra y McQuitty
2007: 100, traducción mía),2 entiende la santería como una práctica nostálgica,
capaz de habilitar el reclamo de la identidad nacional (cubanidad). En este artículo
se analiza un extracto de la novela de Cristina García, Soñar en Cubano (1992),
centrándose en el uso de esta práctica como vehículo para que la protagonista,
Pilar, genere una conexión tangible con su identidad y tradiciones cubanas,
incluso a pesar del desarraigo físico que siente hacia su tierra natal. Finalmente, se
pretende demostrar que, a través del poder transformador de los rituales y
creencias de esta religión sincrética, Pilar reconecta con su identidad nacional y
étnica, y, asimismo, con sus sentimientos de arraigo, que había intentado ignorar
durante todos sus años como inmigrante latina en los Estados Unidos.
Palabras clave: literatura cubano-americana, ficción, nostalgia, santería, Cristina
García.
Carlos David Vázquez Pérez
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152
Abstract
Maya Socolovsky asserts that “the Cuban nation in García’s novels is a highly
individualized and personal matter” (Socolovsky 2013: 133). This study, drawing
on the description of nostalgia as a method “used to develop, sustain, and recreate
individuals’ identities” (Sierra and McQuitty 2007: 100), conceptualizes Santeria
as a nostalgic practice that enables the assertion of national identity (Cubanness).
This literary analysis of an excerpt from Cristina García’s novel Dreaming in
Cuban (1992) delves into Santeria’s role as a conduit for the protagonist Pilar to
forge a tangible connection with her Cuban identity and traditions, even amidst
her physical displacement from her homeland. Ultimately, this article attempts to
demonstrate that, through the transformative power of the rituals and beliefs of
this syncretic religion, Pilar rediscovers a deep feeling of rootedness towards her
national and ethnic identity, a feeling that had previously evaded her during all
her years as a Latina immigrant in the United States.
Keywords: Cuban American literature, fiction, nostalgia, Santeria, Cristina García.
Every day Cuba fades a little more inside me, my
grandmother fades a little more inside me. And there’s
only my imagination where our history should be.
Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban
I certainly would have taken a moment to look out from the
Malecón, to measure the emptiness from the rough shore to the
horizon. I would have wanted the time to consider how many
darkening butterfly lilies, how many revolutionary triumphs
and drowned balseros it would take to fill the gap.
Achy Obejas, Days of Awe
1. Introducción: La huella nostálgica en la mayor de las
Antillas y su impacto en la comunidad cubano-americana
La nostalgia siempre ha sido parte integral de la identidad cubana, un hilo que
entreteje su historia desde que Cristóbal Colón pisara por primera vez la isla,
declarándola “la tierra más hermosa que ojos humanos jamás hayan visto” (Colón
1959: 414). La novela de Cristina García Soñar en Cubano (1992), considerada
por Philip Herter del Tampa Bay Times como “la historia definitiva de los exiliados
cubanos” (Herter 1992, traducción mía),3 retrata a Doña Inés de Bobadilla,
primera gobernadora de Cuba, mirando perpetuamente hacia el mar con la mirada
fija en el horizonte y esperando el regreso de su marido, Hernando de Soto, quien
se había aventurado a conquistar Florida, para no volver jamás. El inicio de la
Inuencia de la nostalgia como instrumento mercantilizado en la novela Soñar en Cubano
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Revolución, el uno de enero de 1959, marcó el comienzo de un éxodo masivo de
cubanos. Éxodo que ha sido un catalizador fundamental para el canon literario
cubano-americano, como lo afirmó Alfred López: “hay literaturas cubano-
americanas porque hay cubano-americanos” (1996: 203, traducción mía).4 Según
Ada Ferrer, “en la Cuba revolucionaria, la posibilidad de irse —o quedarse atrás—
se convirtió en parte de la vida cotidiana” (2021: 401, traducción mía).5
Para los innumerables cubanos que salieron de la isla tras el triunfo de la
Revolución en 1959, el término ‘nostalgia’, acuñado por un médico del siglo
XVII que combinó las raíces griegas ‘nostos’ (regreso a casa) y ‘algia’ (dolor) para
describir las formas extremas de añoranza que exhibían los mercenarios en servicio
lejos de su hogar (Kandiyoti 2006: 82), adquirió una connotación distintiva.
Siguiendo a John J. Su, un creciente número de críticos y académicos del ámbito
cultural argumentan que la nostalgia es uno de los rasgos definitorios de la era de
posguerra (Su 2005: 3) a nivel global. Svetlana Boym explora las complejidades
de la nostalgia en The Future of Nostalgia (2001), y sugiere que el auge de la
nostalgia en la política y la cultura desde la década de 1960 refleja no solo un
anhelo por el pasado, sino también un impulso utópico. Su observación de que el
siglo XX comenzó con una utopía futurista y terminó con nostalgia (Boym 2001:
12) refleja acertadamente la experiencia cubana durante la segunda mitad del siglo.
La definición de nostalgia que se sigue en este artículo fue acuñada por Sierra y
McQuitty en 2007. La definen como “un anhelo del pasado, o un cariño por
posesiones y actividades tangibles o intangibles vinculadas con el pasado” (Sierra
y McQuitty 2007: 99, traducción mía).6 Esta definición permite que “no solo
productos tangibles, sino también actividades” (Ray & Mccain 2012: 978,
traducción mía)7 “señalen y refuercen la identidad personal de los consumidores”
(Sierra y McQuitty 2007: 99, traducción mía).8 En los últimos años ha ganado
popularidad entre los académicos la corriente de pensamiento que sostiene que la
compra de bienes materiales o la participación en prácticas culturales sociales
pueden generar un cierto sentido de pertenencia a una identidad. Ya en el año
2000, Marilyn Halter sugirió que los consumidores buscaban conectar con sus
identidades raciales o étnicas a través del consumo de productos. Este fenómeno
fue clasificado por Arjun Appadurai como una especie de manufacturación del
pasado. Además, bell hooks argumenta que esta nostalgia convertida en mercancía
es una forma por la cual las comunidades marginadas se protegen de la cultura
blanca dominante (hooks 2014: 21). El panorama social contemporáneo revela
que esta teoría ha trascendido el ámbito del discurso teórico y se ha materializado
en una realidad tangible.
Una prueba de esto es el estudio sociológico de Nina M. Ray y Gary McCain de
2012, titulado “Personal Identity and Nostalgia for the Distant Land of Past:
Carlos David Vázquez Pérez
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Legacy Tourism”, el cual demostró que la ‘identidad personal’ es la razón principal
por la que los consumidores participan en la genealogía y el turismo de legado
(Ray y McCain 2012: 977). Se encuentra evidencia adicional de este fenómeno en
el libro Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice (2021),
donde, centrándose en el contexto judío, Rachel B. Gross postula que actividades
como comprar un sándwich de pastrami, embarcarse en una búsqueda genealógica
o sumergirse en las exhibiciones del Museo en Eldridge Street están inspiradas en
la nostalgia judía, y, a su vez, la alimentan. Esta nostalgia, según argumenta
Gross, ha servido durante mucho tiempo como una práctica religiosa para las
comunidades judías en Estados Unidos. De acuerdo con la autora, “muchos
judíos estadounidenses están comunicando cada vez más valores e ideas judías a
sus hijos al interactuar con los productos de museos, tiendas de regalos,
restaurantes, editoriales, fabricantes de juguetes, organizaciones filantrópicas y
otras instituciones aparentemente seculares” (Gross 2021: 6, traducción mía).9
En conjunto, coincidiendo con las ideas de los académicos mencionados
anteriormente, este artículo sostiene que “la nostalgia se utiliza para desarrollar,
sostener y recrear la identidad de las personas” (Sierra y McQuitty 2007: 100,
traducción mía).10 En el contexto de este marco teórico surge entonces la siguiente
pregunta: ¿Participan también los cubano-americanos en estas prácticas como
una forma de reafirmar su identidad cubana? Este artículo trata de explorar,
sirviéndose de la interacción del personaje de Pilar con la práctica religiosa
conocida como ‘Regla de Osha-Ifá’, cómo los personajes cubano-americanos
utilizan prácticas nostálgicas para construir una identidad conectada a su tierra
natal, tal y como se ejemplifica en la novela Soñar en Cubano de Cristina García.
De esta manera, este estudio se posiciona como uno de los pocos en su tipo en
analizar y relacionar la Regla de Osha-Ifá como una práctica perteneciente al
espectro de actividades nostálgicas utilizadas entre la diáspora cubana en Estados
Unidos como viaducto para desarrollar cierto nivel de identidad nacional.
Se busca determinar si esta práctica conduce a un desarrollo de la identidad
nacional entre los individuos que la practican (en este caso mediante el personaje
de Pilar). Esta investigación reviste de un importante interés social, cultural y
literario, ya que aporta conocimientos sobre la evolución de la relación de los
cubano-americanos con su tierra natal y sobre su representación en la literatura.
Además, los hallazgos podrían brindar luces a la hora de intentar comprender o
predecir la evolución de otras comunidades diaspóricas. Este análisis literario de
un fragmento específico de la novela Soñar en Cubano (1992) de Cristina García
pretende demostrar que los cubano-americanos han practicado, y practican
consistentemente, la Regla de Osha-Ifá como elemento nostálgico, con intención
de fortalecer su sentido de cubanidad. Por cubanidad entendemos “la conciencia
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de ser cubano y la voluntad de querer serlo” (Ortiz 1940: 166). Para fundamentar
esta afirmación se proporcionará evidencia, profundizando, a través del personaje
de Pilar, en la práctica de esta religión como medio para explorar la identidad
nacional.
2. Breve introducción al contexto de la autora y de la
novela
Nacida en La Habana el 4 de julio de 1958, la vida de Cristina García dio un giro
total a la corta edad de dos años cuando emigró a los Estados Unidos junto a sus
padres. Sumergiéndose en la diversidad de Queens (Nueva York), García comenzó
una trayectoria académica que culminó en una licenciatura en Ciencias Políticas
en el Barnard College en 1979. Dos años más tarde, amplió su formación
académica, obteniendo una Maestría en Relaciones Internacionales en la Escuela
de Estudios Internacionales Avanzados de la Universidad Johns Hopkins. Entre
sus obras más destacadas se encuentran sus tres primeras novelas: Dreaming in
Cuban de 1992 —una obra que, junto con la ganadora del Pulitzer de 1990, The
Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, podría decirse que inauguró el canon literario
cubano-americano—, The Agüero Sisters de 1997 y Monkey Hunting de 2003. Su
último trabajo, Vanishing Maps, fue publicado en 2023. Su obra ha sido traducida
a más de 15 idiomas y su primera novela, Dreaming in Cuban, fue finalista del
National Book Award.
Soñar en Cubano forma un rico tapiz narrativo que entrelaza las vidas de tres
generaciones de mujeres de la familia del Pino. La estructura narrativa de la novela
se desvía de una progresión lineal y cronológica, empleando en su lugar un
movimiento fluido a través del tiempo, que nos va ofreciendo fragmentos de las
distintas etapas de la vida de los personajes. Mediante el uso de múltiples
perspectivas, el lector obtiene un acceso íntimo a los pensamientos y emociones
de los diversos miembros de la familia, y de aquellos estrechamente conectados a
ellos, como Herminia. A través de las diferentes experiencias de los personajes, la
novela nos muestra un retrato vívido de la tumultuosa historia de Cuba, junto con
las complejidades que vive la diáspora cubana en los Estados Unidos.
La novela comienza con Celia del Pino vigilando la costa de Cuba en espera de
una posible invasión estadounidense. Antes de casarse con Jorge del Pino, quien
está sometiéndose a un tratamiento para el cáncer, en Nueva York; y de tener a sus
dos hijas, Lourdes y Felicia, y a su hijo, Javier, Celia tuvo una relación romántica
con un revolucionario español llamado Gustavo, a quien escribe cartas (que nunca
envía) durante 25 años, detallando los momentos más cruciales de su vida. Es a
través de estas cartas que los lectores se familiarizan íntimamente con su historia.
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Después de completar su habitual patrullaje costero (Celia es una ferviente
comunista), su hija Felicia llega para darle la noticia de que Lourdes ha llamado
desde Estados Unidos anunciando que Jorge ha fallecido. Para aliviar el dolor de
Felicia por la muerte de su padre, su amiga Herminia la insta a visitar a una santera
con la intención de que pueda hacer las paces con su fallecido padre. Felicia acepta
con la condición de que no haya sacrificio de animales, pero cuando llegan, un
santero sacrifica una cabra para Elegguá, y Felicia se desmaya.
Al otro lado del estrecho, la hija mayor de Celia, Lourdes Puente, vive con su
marido Rufino y su hija Pilar en la ciudad de Nueva York. Aunque Lourdes se ha
establecido como una próspera empresaria en los Estados Unidos, dirigiendo una
exitosa panadería, las cicatrices psicológicas de sus duras vivencias en Cuba
perduran, especialmente su experiencia como víctima de violación a manos del
soldado encargado de la expropiación de la finca de la familia de Rufino. Como
relata García, en marcado contraste con las firmes convicciones comunistas de su
madre Celia, Lourdes pronuncia la palabra “comunistas” de la misma manera que
algunas personas dicen “cáncer”, “lenta y rabiosamente” (García 1994: 45).
Lourdes alberga una relación compleja y difícil con su hija Pilar, quien aparece
como una adolescente artística, de espíritu punk. A pesar de haber vivido en
Brooklyn la mayor parte de su vida, Pilar dice no sentir “que aquello fuera mi
patria. Tampoco estoy muy segura de que Cuba lo sea, pero quisiera averiguarlo”
(1994: 87). Es este sentimiento, la necesidad de descubrir a dónde pertenece, y el
descubrimiento de que su padre tiene una aventura con otra mujer, lo que la lleva
a intentar escapar a Cuba, fallando en el intento. En última instancia, consigue
llegar solo hasta Florida, pero durante el viaje en autobús tiene un sueño en el que
un colectivo de santeras la corona ante su abuela, con quien se comunica
telepáticamente.
De vuelta a Cuba, descubrimos que Celia se ha dedicado completamente a la
Revolución, pasando una temporada fuera de casa para ayudar a cortar caña de
azúcar, y sirviendo como jueza en juicios públicos. Por otro lado, su hija Felicia se
ha vuelto mentalmente inestable después de pasar por un primer matrimonio
abusivo. Como resultado de este matrimonio, Felicia tiene tres hijos: las gemelas
Luz y Milagro, e Ivanito. Mientras tanto, en Estados Unidos, el fantasma del
fallecido Jorge se le aparece a su hija Lourdes, y le promete mantenerse en
contacto. Más tarde, aprendemos que, después de la boda de Jorge y Celia, éste
emprendió un largo viaje de negocios como respuesta rencorosa a los celos que
sentía hacia Gustavo, dejando a Celia aislada con su madre y su hermana, quienes
la sometieron a graves maltratos (especialmente al enterarse de su embarazo),
llevándola al borde de la locura. Cuando nació Lourdes, Celia tuvo que ser
hospitalizada en un manicomio, y Jorge fue quien cuidó a la recién nacida.
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El primer matrimonio de Felicia terminó después de que intentara asesinar a su
esposo Hugo Villaverde, prendiéndole fuego. Después de este suceso, Felicia
descendió completamente a la locura, y su madre Celia se ofreció a llevarse a los
niños con ella. Luz y Milagro, que despreciaban a su madre, aceptaron irse con su
abuela, pero el joven Ivanito se negó a dejarla sola. Felicia pasaba sus días encerrada
en casa con Ivanito, hasta que un día decide suicidarse y llevarse a Ivanito con ella,
triturando pastillas en la comida, pero Celia, que había tenido una premonición,
corre con la amiga de Felicia, Herminia, para salvarlos. Tras este incidente,
Felicia es asignada a una milicia guerrillera, junto a otros parias sociales, mientras
que Ivanito es enviado a un internado. Mientras tanto, Celia pasa su tiempo
pensando en su hijo Javier, que actualmente reside en Checoslovaquia, donde ha
formado una familia. La separación familiar pesa mucho sobre Celia, que
reconoce la escasez de conexión genuina que comparte con sus hijos.
A medida que avanza el tiempo, la historia se traslada a los años 1975 y 1976.
Mientras “Lourdes disfruta patrullando las calles con sus zapatos negros de suela
gruesa” (García 1994: 173) como policía auxiliar, su relación con Rufino, que no
ha podido adaptarse al nuevo país, y ha fracasado en sus emprendimientos; y con
su hija Pilar está tensa. Pilar se ha integrado completamente en la cultura
estadounidense, tiene opiniones políticas contrarias a las de su madre, y ha
empezado a salir con alguien. Cuanto más abraza la vida estadounidense, más
siente que “Cuba se desvanece un poco más dentro de mí” (García 1994: 187).
Un momento crucial en la relación de Pilar con su madre se produce cuando ésta
última planea abrir una nueva panadería y solicita un cuadro para la celebración
del día de Independencia de Estados Unidos. La decisión de Lourdes de conceder
a su hija completa libertad artística lleva a Pilar a crear una versión punk de la
Estatua de la Libertad. Cuando se desvela el cuadro, el público reacciona
negativamente, y, a pesar de la desaprobación inicial de Lourdes, ésta finalmente
defiende la creación de su hija delante de todos, lo que lleva a Pilar a reconocer el
amor de su madre.
Han pasado dos años, y, al regresar a Cuba, se nos presenta la inquietante
revelación de que Felicia ha contraído dos matrimonios posteriores, ambos
culminando en la muerte de sus respectivos cónyuges; el primero, un desafortunado
accidente, mientras que el segundo, como lectores, sospechamos que pudo haber
sido orquestado por la propia Felicia. A estas alturas, Javier ha regresado a Cuba
desde Checoslovaquia. Su condición es deplorable y su vida se está deteriorando a
medida que sucumbe al alcoholismo. Celia renuncia a sus esfuerzos revolucionarios
y se dedica de lleno al cuidado de su hijo. Al notar su estado de deterioro, “con la
ayuda de algunos amigos de la microbrigada de la capital, Celia localiza a la santera
del este de La Habana que la había tratado en 1934, cuando se moría de amor por
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el español” (García 1994: 216). Sin embargo, cuando llega la santera, ya es
demasiado tarde. Javier ha huido, destinado a encontrar la muerte.
En la sección final de la novela, aparece por primera vez una narradora que no
forma parte de la familia del Pino. Ésta es Herminia Delgado, la mejor amiga de
Felicia. Herminia cuenta cómo a Felicia nunca le importó la diferencia racial entre
ellas o que otros miembros de la sociedad temieran a su padre, un babalawo, o
sumo sacerdote de la Regla de Osha e Ifá. También, habla de cómo se ha retratado
la raza en la historia de Cuba, y cómo antes de la revolución “cuanto más blanco
fueras, mejor lo tenías” (García 1994: 247). Aunque algunas cosas habían
cambiado, en última instancia observa que un aspecto ha permanecido
prácticamente inalterado, “los hombres aún continúan ejerciendo el poder”
(García 1994: 248). Herminia cuenta como, después de regresar de la milicia
guerrillera, Felicia se interesa cada vez más por el culto a los orishas, llegando a
iniciarse como santera.
Aunque Herminia no puede asistir al asiento de Felicia, ya que “la ceremonia ha
sido secreta desde el tiempo en que los primeros esclavos llegaron a la isla para
trabajar en las plantaciones de caña” (García 1994: 250), Felicia le cuenta sobre el
ritual y le pide que le diga a Celia, su madre, que no hay razón para tener miedo.
A pesar de seguir todos los pasos de un iniciado, la salud de Felicia se deteriora y,
finalmente, muere en manos de su madre. La voz del fallecido Jorge vuelve a
aparecer ante su hija Lourdes para informarle de que su hermana ha muerto y de
que es hora de que regrese a Cuba y se reconcilie con su pasado. Las causas de este
regreso a Cuba, principalmente desde la posición de Pilar, son las que se analizan
en la siguiente sección.
3. “¿Y qué tú quieres que te den?”: La Regla de Osha-Ifá
como elemento de supervivencia y puente hacia la
identidad nacional11
Méndez argumentó en su artículo “Like a Dialect Freaked by Thunder” (2011)
que las mujeres cubanas históricamente han utilizado los rituales de la Regla
de Osha-Ifá como una forma de desafiar al patriarcado y como un mecanismo de
supervivencia, permitiéndoles lidiar con las experiencias traumáticas que han
marcado sus vidas. Además, destaca cómo las personas transnacionales pueden
sentir cierta resistencia hacia sus identidades culturales y su ascendencia en el
nuevo entorno, lo que puede llegar a generar sentimientos de alienación. En este
sentido, Méndez argumenta que los cubano-americanos se han resistido a estos
sentimientos de alienación participando en prácticas asociadas estrechamente a la
santería. La Regla de Osha-Ifá, también conocida como el camino de los santos,
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o más popularmente como santería, nació como una práctica sincrética que
mezclaba elementos de la religión Yoruba con el catolicismo romano y el
espiritismo francés. Los esclavos se dieron cuenta de que sus orishas eran similares
a los santos católicos, ya que ambos actuaban como puentes hacia un poder
superior. De esta manera, “bajo las restricciones de su opresión, los esclavos
comenzaron a fusionar a los intermediarios de las dos religiones, identificando a
un orisha concreto con un santo específico correspondiente” (Lefever 1996: 319,
traducción mía).12
Académicos como Kali Argyriadis han afirmado que la legitimación de la Regla
de Osha-Ifá va más allá de “la dimensión religiosa”, explicando que “lo que
está en juego es la cuestión de la cubanía” (Argyriadis 2005: 85). Según
Argyriadis, la antropología cubana ha dedicado una gran parte de sus esfuerzos
a categorizar y definir las prácticas religiosas de origen africano en la isla,
convirtiendo la cuestión de si estas prácticas pueden considerarse una parte
integral de la identidad cultural cubana en un debate central y continuo durante
más de un siglo. Para la etnóloga Lydia Cabrera no cabía duda de este aspecto,
pues afirmó que el estudio y la observación de la religión afro-cubana son
indispensables para captar la esencia misma de Cuba, y que “no nos adentraremos
mucho en la vida cubana, sin dejar de encontrarnos con esta presencia africana
que no se manifiesta exclusivamente en la coloración de la piel” (en Castellanos
y Castellanos 1992: 5).
De hecho, la Regla de Osha-Ifá ha jugado un papel central en la configuración
de la historia de la isla, actuando como un faro de resistencia y subversión para
los africanos esclavizados durante siglos, y ejerciendo una profunda influencia en
el tapiz cultural de la nación a través de la música, el arte y la danza. Las profundas
supersticiones arraigadas entre la población cubana pueden haber exacerbado el
impacto de estos eventos. Por ejemplo, muchos santeros practicantes aclamaban
a Fidel Castro como una figura mesiánica luego de que una paloma blanca
aterrizara en su hombro durante un discurso público. Otros han atribuido la
tumultuosa trayectoria del país a una forma de castigo divino por su negativa a
otorgar asilo a los refugiados judíos que huían de la persecución nazi a bordo del
SS St. Louis en 1939.
La presencia perdurable de la Regla de Osha-Ifá dentro de las comunidades
cubano-americanas en Estados Unidos es un testimonio de su profundo
significado cultural. Para los cubano-americanos, participar en este tipo de
prácticas funciona como un poderoso mecanismo para combatir la asimilación,
salvaguardar su identidad cultural distintiva y preservar su rica herencia cubana
del riesgo de erosión. En esencia, es un medio vital para mantener su cubanidad.
Estos rituales y ceremonias no sólo tienden un puente sobre su brecha física y
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emocional, sino también fomentan un sentido de comunidad entre los cubano-
americanos que comparten una misma herencia.
Méndez describe el uso histórico de la Regla de Osha-Ifá por parte de las mujeres
cubanas como método de supervivencia al entorno, desafío al patriarcado y
resistencia a la pérdida de la identidad cultural propia. El ejemplo vivo de esta
teoría fue la artista Ana Mendieta,13 a la cual se debe mencionar por sus similitudes
con el personaje ficticio de Pilar — ambas son artistas cubano-americanas, que
emigran a una edad temprana, y que en un momento dado recurren a la ‘santería’
como medio de resistencia al sistema y conexión con la tierra natal. De hecho, se
puede afirmar que Pilar tiene mucho de Mendieta. Inmersa en los movimientos
feministas de los años setenta, el repertorio artístico y diverso de Mendieta, que
abarca piezas como Dolor de Cuba, Cuerpo soy y Sudando sangre, se centró
constantemente en temáticas de esa índole. Sentía un particular respeto por las
mujeres taínas que perecieron durante la colonización de Cuba, por Olokun-
Yemayá, la diosa del mar en la religión de los orishas; y por la Venus Negra, que
surgió como símbolo antiesclavista y que representaba la “afirmación de un ser
libre y natural que se negaba a ser colonizado” (Cabañas 1999: 14, traducción
mía).14 De acuerdo con Cabañas, esta exploración de antiguas figuras femeninas
de la mitología e iconografía prehistóricas pretendía revitalizar la noción de las
matriarquías como símbolo del empoderamiento femenino y recuperación
cultural.
La profunda fascinación de Mendieta por la santería se evidencia en la naturaleza
ritualística de su obra, que a menudo incorpora elementos como fuego, sangre,
agua y tierra (Baker 2016: 24). Además, la costumbre de ejecutar sus obras en
reclusión, buscando espacios privados para llevar a cabo el proceso artístico, y,
posteriormente, documentando los rituales en vídeo para su exhibición en galerías
de arte, subraya aún más la conexión entre su arte y las prácticas o rituales
intuitivos (Baker 2016: 24). En la escena de Soñar en Cubano, que se analizará en
el apartado siguiente, Pilar refleja la visión de Mendieta de “que los rituales más
simples, los que están relacionados con la tierra y sus estaciones, son los más
profundos” (García 1994: 265). La afirmación de Baker de que el ritual “actúa
para Mendieta como un conector con Cuba” (Baker 2016: 25) sirve como otro
testimonio más del papel de las prácticas religiosas como conectores nostálgicos
para los cubano-americanos.
Para Mendieta, cultivar una conexión profunda con su tierra natal a través de su
arte era una búsqueda indispensable, como lo evidencia su afirmación en el
documental Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra de 1987: “Yo siempre me he sentido
de que… Cuba para mí es una relación personal que yo tengo con Cuba, en ese
sentido, muy real” (García-Ferraz et al. 1987). Así como el ritual actuaba para
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Mendieta como conector entre ella y Cuba, en Soñar en Cubano el ritual se
presenta como una práctica nostálgica que conecta a Pilar con su herencia cultural
y sus raíces ancestrales, proporcionándole un medio para hacer frente al
desplazamiento y la pérdida. La novela examina el ritual como un medio por el
cual Pilar puede mantener un sentido de continuidad cultural, a pesar del
desplazamiento físico de su tierra natal.
4. Pilar, hija de Changó: Rompiendo el fukú, buscando la
cubanidad
La escritora cubano-americana Cristina García se ha convertido con el paso de los
años en una voz poderosa en el panorama literario norteamericano. Comparándola
con autoras como Gloria Anzaldúa y Cherríe Moraga, Méndez afirma que la obra
de García extiende el análisis crítico de las prácticas espirituales en la comunidad
latina/o norteamericana (Méndez 2011: 127). La autora ha hecho uso de la Regla
de Osha-Ifá en sus novelas como un medio directo para reclamar la identidad y
fomentar una narrativa descolonial. En Soñar en Cubano (1992), la Regla de
Osha-Ifá juega un papel central en la vida de los isleños. Por ejemplo, en el caso de
Celia, el personaje “recurre primero a la Santería siendo joven, y la práctica asegura
su supervivencia” (Méndez 2011: 135, traducción mía)15 durante el sufrimiento
por la partida de Gustavo. A su vez, tras su experiencia en la brigada miliciana, y la
pérdida de sus dos últimos maridos, la segunda hija de Celia, Felicia, encuentra
refugio en la práctica espiritual de la Regla de Osha-Ifá, introducida por su mejor
amiga, Herminia, como método de empoderamiento (Méndez 2011: 137). Tras
iniciarse como sacerdotisa o santera, el rostro de Felicia se describe como sereno,
como el de una diosa (Méndez 2011: 137). Tomando como base la idea de Méndez
de que García demuestra que la Regla de Osha-Ifá sirve como medio de
empoderamiento y como una forma de mantener un sentido de identidad racial y
étnico (Méndez 2011: 124), a continuación, se demuestra cómo la odisea personal
de Pilar la lleva a abrazar el ritual con este fin. Finalmente, a través del ritual, Pilar
entra en contacto por primera vez con un sentido de pertenencia desconocido
hasta el momento para ella.
Nos situamos en el año 1980, en la previa de lo que es la parte final de la novela,
cuando la historia está cerca de alcanzar su desenlace final. La fecha en sí está
plagada de simbolismo, ya que marcó el inicio del éxodo del Mariel. Como
lectores tenemos la sensación de que el destino de los personajes acabará
entrelazado con los de sus respectivas naciones. Paseando por Park Avenue, la
joven Pilar de 21 años reflexiona sobre cómo es posible que siendo tan joven
sienta nostalgia de su propia juventud. Mientras pasea decide entrar en una
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botánica (una tienda de temática espiritual con elementos santeros y de otras
prácticas religiosas) en la cual nunca había entrado, a pesar de haber pasado otras
veces por delante. Pilar nos informa de que “hoy, al parecer, no tengo otro sitio
mejor a donde ir” (García 1994: 265). Una vez dentro, se coloca un collar rojo y
blanco, y toma un bastón de madera de ébano, “que lleva tallada una mujer
blandiendo un hacha de doble filo” (266). García procede a explicar el significado
de estas dos acciones cuando el propietario de la tienda se dirige a Pilar diciéndole:
“Ah, una hija de Changó” (266), relacionándola directamente con el orisha del
trueno.
En un momento crucial y cargado de simbolismo, el señor aconseja a Pilar que, si
se somete a nueve noches consecutivas de baños a base de ciertas hierbas
específicas, sumado a un ritual con agua bendita y velas, obtendrá la claridad y la
guía que busca. Cuando Pilar intenta sacar la cartera para pagar, éste le declina
cortésmente el pago, asegurándole que “es un obsequio de nuestro padre Changó”
(García 1994: 267). Acto seguido, mientras se apresura a regresar a su habitación
universitaria, Pilar narra cómo de niña en Cuba tuvo varias niñeras que habían
tenido miedo de ella, ya que creían que poseía poderes sobrenaturales. Las niñeras
se quejaban a Lourdes de que su hija les robaba las sombras, y de que por culpa de
la pequeña se les caía el pelo, o sus maridos les eran infieles. Sin embargo, un día
llegó una nueva niñera que no se inmutó ante una tormenta eléctrica, y compartió
con Pilar la historia de cómo Changó una vez le pidió a una lagartija que le
entregara un regalo a la amante de un dios rival:
La lagartija puso el presente en su boca y corrió a casa de la mujer, pero en el camino
tropezó y se cayó, tragándose la preciosa alhaja. Cuando Changó se enteró, siguió
las huellas de su inepto cómplice hasta el pie de una palmera. El atemorizado reptil,
incapaz de decir palabra alguna, subió corriendo por el tronco y se escondió entre las
hojas, llevando todavía el regalo alojado en su garganta. Changó, creyendo que la
lagartija se estaba burlando de él, lanzó un rayo contra el árbol, intentando reducir
a cenizas a la penosa criatura. Desde entonces, según Lucilda, Changó de vez en
cuando descarga su rabia contra las inocentes palmeras, y hasta hoy, la garganta de
las lagartijas permanece muda e inflamada por culpa del regalo del dios. (García
1994: 268).
Antes de llegar a la residencia universitaria, tres jóvenes adolescentes abusan
sexualmente de Pilar. Logrando sobrevivir a la situación, y una vez en su
habitación, Pilar se dispone a hacer los preparativos necesarios para llevar a cabo
el ritual:
Enciendo mi vela. Con las hierbas, el agua de baño adquiere una tonalidad verde
claro. Tiene el aroma intenso de un prado en primavera. Cuando la dejo caer sobre
mi pelo siento un frío pegajoso, como si fuera hielo seco, y luego un calor soporífero.
Camino desnuda como un destello de luz por caminos de ladrillo y plazas cubiertas
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de césped, fosforescente y limpia. A medianoche me despierto y pinto un gran lienzo
encendido de rojos y blancos, cada uno de los colores traicionando al contrario.
Hago lo mismo durante ocho noches más. (García 1994: 270)
Pasadas las nueve noches, Pilar sabe con total seguridad qué es lo que tiene que
hacer: “llamo a mi madre y le digo que nos vamos a Cuba” (García 1994: 270).
La importancia y el sentido de que Pilar incluya a su madre Lourdes, con la cual
mantiene una difícil relación, en su decisión de viajar a Cuba es trascendental en
lo que concierne a la conexión del personaje con su identidad nacional.
A través del concepto de postmemoria, Marianne Hirsch conceptualizó la
transmisión intergeneracional del trauma histórico como la transferencia de una
experiencia traumática de una generación a otra de forma consecutiva. En
“Projected Memory: Holocaust Photographs in Personal and Public Fantasy”,
Hirsch define esta experiencia traumática, que afecta con especial ímpetu a los
individuos de segunda generación, como el fenómeno en el que “las propias
memorias de la segunda generación quedan en un segundo plano, o existen a la
sombra de las memorias traumáticas de las que solo tienen un acceso limitado y
altamente cargado de emociones” (Hirsch 1999: 8, traducción mía).16 Junot Díaz
llevó este concepto a un terreno más caribeño al bautizarlo como fukú en su obra
La maravillosa vida breve de Óscar Wao (2007), describiéndolo como una
maldición que habría entrado en América con la llegada de Cristóbal Colón. Díaz
sugiere que para los dominicanos “el trauma histórico de la esclavitud, la violencia
sexual, el gobierno tiránico y la diáspora es tan dañino que es heredado por cada
generación” (Richardson 2018: 24, traducción mía).17
Tal y como observa Richardson sobre la novela de Díaz, la ruptura iniciada por la
diáspora influye negativamente en los hijos de Felicia, Oscar y Lola (Richardson
2018: 34). La negativa de Felicia a comunicar su historia y experiencias traumáticas
a sus hijos, eligiendo silenciar su pasado y ocultárselo, crea estas brechas
comunicativas que Richardson denomina ‘páginas en blanco’. A su vez, estas
páginas en blanco “crean una desconexión entre sus hijos y su tierra natal caribeña,
dejándolos sin un punto de apoyo estable o una identidad completa al crecer en
Estados Unidos” (Richardson 2018: 34, traducción mía).18
De manera similar, en Soñar en Cubano encontramos exactamente estas mismas
páginas en blanco, que crean una brecha en el vínculo entre madres e hijas de la
familia del Pino, comenzando por Celia y Lourdes, y continuando en la siguiente
generación con Lourdes y Pilar. El primer ejemplo de esta brecha se observa en
la separación emocional e ideológica entre Celia, una comunista convencida, y
su hija Lourdes, anticomunista acérrima, sumado además a la distancia física
que las separa (Lourdes forma parte de la diáspora cubano-americana, mientras que
su madre vive en Cuba). Asimismo, el hecho de que Lourdes nunca le cuente a
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su hija Pilar acerca de su violación en Cuba y que, a su vez, Pilar nunca le cuente
a su madre sobre su episodio de abuso sexual, constituye otro ejemplo de fukú.
Esta maldición transgeneracional podría considerarse la tragedia dramática
esencial de la novela, sobre todo si tenemos en cuenta las palabras de la activista e
intelectual Adrienne Rich, quien describió “la pérdida de la hija para la madre, la
madre para la hija” como la tragedia femenina esencial (Rich, 1976: 225,
traducción mía)19 — una de las principales tragedias femeninas, podríamos decir,
que suceden en esta novela.
Dentro de La maravillosa vida breve de Óscar Wao (2007), los actos de resistencia
contra el fukú, así como la empatía de Óscar hacia sus familiares femeninas, o el
potencial de Isis para dar voz a la narrativa familiar se desarrollan a través de un
retorno físico a República Dominicana. El regreso a casa de Óscar y Lola sirve
como génesis del “proceso de sanación y superación del legado traumático de su
familia” (Richardson 2018: 45, traducción mía).20 “Al cerrar la brecha de la
diáspora” (45, traducción mía),21 los hijos de Felicia comienzan a curar sus heridas
y a desenterrar recuerdos que eran cruciales para el desarrollo de su propia
identidad (45). Del mismo modo, en la novela de García, el regreso de Pilar y
Lourdes a Cuba, juntas como madre e hija, funciona como un acto intencional
para romper el ciclo de la maldición generacional y hacer las paces con la historia
familiar, con el fin de lograr un desarrollo de identidad más profundo. Es a través
de la práctica de la Regla de Osha-Ifá, después de completar los nueve días de
baños con hierbas, que Pilar llega a una profunda comprensión de que debe
regresar a la patria (convenciendo a su madre en el camino). Como señala Méndez,
es la práctica espiritual de la santería la que le brinda a Pilar “la capacidad de
tomar decisiones que nunca creyó posibles” (Méndez 2011: 150, traducción
mía),22 viajando finalmente a Cuba “con la esperanza de resolver la nostalgia que
los productos culturales cubanos no pueden satisfacer del todo” (Sáez 2005: 137,
traducción mía).23
Jacqueline Stefanko, inspirándose en la afirmación de Amy Kaminsky en Reading
the Body Politic: Feminist Criticism and Latin American Women Writers (1993)
de que “el lugar del exilio está definido por lo que falta, no por lo que contiene”
(Kaminsky 1993: 30, traducción mía),24 sostiene que, como consecuencia de su
desplazamiento, el sentido de desarraigo de Pilar al principio de la novela se ve
agravado por la ausencia de su abuela Celia, convirtiendo Nueva York en un
entorno inhóspito para ella (Stefanko 1996: 65). Sin embargo, al final de la
novela, además de volver a conectar con un sentimiento de identidad nacional
(cubanidad), Pilar se da cuenta de que el lugar al que realmente pertenece es
Nueva York: “Pero tarde o temprano tendré que regresar a Nueva York. Ahora sé
que es allí adonde pertenezco (y no en vez de a Cuba, sino más que a Cuba”
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(García 1994: 311, énfasis en el original). Por lo tanto, se puede decir que su
búsqueda por encontrar su propia cubanidad la conduce, también, a descubrir
una americanidad que nunca antes había experimentado.
5. Conclusión
El estudio de 2001 “Cuban Identity: A Preliminary Study” exploró la noción de
‘paraíso perdido’ a través de las vivencias de estudiantes cubano-americanos. Al
indagar en su construcción identitaria, y en cómo experimentaban esta sensación
de pérdida, se buscó comprender los patrones que unían y diferenciaban sus
relatos. Para Delia, sentirse cubana era como vivir en un “qué hubiera sido si…”.
Al confesar que “nunca llegó a estar allí” (Alvarez et al. 2001: 3, traducción
mía),25 la estudiante evidenciaba la complejidad de construir una identidad
nacional cuando ésta se basa en un lugar al que nunca se ha pertenecido
físicamente. La afirmación de Filler de que hay “una sensación de ‘lugar
inalcanzable’ que permanece viva en la conciencia de aquellos cubano-americanos
de generaciones posteriores que nunca han visto Cuba” (Filler 2019: 11-12,
traducción mía)26 captura de manera sucinta la relación compleja y multifacética
entre los exiliados cubanos y su patria.
El análisis de los ejemplos expuestos subraya el papel de la Regla de Osha-Ifá,
tomada como práctica nostálgica, como elemento que permite a Pilar, en su
búsqueda por resistir las presiones del nuevo entorno y mantener su identidad
cultural, reforzar su conexión personal con su tierra natal y su sentido de
cubanidad. La afirmación que se ha articulado a lo largo de este artículo queda
reforzada por el argumento de Sáez de que la nostalgia “funciona como la ruta
que Pilar emprende para recuperar sus recuerdos familiares, así como su propio
sentido de identidad y pertenencia” (Saéz 2005: 131, traducción mía).27
Finalmente, se observa que viajar a la isla se convierte en el paso culminante para
cerrar la brecha, reafirmar la propia identidad étnica (cubanidad) e, incluso,
descubrir una identidad nacional ligada a los Estados Unidos, hasta entonces
desconocida para la protagonista. Haciendo eco de las palabras del escritor
camagüeyano Severo Sarduy, “ir más allá es un regreso” (1986: 14), el retorno de
la autora Cristina García a Cuba en 1984 se convirtió en una experiencia necesaria
a la hora de entender su propia identidad como cubano-americana. Un volver
atrás necesario para saber continuar hacia adelante en la sociedad norteamericana
con un mayor sentido de pertenencia a su identidad étnica. Reflejando su propia
vivencia en el personaje de Pilar, regresar a casa (la tierra natal) no admitía
discusión alguna.
Carlos David Vázquez Pérez
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Notes
1. “the Cuban nation in García’s
novels is a highly individualized and personal
matter”.
2. “develop, sustain, and recreate
individuals’ identities”.
3. “the definitive story of Cuban
exiles”.
4. “there are Cuban-American
literatures because there are Cuban
Americans”.
5. “in revolutionary Cuba, the
possibility of leaving —or being left—
became part of everyday life”.
6. “a yearning for the past, or a
fondness for tangible or intangible
possessions and activities linked with the
past”.
7. “not only tangible products, but
activities”.
8. “signal and reinforce
consumers’ self-identity”.
9. “many American Jews are
increasingly communicating Jewish values
and ideas to their children by engaging with
the products of museums, gift shops,
restaurants, publishing companies, toy
manufacturers, philantropies, and other
ostensibly secular institutions”.
10. “nostalgia is used to develop,
sustain, and recreate individuals’ identities”.
11. “¿Y qué tú quieres que te
den?”: La Regla de Osha-Ifá como elemento
de supervivencia y puente hacia la identidad
nacional”. Hace referencia al título de la
popular canción de Adalberto Álvarez y su
Son lanzada en 1995 como parte del álbum
Caliente, Caliente. Este homenaje musical a
los orishas no solo ayudó a dar visibilidad a
la religión Yoruba dentro y fuera de Cuba,
sino que también contribuyó a su aceptación
y reconocimiento como parte integral de la
identidad cultural cubana.
12. “under the constraints of their
oppression, the slaves began to fuse the
intermediaries of the two religions and to
identify a specific orisha with a
corresponding specific saint”.
13. Fallecida en 1985 en
situaciones sospechosas a la corta edad de
36 años.
14. “affirmation of a free and
natural being who refused to be colonized”.
15. “first employs Santería as a
young woman, and the practice proves to
ensure her survival”.
16. “the second generation’s own
memories take a back seat to or exist in the
shadow of traumatic memories to which
they have only limited and highly charged
access”.
17. “the historical trauma of
slavery, sexual violence, tyrannical
governance, and diaspora is so damaging
that it is inherited by each generation”.
18. “create a disconnection
between her children and their Caribbean
homeland that leaves them without stable
footing or a complete identity growing up in
the US”.
19. “the loss of the daughter to
the mother, the mother to the daughter”.
20. “process of healing and
moving past their family’s traumatic legacy”.
21. “bridging the gap of the
diaspora”.
22. “the agency to make decisions
that she never thought possible”.
23. “in hopes of resolving the
nostalgia that the Cuban cultural products
cannot ultimately satiate”.
24. “the place of exile is defined
by what is missing, not by what it contains”.
Inuencia de la nostalgia como instrumento mercantilizado en la novela Soñar en Cubano
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 151-168 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
167
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cubanidad y santería”. Desacatos 17: 85-106.
BAKER, Elizabeth Ann. 2016. “To Be Magic: The Art of Ana Mendieta Through an Ecofeminist
Lens”. Trabajo Fin de Grado. University of Central Florida.
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and Ana Menéndez. Tesis de Máster. University of Georgia.
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the Present. University Press of New England: 3-23.
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unobtainable place remains alive in the
consciousness of later-generation Cuban-
Americans who have never even seen Cuba”.
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route Pilar travels in order to recuperate her
family memories as well as a sense of her
own identity and space of belonging”.
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Joe Rogan Experience Clips. 2018. “Joe Rogan - Joey Diaz Explains Santeria”. YouTube (27
marzo). <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_PdXJoPEKM&t=90s>
KAMINSKY, Amy K. 1993. Reading the Body Politic: Feminist Criticism and Latin American Women
Writers. University of Minnesota Press.
KANDIYOTI, Dalia. 2006. “Consuming Nostalgia: Nostalgia and the Marketplace in Cristina García
and Ana Menéndez”. MELUS 31 (1): 81-97.
LEFEVER, Harry G. 1996. “When the Saints Go Riding In: Santeria in Cuba and the United States”.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 35 (3): 318-330.
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Literature”. The Iowa Review 26 (1): 202-206.
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Identity in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban and Monkey Hunting”. Chicana/Latina Studies
11 (1): 124-157.
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161-186.
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SÁEZ, Elena Machado. 2005 “The Global Baggage of Nostalgia in Cristina García’s Dreaming in
Cuban”. MELUS 30 (4): 129-147.
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SIERRA, Jeremy J. y S. MCQUITTY. 2007. “Attitudes and Emotions as Determinants of Nostalgia
Purchases: An Application of Social Identity Theory”. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
15 (2): 99-112.
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Belonging. Rutgers U.P.
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Received: 10/05/2024
Accepted: 15/01/2025
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
miscelánea 71 (2025): pp. 169-187 ISSN: 1137-6368 e-ISSN: 2386-4834
169
TOMAS MONTERREY
Universidad de La Laguna
jmonterr@ull.edu.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7741-4741>
THE TRANSNATIONAL FORMATION
OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL: THE CASE OF MADAME
DE VILLEDIEU’S THE ANNALS OF LOVE (1672)
LA FORMACIÓN TRANSNACIONAL DE LA NOVELA
INGLESA: EL CASO DE THE ANNALS OF LOVE
(1672), DE MADAME DE VILLEDIEU
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510935
Abstract
In the late 1660s and 1670s, Madame de Villedieu (née Desjardins) made a
substantial contribution to the evolution of prose fiction, moving the genre
from the heroic romance to the nouvelle in France, and thus in England. Her
Annales Galantes (1670), translated as The Annals of Love (1672), is a landmark
work within the development of the genre. The twenty-one “amorous
adventures” that make up this collection contain an impressive array of characters
and psychological portraits of individuals enmeshed in a multiplicity of romantic
relationships and situations. Drawing from chronicles and historical records and
set in Europe and Asia in periods ranging from the early Middle Ages to the
modern era, the author presents these stories as factual accounts through her use
of sources and reinforces her narrative authority with calculated digressions and
metanarrative commentary. This article examines Villedieu’s innovative
experiment in history and narrative technique in the literary context of the
transition to the nouvelle (and the novel) in England. It studies the ways in which
narration in The Annals abandons the unreliable voices and human-like points of
view that characterised the English heroic romances, making use of authorial
privilege, literary techniques and discourses associated with truth-telling, such
as omniscience, biography and history, while constantly reminding readers of
her imaginative reconstruction of the stories.
Tomas Monterrey
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170
Keywords: Restoration fiction, Desjardins/Villedieu, nouvelle galante, history,
omniscience, literary metanarration.
Resumen
Madame de Villedieu (nacida Desjardins) contribuyó sustancialmente al género de
ficción en su evolución desde el romance heroico a la nouvelle en Francia —y por
ende en Inglaterra— a finales de los 1660s y principios de los 1670s. Su Annales
Galantes (1670), traducido como The Annals of Love (1672), marcó ese proceso.
Comprende veintiuna “aventuras amorosas” que despliegan una impresionante
galería de personajes y retratos psicológicos, envueltos en todo tipo de relaciones y
situaciones amorosas basadas en crónicas y registros históricos, tanto en Europa
como en el ámbito Oriental, del siglo X a la Edad Moderna. Villedieu intentó
infundir veracidad en sus relatos incluyendo una lista de fuentes históricas, y
reforzó su autoridad narrativa con digresiones calculadas y comentarios
metanarrativos. Este artículo estudia el innovador experimento de Villedieu con la
historia y la técnica narrativa en el contexto literario de la transición del romance
heroico a la nouvelle (y la novela) en Inglaterra. Se analiza cómo la narración de The
Annals abandona voces no-fidedignas y focalizadores humanos propios de los
romances heroicos ingleses, y utiliza técnicas y discursos autoriales asociados con
la verdad, tales como la omnisciencia, la biografía y la historia, al tiempo que no
deja de recordar al lector la esencia imaginaria de sus reconstrucciones.
Palabras clave: Ficción del período de la Restauración, Desjardins/Villedieu,
nouvelle galante, historia, omnisciencia, metanarración literaria.
1. Introduction
Throughout the 1660s and 1670s, English fiction underwent a transformation
that has yet to be fully apprehended, especially its transnational dimension.
During this time, a variety of new forms and subgenres were imported from the
Continent, largely from or via France, which markedly influenced production in
the vernacular language.1 In the early 1660s, British writers such as George
Mackenzie, John Dauncey, Percy Herbert and Samuel Pordage endeavoured to
naturalise French heroic romances by incorporating domestic politics and using
the English literary heritage. However, the genre had become outdated by the
end of the decade and was superseded by the short nouvelle, introduced in France
in the late 1650s by writers as different as Paul Scarron (translated in 1665) and
Madame de La Fayette, whose The Princess of Monpensier was published
anonymously in 1662 and translated in 1666.
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The achievements of Marie-Catherine-Hortense de Villedieu, née Desjardins
(1640?-1683) have been overshadowed by the prominence given to La Fayette,
another eminent salonnière. Until 1668, Villedieu authored her books under the
nom de plume Mademoiselle Desjardins; but, according to DeJean, “When a
young man of a superior rank who had promised to marry her (once again secretly)
refused to do so, she simply took his name: in the late 1660s she began to be
known as ‘Madame de Villedieu’” (1991: 130), though many of her works were
published anonymously in both periods. She began her career around 1659
publishing poetry, prose and drama, and was a leading figure in the transition
from the heroic romance to the nouvelle. She is attributed the creation of the
pseudo-memoirs genre in The Memoires of the Life and Rare Adventures of
Henrietta Silvia Moliere (1672) and, in the words of Ros Ballaster, is “best known
for instituting the nouvelle galante, short sequences of stories concerned with
amorous adventures” (2017: 392). She embraced the nouvelle galante in 1667
when, in the preface to Anaxandre, she announced that the adventures of the
novel “are more gallant than heroic” (Desjardins 1667: n.p., my translation).2
Cléonice, subtitled Le roman galant (1669), marks a transition towards the
nouvelle (Sale 2006: 35). As Giorgio Sale has argued, the piece ushered in a
period of Villedieu’s literary experimentation with genres, forms and styles that
she would carry over from work to work (2006: 43).
The scope and subject matter of Annales Galantes (1670), translated into English
as The Annals of Love (1672), are consistently —and explicitly— reflective of the
nouvelle galante. It is thus an excellent text to investigate the impact of the new
genre in England and explore the transition from the heroic romance to the nouvelle
(and the novel) or, to use McKeon’s terminology, the move from writing
verisimilitude (vraisemblance) to true-to-fact accounts — or claim to historicity
(1988: 54; see also McKeon 1985: 165). Villedieu produced a mature, highly
entertaining work in which she describes the features of the nouvelle galante as she
blends history and imagination, and in which she avoids the overwrought style of
the heroic romance and its use of unreliable storytellers. Instead, she reinforces her
narrator’s skills or “competence” (Lanser 1981: 171), and authorial privilege
through narrative techniques and discourses associated with authenticity and truth.
2. Restoration Fiction: Romances, Life-Writing and the
Nouvelle
English prose fiction of the early years of the Restoration presents an extraordinary
variety of genres and hybrid, innovative texts, “though no major English novels
appeared” (Turner 2017: 73). It was an age “dominated by experimentation and
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lack of coherence [out of which] comes coherence and certain stability” (Bayer
2017: 6), a time when the distinction between popular romance, historical text
and novel differed from our current notions (McKeon 1985: 162-163). To
understand the extent of Villedieu’s innovative storytelling in England, it is
necessary to survey the production of fiction in England, specifically high
romances and (auto)biography, since the former was superseded by the shorter,
more realistic nouvelle, while the latter endeavoured to offer factual life accounts
of notorious characters, mainly criminals.
During the Commonwealth, as Victoria Kahn has argued, “in Herbert’s […]
Princess Cloria (1653-1661), […] Richard Brathwaite’s Panthalia (1659), and
William Sales’s unfinished Theophania (1655), we find considerably more
scepticism about the arcadian dimension of the romance. Instead, it becomes an
analytical tool for reflecting on the causes of the war and the contemporary crisis
of political obligation” (2002: 627). In the early 1660s, though Mackenzie’s
Aretina (1660) also reflected upon legislation and politics, English high
romances explored less serious matters, mostly related with conflicts of love and
loyalty. For example, Pordage’s Eliana (1661) debates the nature of friendship
and love, and Bulteel’s unfinished Birinthea concentrates on Cyrus’s dilemma
between his love for the slave princess and his loyalty to his uncle Cyaxares, King
of the Medes. Yet the genre, which drew heavily on verisimilitude and analysed
the characters’ psychology, was firmly established among readers and writers
alike, as shown by the numerous successful reprints and translations of French
heroic romances, and, especially, by John Dauncey’s The English Lovers (1661-
1662), which novelises Thomas Heywood’s two-part play, The Fair Maid from the
West. Characteristic of heroic romances, Dauncey structured the narrative using
an in-medias-res approach and a multiplicity of narrators instead of reproducing
the play’s linear plot and single, heterodiegetic narrator — two of the main
structural features that would come to distinguish the nouvelle. Strikingly,
however, by the end of the decade, high romances fell out of fashion. Only Roger
Boyle, at the request of Queen Henrietta Maria, published the sixth instalment
of Parthenissa in 1669; however, he tactfully put an end to the series on the
grounds that “I did once design to have Ended Her story in this Book” (Orrery
1676: Xxxx4r), even though the romance (808 folio-pages long) was left
unfinished. Nonetheless, unlike in France, the fascination for this genre and its
royalist ideals lingered in England long after 1670.
The 1660s saw the creation of several imaginative texts within the life-writing
genres, blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction by combining factual
events with persuasive styles and techniques meant to reinforce credibility, or at
least convey the impression of factuality. Perhaps because of prejudices
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surrounding gender or honour, or both, the (male) narrator in The Life and Death
of Mrs. Mary Frith (alias Mal Cutpurse, and the model of Middleton and Dekker’s
Roaring Girl) told the adult life of this peculiar picaresque hic mulier (c.1584-
1659) by using the editor-narrator technique, whereby he pretends to be
publishing a “diary”, which he claims to be “of her own” (1662: 26-27). The
author of Youth’s Unconstancy (1667, attributed to Charles Croke) chose to call
himself Rodolphus and tell the story of his life in the third person, thus distancing
himself from his younger, roguish self. Only John Bunyan seems to anticipate the
style of the nouvelle when he claims that the truth and sincerity of his spiritual
autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, were more fittingly
rendered in “plain and simple” (1666: A5v) than adorned or elevated language.
Unreliability haunts the narrators of criminals’ biographies, who claim to have
witnessed certain events and to have obtained documents and reports from
creditable informants, as if they were engaged in a kind of (proto-)journalistic
activity. These narrators also discuss the truthfulness of dubious accounts and
hearsays, whereby the ‘I’ of the narrators may show up at any time throughout.
For example, an account of the case of James Turner was printed not only in the
minutes of the court proceedings, but also in two short chapbooks. Issuing a
warning about the fate awaiting thieves, The Triumph of Truth aimed to
distinguish fact from rumour and calumny. The narrator, for example, tells of two
letters in an attempt to reinforce his credibility, and addresses certain rumours
such as this one suggesting cannibalism: “one thing is known to many for a truth
[…], his preserving some of the Fat or other parts of the Corps of divers persons
lately executed for Treason, […]” (The Triumph of Truth 1663: 31). As a postscript,
the author refers to a forthcoming publication about Turner, warning readers
about the falsehoods it may spread (1663: 32). Likewise, the narrator of the new
version, The Life and Death of James Commonly Called Collonel Turner, has the
same purpose and also discredits the previous one (1664: 13-14).
Lastly, William Winstanley’s The Honour of the Merchant-Taylors, about
condottiero Sir John Hawkwood (c. 1320-1394) in Italy, may illustrate the
transition from the romance to the historical novel in England, even though Paul
Salzman fittingly classified it as a piece of “popular non-chivalric fiction” (1985:
378). Indeed, literary conventions that characterise the romance pervade the
portrayal of the hero, while the story, based on chronicles, is presented as “a real
truth, though imbelished with such flowers of Poesy as I could gather out of
Apollo’s Garden, that thou mightest be won with delight in the reading thereof”
(Winstanley 1668: A4v).
In England, the nouvelle historique and nouvelle galante emerged —and eventually
took hold— in this context of the decline of the heroic romance and the rise of
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life-writing. These two kinds of nouvelle are often treated indistinctly, as their
main concern is love and their setting a relatively recent past. Notwithstanding
their similarity, Paul Salzman has argued that the nouvelle galante places more
emphasis on intrigue and love affairs, and less on the characters’ psychology than
the nouvelle historique (1985: 309-310). La Fayette’s The Princess of Monpensier is
traditionally regarded as the pioneer of the historical and the psychological novel
both in France and England. Since the name of the heroine was the same as a
high-profile public figure, the French bookseller remarked in the prefatory note
to the reader that the story was not the publication of a manuscript from historical
times but rather an invention of the author, who preferred to name “his [sic]”
protagonists after historical people instead of romance characters (1666: A4v,
A5r). The English translator, however, made the story ambiguously authentic
when, in his note preceding that of the French bookseller, he claims to have
begun work on the translation only when the original publisher assured him that
it was not fiction but a factual account; and many readers may have believed it to
be biographical. The Princess of Monpensier was not published in English again
until the twentieth century, which suggests a modest reception, probably owing
to La Fayatte’s radically innovative method that, as Esmerin-Sarrazin explains,
“combines history and fiction and overlaps them so much that it becomes
difficult to distinguish one from another; […] thus offering a redefinition of the
concept of vraisemblance” (2016: 87). It, however, paved the way for the variety
of prose fiction genres that emerged in the last three decades of the seventeenth
century. Amorous adventures and scandalous histories, among others,
contributed positively to the transition from the romance to the novel in
England, thus widening the existing stream of realistic fiction brought into
being by the picaresque genre, moral short stories such as John Reynold’s highly
popular The Triumph of God’s Revenge (1621-1635), Spanish and Italian tales,
and the novels of Scarron, who, in addition to his own production, appropriated
stories authored by Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, Alonso Jerónimo de Salas
Barbadillo and María de Zayas.
3. The Annals of Love
As had happened in France, the English version of Annales Galantes (Paris:
Claude Barbin, 1670. 12º) appeared anonymously, although Villedieu
acknowledged that the book was hers in 1671 in the prefatory note to the fifth
part of Journal amoureux (Grande and Keller-Rahbé 2006: 16), which was not
translated into English. The Annals of Love, Containing Select Histories of the
Amours of Divers Princes Courts, Pleasantly Related was translated by Roger
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L’Estrange (Cottegnies 2022: 52) —genuinely rendering the narratives, tone and
style of the source text— and published in London by John Starkey in 1672, in
octavo (Wing reference D1187A; ESTC reference R11570). All eight parts are
included in a single volume comprising the twenty-one stories (or sections),
“containing only matters of Courtship”, as she states at the beginning of the second
part (1672: 53). Unlike the heroic romances, neither the character nor the country
names are coded, and none of the events are from ancient times. The spatial-
temporal scope of the collection spans Europe, North Africa and the Middle East,
from the tenth century to the early modern period.3 Not only does Villedieu
superbly accomplish a kind of textual cabinet of curiosities of courtship, seduction,
love affairs and situations recorded or suggested in post-classical chronicles and
history books until that time, but also produces an astonishing typology of
psychological —especially female— portraits of royal and aristocratic lovers, most
of them ancestors of seventeenth-century European sovereigns.
Villedieu’s book marks a significant innovation in English prose fiction in terms
of the source and nature of her stories and characters, her historian-like stance,
language style and narrative technique. If verisimilitude or realism are considered,
The Annals of Love brought to English fiction a convincing illusion of factual
storytelling and truth, partly because “the historical basis is much more accurate
and becomes far more reliable” (Grande 2021: 71, my translation).4 The fact that
most of her characters were both real people and the subject of history books
establishes a crucial ontological difference with the realistic fictional characters in
picaresque narratives or in John Reynolds’ stories of homicides in his Triumph of
God’s Revenge. At the beginning of the preface, Villedieu insists on the authenticity
of her accounts and explicitly attacks certain contemporary “intrigues” that
blatantly misrepresent history, perhaps referring to narratives such as The Princess
of Monpensier or her own Loves Journal (1671), when she asserts that her stories
“are no witty and facetious Inventions, exhibited under true Names (of which
kind I have seen lately an ingenious Essay) but faithful touches taken out of
History in general” (1672: A2r). In addition, by narrating post-classical historical
events featuring members of Mediterranean and other European royalty and
related stately dignitaries, she not only establishes a radical opposition to the
romances of La Calprenède and Scudéry, which were mostly set in ancient times,
but also contends that her new type of narrative takes an altogether different
stance in selecting the ‘adventures’ and ‘accidents’ for the plots, and modulating
the style of the narrative voice. In the story of “Constance, the Fair Nun”, for
example, when the protagonist and her lover (Frederick Barbarossa’s son) must
take their leave, Villedieu marks a key difference between her literary style and
that of the heroic romance by maintaining the neutral, historical tone when she
makes reference to heroic romances in explaining her refusal to describe her
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characters’ emotional storms: “This place would make a marvellous Ornament for
a Romance, and I should have a great care how I past it over in silence, were this
a Romance, and not a History; but the style of Annals do not suit with Rhetorical
Ornations, and therefore I shall refer my curious Reader to the passionate partings
in Cirus or Clelia” (1672: 96). In statements such as these, Villedieu not only
explains the features of her “annals” as a distinct genre, but also aims to elucidate
what pertains to the heroic-romance effects of verisimilitude and what to the
purported authenticity of her stories of gallantry. Such narratives of courtship are
obviously not devoid of picaresque elements. These features are most conspicuous
in the series of García Fernández stories, in which a pilgrim seduces his wife and
both escape to Paris, and in “The Fraticelles” when the friars, “Seeing then this
Clutter and publick Ostentation of Love [in the streets of Rome all night long],
had been the cause of so much disorder, […] resolved to carry on theirs privately,
and à la Sourdine, without giving any more occasion of Jealousie than needs
must” (1672: 114). This picaresque spirit resonates with the narrative tone that
Grande has described as deliberately light: “the tone is deliberately light and
meant to please a complicit readership that knows how to appreciate the game of
historical distortion and delights in it” (2021: 70, my translation).5
3.1. History and The Annals of Love
To a certain degree, The Annals of Love could be compared to the work of
Henry Fielding, who was convinced that he was practising and exploring new
ways of novel writing. Like Fielding, Villedieu explains the nature and
characteristics of her work —the annals and, by extension, the nouvelle galante—
both in the preface and the body text. The preface, called a “true manifesto of the
nouvelle historique” by Keller-Rahbé (2010: 127, my translation),6 opens by
explaining the nature and sources of the content. She states that “these Annals of
Love are really History, whose Fountains and Originals, I have on purpose
inserted in the ensuing Table” (1672: A2r). Although containing several
inaccuracies (Keller-Rahbé 2010: 132), this table of bibliographical references at
the end of the preface reveals the intertextual link between the stories and their
sources, while the reader is encouraged to contrast the historical hypotexts with
the novelist’s expanded rendering of them (1672: A4r).7 Both the bibliographical
list and the author’s comments on her treatment of each source reinforce the
authenticity of the stories while asserting their imaginary nature. Therefore, as
Keller-Rahbé has stated: “the reader is invited not to rely excessively on the
sources but to be guided by the author, who presents herself more as a true
novelist and less as a historian” (2010: 132-133, my translation).8 In fact, Villedieu
makes it clear that her fabrications of facts range from writing “almost word for
word out of that chronicle” (1672: A4r) in “James King of Arragon”, fleshing out
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fictional versions of the historical sketch —as in the three about Count García
Fernández of Castile— to inventing entire plots, as she acknowledges that “the
Amour of Nugnez is suppositious” (1672: A4v). However, the list only covers the
first four parts, which are the ones initially published, whereas no reference is
made to the sources of the last four. In the latter, Villedieu further distances her
writing from a historical account as she, for example, imagines Jacaya’s life
(claimed to be Sultan Mehmet III’s son, who must have either died as a young
child or never existed), and foregrounds autobiographical elements in the story of
“Feliciane”, as she crossdresses to search for the man who seduced her.9
Villedieu also declares that her stories do not attempt to depict contemporary
people or events —or, in her words, “a scheme of our present Hyprocrisie” (1672:
A2r)— as earlier high romances often did by encoding character identities and
place names. Nevertheless, she seems to hint that this possibility should not be
thoroughly dismissed: “If in the Conferences and Passages I have invented, there
happens any resemblance with the Intrigues of our Age, it is no fault either in the
History or in me, that was writ long before I was born” (1672: A2v). Yet Villedieu’s
method of embedding political satire in fiction differs from roman-à-clef
narratives. Indeed, her innovative book of princely love affairs and scandals has
been read as a sly attack on Louis XIV’s policy of centralising power: “Their [La
Fayette’s and Villedieu’s] contempt for royal authority […] voices a post-Frondean
nobility’s resentment of Louis XIV’s efforts to curtail its powers, and women
found their agency particularly constrained” (Watkins 2016: 260).10 Although
the French monarchy is never directly attacked (except in “The Countess of
Pontieuvre”), Villedieu is unforgiving in her critique of the Iberian kings, from
whom Louis XIV descended through his mother, Philip III’s daughter Anna of
Austria. “Harlots they were both” (1672: 36) is the narrator’s description of
García Fernández’s wives. Incest and infidelity taint the depiction of Alphonse
VI’s daughters in “The Three Princesses of Castile”, and, in “Jane Supposed of
Castile”, impotent Henry IV of Castile is shown soliciting an heir from his wife
through adultery consented by the three parties: “She pretended great horrour at
the first Proposition, that she might have the pleasure of being pressed; and the
King did her that kindness, he prest, he intreated, and his Election concurring
with the Queens, the good Monarch conducted the Count de Cueva to the Royal
Bed with his own hand” (1672: 311).
Although the English translation contains eight wise maxims in verse in addition
to many more poetical compositions, the instructive or moral sense of Villedieu’s
collection is problematic —or, as she says, “never so irregular” (1672: A3r)—
when depicting the immorality of certain historical actions and characters,
especially religious and female. On the one hand, she claims, “I might interlace,
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and inlay my Examples with profitable Precepts, I observe this Maxime in all of
them, to punish Vice, and reward Vertue” (1672: A3r), which, in 1670, Daniel
Huet described as “the chief end of a Romance”, or “Fictions of Love-Adventures”
in general (1672: 3), while, on the other, as in the examples regarding the Spanish
monarchy, her narrator does not seem compelled to judge immorality and impart
instruction because of her supposedly truthful, objective fidelity to history.
However, she explicitly claims to have modified one of the stories to make it less
morally offensive to readers when she remarks that the “custom of promiscuous
injoyment in all sorts of people, without choice or distinction”, introduced by
Dulcinus and Margaret in Lombardy, was toned down in favour of “the changing
of Husbands and Wives” (1672: A4v). This likely explains why the sequel to the
story of Dulcinus and Margaret, “Nogaret and Mariana”, is the only I-narration
in the book (Mariana being one of the women that Margaret interrogated),
though in the end the latter couple does not divorce but reunites.
In relation to the story of Nogaret, who was not a character of royal extraction, it
is worth highlighting the incidental comment about letters and nuns at the
beginning of “Constance the Fair Nun”: “there have been Letters seen in our days
which have taught us, that of all people in the World, none make Love with that
confidence and freedom as the Nuns” (1672: 82). This could refer to the letters of
Heloise and Abelard, published in Latin in 1616 and popularised at the end of the
seventeenth century, but most probably to anonymous Lettres portugaises, by
Gabriel-Joseph de Lavergne Guilleragues (although for a long time attributed to
Portuguese Marianna Alcoforado) —and entitled Lettres d’amour d’une religieuse
portugaise in subsequent editions— which was first published in France in 1669,
and translated by Roger L’Estrange in 1678 as Five Love-Letters from a Nun to a
Cavalier. Stories with ordinary characters such as these seem beyond her scope of
historical personalities and, thus, of her apparent neutrality at judging their love
affairs and morality — unlike in picaresque and criminal stories, whose purpose
was also the readers’ moral instruction.
Her imaginative expansions of historical episodes involve the addition of what she
calls “some ornaments to the simplicity of History” (1672: A2r). These ornaments
mainly consist of settings and dialogues that give voice to those silenced by
history (1672: A2v), because such accounts of courtship or love affairs would be
unpardonable digressions in serious history books: “I have not memories to trust
to”, she says, “but my own fancy” (1672: A2v). To justify the objectivity of those
fanciful recreations of facts, Villedieu appeals to the universality of human love
and loving throughout time. She argued that if her words and dialogues “are not
what they really spake, they are at least what they might” (1672: A2v). Likewise,
she systematically obliterates tragedies, crimes and catastrophes that do not fall
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into the range of matters acceptable for her annals, and suggests that the reader
consult the “chronological history” (1672: 51) to learn about them. For example,
at the end of the story “Don Pedro King of Castile” (Pedro the Cruel), she
explains that “The rest of the Reign of Pedro de Castile is so repleat with Murders
and Cruelties of all sorts, that I could not describe them without falling into a
Tragical recitation, which I have always carefully avoided” (1672: 204). The
Annals of Love thus generates a parodic, alternative kind of history, since the
chronology is not determined by reigns or wars, but by the accumulation and
sequence of courtship stories throughout time: “The Chronology of History not
according exactly with the Chronology of Love, there are some years in which no
amorous Intrigues are to be found, and there are others in which all the considerable
Accidents are Love” (1672: 53). By doing so, Villedieu as implied author, as
organiser of the level of the story, separates herself from the imposition of history
to generate an alternative pattern, which perfectly suits her creative supplements to
historical records, and to attain her chief purpose of pleasing the reader as the last
word of the preface emphasises: “[…] the intention of the Author, who meant no
more than their [the readers’] divertisement” (1672: A3v). Much of the readers’
pleasure arises from their necessary cooperation with the narrator in reconstructing
the historical ‘adventures’ of love.
3.2. Narrative Technique in The Annals of Love
On listing her sources, Villedieu also generates a spectrum of different degrees of
faithfulness to history, from downright precision to sheer invention. This
fluctuating relationship between historical sources and novelistic fabrications not
only shows the flexibility of Villedieu’s faithfulness to fact, but also anticipates
the intense activity expected from the reader — or the narratee, since there is
little difference between the style and tone of the authorial voice of the preface
and source list, and the narratorial voice of the stories. Indeed, as never before
in English fiction (as far as we know), Villedieu’s narrator often addresses
readers to suggest that they either look for further information or co-operate in
the construction of the narrative world — both actions helping to invigorate the
illusion of reality that characterises the nouvelle.
The equivalence between the implied author and the narrator is most evident in
statements about the structure and design of the book’s stories and parts and its
commentary on historical facts. Indications such as the following were common
in high romances: “And now let us take our leave of our new Emperour and
Empress, and take a fresh turn about the World, to see if we can find any new
Adventure in that Age, that may be fit to close up our Annals of this year” (1672:
106). What is uncommon, and indeed innovative, even in The Princess of
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Monpensier, are Villedieu’s metanarrative comments on the features of her
Annals, especially concerning the theme of courtship and the alternative pattern
of organising history, while she frequently suggests the reader consult books to
obtain a full depiction of the period, as if the imaginary scenes of the stories were
—if not complementary— at least compatible with the chronicles: “I refer the
Reader to the History itself to be informed of all the Occurrences. The Annals of
Love observe only the more remarkable Passages, and represents them without
any regular Order” (1672: 285). Remarks about historical facts, either to grade
their rarity and incredibility,11 or to express her views on them,12 not only increase
the narrator’s storytelling competence, but also transport the elements of wonder
to the level of plain reality. This new depiction of wonder in English fiction may
explain why The Annals of Love prompted John Dryden to pen two comedies:
“Nogaret and Mariana” inspired the character of Doralice in Marriage à la Mode
(1673), while “Constance the Fair Nun” provided the serious plot of The
Assignation; or Love in a Nunnery (1673) (Langbaine 1687: 6-7). Indeed,
Villedieu’s collection contains several stories that certainly contributed to the
emergence of subgenres of fiction in addition to the nouvelle historique and
nouvelle galante such as the oriental tale and the “Scandal Chronicle/Secret
History” (Salzman 1985: 368), and to the dissemination of stories like that of
Agnes de Castro (Cottegnies 2022: 52).
Restoration romance writers paid careful attention to their narrators’ competence
and reliability. The frame-stories are conventionally human-like focalisers that
stand close to the main characters and thus report what is objectively perceived
from an external perspective. Therefore, thoughts, emotions and feelings are only
conveyed through action, gestures, dialogues, monologues, letters, poems, notes
and even through psychosomatic symptoms like fever and other bodily reactions.
The remote past events (i.e. individual stories) are told by homodiegetic narrators,
either their protagonists or witnesses. Similarly, writers of life accounts also
struggled to attain authenticity and, thus, credibility through technique and
textual resources. The anonymous author of one of the biographies, The Triumph
of Truth (1663), claims on the title page to offer an “exact and impartial relation”
of Turner’s life told by himself to “an intimate friend” before the execution. In
addition to the different reports, the author also includes several letters with the
sole purpose “to confirm the truth of these passages” (The Triumph of Truth
1663: 16). Those narrative voices of the English heroic romances and life accounts,
though competent and likely honest, are not completely trustworthy since all
I-narrators are unreliable.
The teller of The Annals of Love exemplifies the narrators that Susan Lanser has
described as “virtually ‘raised’ to the ontological status of historical authors,
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and this semireferential voice is presumed to be communicating the perspective
—the imaginative and ideological consciousness— of the author” (1981: 155).
The narrator is thus endowed with omniscience and other authorial privileges
over the narrative world, an exceptional characteristic in the fiction of the early
years of the Restoration outside satirical works or manifestly unlikely stories.
Besides guiding the reader through the structure and organisation of the
stories, the narrator often explores the characters’ interiority with verbs of
mental activity, sometimes through several sentences13 and other rhetorical
strategies, such as euphemisms, in refusing to articulate what she only pretends
to know: “the Marquess retired to his own Appartment, so confused and
transported with rage, I cannot without crime repeat the flagitious designs he
had at that time in his head” (1672: 246). Moreover, the narrator occasionally
undertakes activities that, in theory, correspond to the implied author. For
example, instead of summarising the content of a letter, she claims to have
translated it from the Spanish (1672: 77), questions the capacity of history to
convey absolute and impartial truth,14 and discusses certain differences between
the romance and her annals, while justifying part of her narration:
A Romantick Author would not fail to have made him conquer his Enemy, and given
the Empire to the Exploits of his victorious Arm; and not without reason, for right
being on his side, why should Fortune be against him? however he performed what
a man of Courage could possibly do in defence of his Title; but in despight of his
Bravery and diligence, he was wounded, defeated, and had much ado to escape the
pursuit of his Enemies; I take the liberty notwithstanding to inlarge, and intersperse
his Adventures with such Accidents as are least incompatible with the History.
(1672: 382)
More radically, the narrator does not hide the fictional nature of the annals. She
openly names a character: “[…] his Astrologer (which we shall call Abdemelec)”
(1672: 64) and, as the author informed about fictitious Hortensia in the preface,
she also makes clear in the body text that she is producing the imaginary life of a
son to Sultan Mehmed III, who died in infancy: “Jacaya, whose History I am
writing” (1672: 380), and of yet others that, like the African woman who fell in
love with King Sebastian of Portugal, has simply been invented:
I do not think the Reader requires further light in this Adventure, I have inlarged it
much to what it is represented in my History, and I assure my self there are many
who believe they have perused all the Memoires of that Age, to whom this Princess
of Morocco is every where a stranger, except in the Annals of Love. (1672: 379)
The narrator often invokes relatively recent historical chronicles, memoires and
manuscripts. These registers both intensify the truthfulness of the story,15 which
is, thus, necessarily realistic, and pinpoint the ‘amorous intrigues’ that her annals
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imaginatively shape. The success of this depends on the reader’s willingness and
ability to enliven the fictional appendixes to the historical records. When the
narrator at times bridges the temporal gap between the present and the historical
past, and reports as if she were witnessing the event,16 it is the reader who sees and
constructs, as Monika Fludernik has argued (2009: 7). The highly self-conscious
narrator of The Annals of Love persists in demanding that the reader not only see
and imagine,17 but also think, understand and judge.18
4. Conclusion
As part of the general objective of broadening the understanding of the
transnational formation of the English novel in the transition from the romance
to the nouvelle, this article has specifically drawn attention to Villedieu’s claim to
historicity and narrative technique in The Annals of Love, translated in 1672. This
work was the first in Villedieu’s collections of stories on historical characters and
was followed by many others, including The Loves of Sundry Philosophers and
Other Great Men (1673), The Disorders of Love (1677) and The Unfortunates
Heroes [Les Exilés] (1679). In addition to the works of Scarron, La Fayette and
Villedieu’s own, The Annals of Love helped consolidate the nouvelle (galante and
historique) and contributed to the emergence of other subgenres (“scandal
chronicles” and “secret histories” among them), relegating the heroic romance to
the past. Nonetheless, the masterpieces of the nouvelle, such as Saint Réal’s Don
Carlos (1674) and La Fayette’s The Princess of Cleves (1678), were yet to come.
Even if they can be broadly considered “historical romances about love and
betrayal at various European courts”, as Watkins has suggested (2016: 260),
Villedieu conceived her “annals” as a distinct kind of fiction, self-consciously
departing towards forms now associated with the novel.
Villedieu explains her treatment of history, both in the preface and in metanarrative
comments in the body text. To this purpose, she provides a list of references with
which the reader may contrast her sources with her stories of courtship and love
affairs; but, while supporting their authenticity, she also grades their faithfulness,
thus generating a spectrum from literal fidelity to complete invention (mostly in
the last stories) and, in the process, creating multiple ways of attaining a pervasive
sense of plausibility. Compared to the English high romances, which were often
set in antiquity or in an unidentified past, her stories take place in post-classical
times (from the tenth century to the early modern period); therefore, many
protagonists were ancestors of seventeenth-century royal and aristocratic families.
Villedieu explicitly concentrates on seduction and love, dismissing serious matters
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of political concern. This method of complementing history, however, arouses a
sense of moral ambiguity because her apparently objective narration stealthily
betrays a rather personal mode of assessing her royal or noble characters and their
lovers, insomuch as her suggestions of admiration or contempt are disguised as a
simple rendering of history. In this regard, though she avoids moral judgement or
instruction, she embeds her criticism in The Annals itself and its picaresque
elements, and in the plain style imitating the language of history to recount
compromising and scandalous events, either facts or suppositions, especially
about the monarchies of the Iberian Peninsula.
The influence of history prompts the rejection of certain features typical of
heroic romances that distort reality (such as outpourings of passionate emotions
and the excessive idealisation of the main characters). However, her annals do
not adhere faithfully to the boundaries of the history-book truth (which is also
questioned), but rather imaginatively complement it. In this respect, Villedieu
patterns an alternative chronology determined by sequences of courtship affairs,
assumes a historian-like role and puts into practice narrative strategies associated
with omniscience. As part of the creation of an atmosphere of authenticity, she
rejects the figure of the unreliable narrator (typical of both the English heroic
romances and the biographies of criminals) to reinforce her narrator’s privileges
so as to make her equivalent to the implied author, not only by contriving and
orchestrating the illusion of historical truth, but also by proposing that the
reader (sometimes compellingly) co-operate with her in animating these
illusions, albeit simultaneously —and paradoxically— being reminded of their
imaginary nature. As has been illustrated, for example, the narrator claims to
have consulted several books about particular stories, analyses the characters’
minds (one of the most significant technical innovations), and is allowed to
name secondary characters, or invent characters and full stories — especially in
the last parts of the collection. By this point, Villedieu’s readers must have been
persuaded to both accept and enjoy her ingenious fabrications from history,
which, as she emphasises in the last word of the preface, were ultimately devised
for their “divertissement”.
Acknowledgements
This article is a result of the research project “Las mujeres y la novela inglesa
temprana, 1621-1699: El contexto europeo / Women and the Early Novel in
English, 1621-1699: The European Context” (Wom-En), funded by Junta de
Andalucía (Ref. PROYEXCEL_00186).
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Notes
1. For the influence of translation
on the English novel see McMurran (2010),
especially chapter one: “Translation and the
Modern Novel” (27-43).
2. “sont plus Galantes
qu’Heroïques”.
3. These are the stories, indicating
the number, title, century, place, sovereign/
ruler involved and first page: 1-2 “The
Countess of Castile” and “The Pilgrim” (10th,
Castile, Count García Fernández, 1 and 4); 3
“Alfreda of England” (10th, England, King
Edgar, 14); 4 “Don Garcias of Spain” (10th,
Castile and France, Count García Fernández,
30); 5 “The Duke and Dutchess of Modena”
(10th, Empire of the West [Aachen], Otho the
Great, 37); 6 “The Three Princesses of Castile”
(11th and 12th, Leon, Galicia, Castile and
Portugal, Alphonso VI of Leon and Castile, and
his daughters Urraca, Theresia and Elvira, 53);
7 “Constance the Fair Nun” (12th, Rome,
Frederick Barbarossa, 81); 8 “James King of
Arragon” (13th, Aragon, James I, 106); 9 “The
Fraticelles” (13th and 14th, Rome, Pope
Boniface VIII, 113); 10 “Dulcinus King of
Lombardy” (13th and 14th, Lombardy, Pope
Clement V, 156); 11 “Nogaret and Mariana”
(13th and 14th, France, Guillaume de Nogaret,
statesman to Philip IV of France, 163); 12 “Don
Pedro King of Castile” (14th, Castile, Peter I,
185); 13 “John Paleogolus Emperour of
Greece” (14th, Byzantine Empire, John V, 205);
14 “Amedy Duke of Savoy” (15th, Savoy,
Amadeus VIII, 223); 15 “Agnes de Castro” (14th,
Portugal, Peter I, 251); 16 “The Countess of
Pontieuvre” (15th, France, Charles VII/Louis XI,
262); 17 “Feliciane” (15th, Tunis/Castile, Count
Arevalo/reign of Henry IV of Castile, 286); 18
“Jane Supposed of Castile” (15th, Castile,
Joana of Castile “la Beltraneja”, 310); 19 “The
Persian Princes” (16th, Persia. Twin sons to
Ismail I, 310); 20 “Don Sebastian King of
Portugal” (16th, Kingdom of Marocco and Fez,
Sebastian I, 355); 21 “Jacaya a Turkish Prince”
(17th, Ottoman Empire, Constantinople,
Greece, Poland and Florence, Mehmed III’s
son who is claimed to have survived, 380). For
their plot summaries see Cuénin (1979).
4. “l’ancrage historique est
beaucoup plus précis et devient nettement
plus fiable”.
5. “le ton est délibérément léger,
fait pour plaire à un public complice, un public
qui sait apprécier le jeu de la déformation
historique et qui s’en amuse”.
6. “véritable manifeste de la
nouvelle historique”.
7. On the list, the name “Ramire
XVI. Roy d’Oviedo & IV. De Leon” in the
French original (Verdier 1663: biij/v), and
“Raymire sixteenth King of Oviedo, and
fourth of Leon” (1672: A3v) in the English
version, may be confusing since there was no
Ramiro XVI, but Ramiro III, which could be
that 16th King of Oviedo and 4th of Leon.
Though the author’s name and the page are
missing in the reference, the itemised source
contains the political and warfare
achievements of the Count of Castile García
Fernández, after which Gilbert Saulnier du
Verdier adds a brief report about his unhappy
marriages — Villedieu’s object of interest
(1663: 269-270).
8. “le lecteur est invité à ne pas se
fier excessivement aux sources et à s’en
remettre à l’auteur, qui se présente moins
comme un historien que comme un vrai
romancier”.
9. As Grande and Keller-Rahbé
have remarked, “the autobiographemes take
the form of haunting images and motifs, such
as that of a clandestine marriage” (2006: 25,
my translation) (“les autobiographèmes
prennent la forme d’images et de motifs
obsédants, que l’on songe par exemple à ceux
du mariage clandestin”).
10. René Démoris has also
described the rise of nouvelle historique and
galante in France as both a consequence and
resistance to Louis XIV’s absolutist monarchy
(1983: 27).
11. “Let not the reader be surprised
at this kind of Vow” (1672: 31); “Examples of
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this kind are rare” (1672: 37); “His misfortune
was too common to be incredible, but the
circumstance with which it was accomplished,
was beyond all belief” (1672: 78-79).
12. “And thus I have given you the
Commencement of this year, not so eminent
for Love, as it promised in appearance. These
six persons had almost no sooner seen one
another, but they were married, and no sooner
married, but they differed, so that this place
would be more proper for an Historical
Abridgment, than the Introduction of an
amorous Intrigue” (1672: 55); “and indeed I
am of opinion” (1672: 68); “And I am apt to
believe with many great Authors” (1672: 355).
13. “She thought that
Circumstance would make the Emperour
believe that she which spake to him was a
Lady of that Rank, and so thinking her
unworthy of his Company, leave her to her
self, but it fell out quite contrary. Frederick
indeed judged of her as she had presaged, but
that opinion made his desires more violent:
for finding them accompanied with hopes,
from their conception, he gave himself wholly
up to them without either fear or discretion;
he considered Constance afresh, her shape,
her air, the sound of her voice, the quickness
of her Eye, and the Pleasantness of her Wit: All
of them were as charming in appearance, as
they were in effect: and flattering his
imagination with a thousand fantastical
Chimera’s, he took his leave of her, the most
enamoured Person in the World” (1672: 87).
14. “But there are few Memoires
which attribute that to Constances Gallant,
which History imputes to the Protector of the
Antipope: and thus it is the great Affairs of the
World are secretly carried on: They have all
several faces, and we see nothing but as the
partiality or ignorance of the Historian
represents” (1672: 103).
15. The stories are replete with
references to history such as “History has
represented this Lady so beautiful, it will be
needless in me to describe her” (1672: 23);
“Margaret his Wife (called in History the
Volupuous [sic]) […]” (1672: 157).
16. “It was pleasant to see the
terrour the poor Countess was in” (1672: 66);
“It was a pretty piece of Grotesque to see this
famous Fraticel […]” (1672: 153).
17. “It is not necessary to insert
how the fair Widow resented so foul an action.
I should have exprest the affection she had for
her Husband but weakly, if the Reader could
not imagine the extream sorrow she
conceived for his death” (1672: 51); “I suppose
there is scarce any Reader but imagines it,
without my description” (1672: 152).
18. “I leave it to the Reader to
judge how much […]” (1672: 49); “There is no
Reader I suppose so ignorant, but he knows
what the Spanish History reports of Leonora”
(1672: 310).
Tomas Monterrey
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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ÁLVARO ALBARRÁN GUTIÉRREZ
Universidad de Sevilla
albarran@us.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9619-8861>
THE POWER OF FANCY: LIBERTY
AND IMAGINATION IN PHILIP FRENEAU’S
COLLEGE WRITINGS
EL PODER DE LA FANTASÍA: LIBERTAD E
IMAGINACIÓN EN LOS ESCRITOS
UNIVERSITARIOS DE PHILIP FRENEAU
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510922
Abstract
Like other prominent members of the revolutionary generation, Philip Freneau
lived his formative years against the backdrop of the imperial crisis that would
lead to the independence of the US in 1776, and this would make a lasting
impression on his later life and writings, especially as regards his ideas on the
possibility for creativity and individuality in a time of increasing politicisation.
This article examines the particular terms in which the poet’s college experiences
influenced his conflicted take on liberty and imagination, which remained a
persistent concern both during and after his time at the College of New Jersey
(now Princeton). Drawing on original archival work, the article focuses on his
most extensive reflection on the matter, “The Power of Fancy” (1770), and offers
an analysis of the poem in connection with several other prominent eighteenth-
century philosophical and literary texts that also address the imaginative faculty.
In so doing, the article reveals the workings of an anti-imaginistic tradition,
instilled through the curriculum of late-colonial Princeton, in Freneau’s college
writings — a tradition that the poet both espoused and resisted on his quest for
individual autonomy and creative expression.
Keywords: Philip Freneau, fancy, liberty, imagination, Princeton.
Álvaro Albarrán Gutiérrez
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Resumen
Al igual que otros miembros de la generación revolucionaria, Philip Freneau vivió
sus años de formación en el contexto de la crisis imperial que llevaría a la fundación
de los EEUU y esto, por diversas razones, sería decisivo para su vida y escritos
posteriores, especialmente en lo concerniente a la posibilidad de aseverar su
individualidad creativa en una época de creciente politización. Este artículo
examina los términos en los que la experiencia universitaria del poeta influyó en
su forma de entender la libertad y la imaginación, una problemática que siguió
siendo una preocupación persistente del autor tanto durante como después de su
estancia en el College of New Jersey (ahora Princeton). Basado en un trabajo de
archivo original, el artículo se centra en la reflexión más extensa sobre el tema que
hizo el autor, “The Power of Fancy” (1770), comparando el poema con otros
textos filosóficos y literarios del siglo XVIII que reflexionan también sobre la
imaginación. Al hacerlo, el artículo revela la influencia de una tradición anti-
imaginista, inculcada a través del plan de estudios del Princeton tardocolonial, en
los escritos universitarios de Freneau — una tradición que el poeta abrazó y
resistió a la par en su esfuerzo por encontrar la forma de disfrutar de autonomía
individual y expresión creativa.
Palabras clave: Philip Freneau, fantasía, libertad, imaginación, Princeton.
1. Introduction
Notwithstanding his relative obscurity in contemporary criticism, Philip Freneau
has been credited as “one of the founders of American literature” (Sayre 2017: 59)
and “an author who was inextricably bound up in the political and aesthetic
identity of the newly formed United States” (Gailey 2015: 14). Also known as the
“Poet of the Revolution” and, by some accounts, as the “Father of American
Poetry”, Freneau flourished during the Revolutionary War and early national
period, when he devoted his work to a staunch republican and liberal agenda in the
service of patriotism and, subsequently, the French Revolution and the Jeffersonian-
Republican party. At the heart of his literary as well as journalistic writings lay a
profound concern with the nature of liberty and imagination, and the constraints
besetting creative exploration and individual self-assertion in the newly founded
republic (Broderick 2003: 7-12; Daniel 2009: 66-72; Anderson 2015: 208-213).
In 1770, just two years after his admission to the College of New Jersey (now
Princeton), Philip Freneau composed “The Power of Fancy”. Like Phillis Wheatley’s
“On Imagination” (1773), the poem examines the liberating potency inherent in
the imagination (or fancy) over the poetic mind and the creative process the power
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of fancy appears to enable.1 Foremost in the text lies the idea that fancy, the “regent
of the mind” (1786: l. 4), is a superior faculty of cognition, divine in nature and
unlimited in scope. The “spark” (ll. 5, 7) where humankind may trace “[r]
esemblance to the immortal race” (l. 10), fancy seems to provide the poet privileged
access to an alternative mode of perception, one that allows him to escape the
limitations of “[s]ense” (l. 82) by exposing him, “in vision” (l. 106), to “[n]oble
fabrics” (l. 23), “livelier colours” (l. 108) and “[e]ndless images” (l. 143) of “[i]deal
objects” (l. 145). Prima facie, such an experience would appear a form of liberation,
physical as well as cognitive in nature. On careful consideration, however, engaging
the power of fancy affords the poet nothing but a new form of submission, for
fancy, reluctant to let him roam at will, assumes not only a mediatory but also a
supervisory role in the poet’s journey to her “painted realms” (l. 142). Echoing
Wheatley’s “roving Fancy” (1988: l. 9), which released the poetic mind only to
have it bound into “soft captivity” (1988: l. 12), Freneau’s fancy comes across as a
double-edged sword — one that provides the poet with an experience of creative
transcendence that, paradoxically, can be enjoyed only within set constraints.
There is much in “The Power of Fancy” that may seem, a priori, puzzling, for
rarely is the imagination conceived as a constraining or, for that matter, constrained
mode of perception in contemporary popular use. Revolutionary Americans,
however, remained deeply at odds as to how to respond to the potential for creative
liberation and transcendence often ascribed to the imaginative faculty, and part of
the reason for this conflict, at least for collegians like Freneau, resided in the
contents underpinning higher education syllabi during their formative years — a
period that unfolded against the backdrop of the crisis that would soon lead
to the founding of the US. From his admission in 1768 to his graduation in 1771,
the soon-to-be “Poet of the Revolution” was exposed to an ambitious program of
curricular and extracurricular reforms, primarily designed to spread across
campus “a spirit of liberty and free inquiry” (Princeton University 2010: 237).
This course of study would lead the poet to embrace a spirit of resistance and
protest during and after his college years, but it would also fuel a longstanding
concern regarding the possibility for individual autonomy and creative expression
in a time of increasing politicisation. It is the aim of this article to explore this
conflict and to shed light on how the poet’s college experience influenced his take
on the imagination. Firstly, this study considers several key features of late-
colonial Princeton’s curricular and extracurricular organisation, with a particular
focus on how it influenced students’ approach to civic life and creative liberty.
Subsequently, it examines the poet’s response to Princeton’s curriculum by
analysing his best-known work on the subject, “The Power of Fancy”, including
in the analysis a representative selection of other prominent eighteenth-century
philosophical and literary texts on the topic. In so doing, this paper reveals the
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ideological foundations framing the poet’s conflicted approach to the imagination,
which, under the influence of Princeton’s instruction and eighteenth-century
convention, became a contested site in his quest for creative autonomy and
individual self-assertion.
2. Princeton and Late-Colonial Higher Education
Philip Freneau’s formative years were certainly exceptional. His was a time of
revolution, and nowhere was this more apparent than at the college where he
spent three years studying during the tenure of Reverend John Witherspoon,
Princeton’s sixth president and soon-to-be signer of the Declaration of
Independence. A hotbed of revolutionary sentiment, late-colonial Princeton was
no ordinary college but, rather, one of the most politicised institutions of higher
education across the Atlantic seaboard. “No other college”, as John Murrin
notes, “was so nearly unanimous in support of the patriot cause. Trustees, faculty,
and nearly all alumni and students rallied to the Revolution” (1996: xxi).
However, Princeton was not the only college whose students (or faculty) openly
challenged Britain’s policies in the 1760s and 1770s — nor could this be the case,
considering how far-reaching resistance to such reforms proved to be. Just like
colonials from Boston to Savannah were beginning to challenge parliamentary
abuse, students from Dartmouth to William and Mary were protesting on and off
campus, burning tea, letters and effigies, boycotting local retailers, wearing
homespun, and organising debates on subjects as varied as “Monarchy”,
“Patriotism”, and “Liberty” (Robson 1985: 57-102; Rudy 1996: 4-18; Hoeveler
2002: 297-302; Geiger 2015: 76-87). In all these protests, Princeton remained at
the vanguard, serving as one of the foremost contributors to the upcoming
revolution by providing students with a privileged space to engage with ongoing
polemics. For all intents and purposes, late-colonial Princeton was “the premier
Patriot college” (Robson 1985: 70).
Arguably, the reason for this lay with the numerous reforms that Reverend John
Witherspoon introduced during his presidency at Princeton (1768-1794). As
Gideon Mailer states, “Witherspoon realized that rising tensions between Britain
and the American colonies called for special attention to the instruction of young
men [...] [He] believed that educated young men were increasingly likely to
assume positions of public prominence in ‘the present state of things’” (2017:
182). Like Aaron Burr, Sr., Jonathan Edwards and other prominent former
presidents, John Witherspoon refashioned the course of study at the College of
New Jersey to instill in his students a spirit of intellectual restlessness and critical
inquiry that enabled them to assess and partake in the ongoing discussions. As he
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argued in a 1772 address, “I would not be understood to say that a seminary of
learning ought to enter deeply into political contention [...] But surely a
constitution which naturally tends to produce a spirit of liberty and independence
[...] is infinitely preferable to the dead and vapid state of one whose very existence
depends upon the nod of those in power” (2015a: 111-112). It was this spirit that,
during his administration, led him to enrich Princeton’s curricular and
extracurricular structure, expand the holdings of the university library, improve
teaching methods and materials, and enhance academic standards — a set of
reforms aimed to foster among his student body an interest in civic life and public
service (Sloan 1971: 110-145; Dix 1978: 41-53; Harrison 1980: xxx-xxxii;
Robson 1985: 58-74; Daiches 1991: 167; Hoeveler 2002: 297-298; Longaker
2007: 185-191; Miller 2010: 66-70; Mailer 2017: 212-214).
The imagination, for this reason, remained central to Princeton’s curricular
structure. Even though the concept may sound foreign to contemporary political
and social discussion, British and American thinkers had been writing about the
connection between public life and the imagination at least since the seventeenth
century, in a direct line binding John Locke and Thomas Hobbes to Alexander
Hamilton and Benjamin Rush (Holbo 1997: 22-25; Torre 2007: 136-142;
Schlutz 2009: 13-14; Geuss 2010: 67-69; Frank 2013: 48-55). This explains the
prominence the imaginative faculty had in the lectures given during Witherspoon’s
administration, which elaborated on the teachings and writings of the British
Enlightenment. This tradition, admittedly, did not afford Princetonians a simple
definition of the concept. Joseph Addison did not err when he argued that “[t]
here are few Words in the English Language which are employed in a more loose
and uncircumscribed Sense than those of the Fancy and the Imagination” (1982:
368, emphasis in the original). The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
produced a myriad of competing articulations of the imagination in the fields of
philosophy, aesthetic theory, literature and medicine, to name but a few.
Notwithstanding the inherent diversity that defined the concept, it is possible to
discern in the writings of the Enlightenment a transition with which Witherspoon’s
students became familiar both in his newly founded courses on “Moral
Philosophy” and “Eloquence”, and in the new volumes added to the university
library (Charvat 1936: 35; Martin 1961: 3-27; Sloan 1971: 103-145; Dix 1978:
41-53; Daiches 1991: 167-172; Court 2001: 30-33; Hoeveler 2002: 297-302;
Miller 2010: 67-76; Cahill 2012: 13, 25-26; Geiger 2015: 72-74; Mailer 2017:
182-214). “Prior to the eighteenth century”, as Michael Saler notes, “many
Western thinkers defined the imagination as the mediating faculty between the
senses and the understanding”, a mediatory power that operated primarily as an
assistant or “subordinate to human reason” (2011: 199). Up to the mid through
late eighteenth century, the imaginative faculty was primarily conceived as a
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secondary mode of cognition and perception, which, like memory, remained
dependent on, and subservient to, reason. In essence, the imagination was regarded
as a mediatory power — the mind’s capacity to produce complex ideas and images
out of the combination of simple ideas, memories and sensible stimuli. John Locke
aptly phrased this idea when he wrote that, “[a]s simple ideas are observed to exist
in several combinations united together; so the mind has a power to consider
several of them united together, as one idea” (1997: 159). Such was the power
ascribed to the imagination, to reconcile or, rather, mediate between a set of
experiences and stimuli to provide cognitive and perceptual unity.
Through the imagination, it was assumed, the mind was capable of cognition,
insofar as it enabled the individual to establish mental links between ideas. As the
eighteenth century progressed, however, the imagination came to be seen less as a
mediatory power and more as a creative force. Rather than depending on past
experiences and sensible stimuli, it began to be conceived as a faculty enabled to
establish associations conducive to ideas not previously encountered in the sensible
realm. As Christine Holbo explains, “the imagination was itself coming to seem,
not a faculty of mediation and moderation, but a revolutionary force challenging
all limits” (1997: 23). Whereas most early conceptualizations of the imagination
had underlined its dependence on external stimuli, from the mid through late
eighteenth century, it was elevated to serve as a creative and liberating power,
presumably equal in status to reason. David Hume would hence conclude that
“[n]othing is more free than the imagination of man; and though it cannot
exceed that original stock of ideas furnished by the internal and external senses,
it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding, separating, and dividing these
ideas, in all the varieties of fiction and vision” (2007b: 47). Even though the
imagination remained primarily associative in its operations over the mind,
in the second half of the eighteenth century, it was broadly assumed that it afforded
the individual the capacity to establish an endless variety of cognitive associations,
serving as the precondition for the individual to partake in a specific mode of
perceptual liberation and transcendence (Engell 1981: 33-50, 65-77; Holbo 1997:
22-25; Schlutz 2009: 5-14; Cahill 2012: 39-41; Holochwost 2020: 6-11).
Such an experience, however, was vexing for eighteenth-century thinkers given its
(alleged) potential for private and public disorder. In discussing the relevance of
the concept of the imagination in Western philosophy, John Sallis explains that,
ever since classical antiquity, discussions and debates on the imaginative faculty
have been traditionally framed within these ambivalent terms: “Ever again
philosophy attests that imagination has a double effect, a double directionality,
bringing about illumination and elevation, on the one hand, and deception and
corruption, on the other, bringing them about perhaps even in such utter
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proximity that neither can, with complete assurance, be decisively separated from
the other” (2000: 46). This potential for liberation and creativity, while inspiring
much praise, sparked the revolutionary generation’s anxieties concerning the
possibility that, were it to establish associations between ideas without limits and
restraints, the imagination could turn into a delusive and corrupting influence.
British and American philosophers often gave voice to these anxieties throughout
the eighteenth century. David Hume, who, as stated above, celebrated elsewhere
the imagination’s liberating and creative potency, warned, somewhat
contradictorily, that “[n]othing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of
the imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among
philosophers” (2007a: 174). Rather than as the key to obtain epistemological
certainty via conceptual association and perceptual transcendence, the imagination
was also depicted occasionally as a potentially deranging and delusive power,
which could drive the experiencing self to establish connections between ideas
that could prove to be not only false, but also harmful for the individual as well as
for society. In enabling the self to escape from the constraints of sensible stimuli
and, by extension, reason, it could also serve as a foundation for epistemological
confusion, psychological distress and social instability, all resulting from fancy’s
unregulated and, hence, potentially delusive and deranging operations (Martin
1961: 107-108; Engell 1981: 51-62; Holbo 1997: 23-24; Cahill 2012: 165-166;
Frank 2013: 52-55; Holochwost 2020: 20).
President Witherspoon was not oblivious to these fears and anxieties. Rather,
the anti-imaginistic prejudice that informed eighteenth-century writings on the
imaginative faculty dominated his lectures, where he endeavored to instruct his
students on the means to contain the potential excesses inherent in the operation
of the imagination — an exercise he equated to a form of civic duty. In addressing
an audience, Witherspoon argued, public writers and speakers should partake in
“an exercise of self-denial” (2015b: 270) and assume “[d]ignity of character and
disinterestedness” (305). As he explained, “it is not easy to procure attention
unless there is some degree of character preserved; and indeed, wherever there is
a high opinion of the candor and sincerity of the speaker, it will give an
inconceivable weight to his sentiments in debate” (305). Because they were
expected to be exemplary civic leaders, Princetonians were discouraged both
from showing excessive interest and passion, and from confusing the provinces of
private introspection and self-expression with those of public life. As Witherspoon
concluded, “[t]hey who reason on the selfish scheme, as usual, resolve all into
private interest” (2015c: 188). This, in turn, explained his call for imaginative
restraint. Instead of nourishing “a warm fancy” (2015b: 291), he argued, public
writers and speakers were to be defined by their capacity to restrain any potentially
subjective mode of expression and perception, and “keep [their] thoughts, desires,
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and affections in due moderation” (2015c: 183). Even though he acknowledged
the potential benefits inherent to “the creative power of fancy” (2015b: 252), he
advised against its use. In addressing an audience, instead, students were
instructed to assume a civic-oriented stance, presenting themselves as disinterested
representatives of the public good, able to sublimate their private interests, and
willing to exercise not full creative autonomy but, rather, what Terence Martin
(1961) referred to as an “instructed vision”.
3. Praising Fancy: Perceptual Liberation and Associationism
Philip Freneau’s college poems bear the imprint of late-colonial Princeton’s
curriculum and, as such, they reflect the roots of a conflicted poetics, especially
as regards the physical and aesthetic limitations Princetonians were instructed to
exercise in conjuring up the imagination. Marcus Daniel does not err when he
writes that “Freneau discovered politics as well as poetry at Princeton” (2009:
67). To this list, however, one should add the anti-imaginistic tradition that
informed the authors with whom he was also becoming acquainted at the college.
From Joseph Addison and John Locke to Francis Hutchinson and David Hume,
the poet grew increasingly familiar with a plethora of voices that insisted that the
imaginative faculty, the key to creative and perceptual liberation, was to be
commended and praised but also used with utmost caution. This ambivalence
arguably became central to early writings like “The Power of Fancy”, where the
poet addressed the constraints that hindered his poetic pursuits — a quest for
meaning to realise “the Romantic sentiment of creative freedom” (Anderson
2015: 211). Such freedom and the possibility for the imaginative faculty to realise
its potential lie at the center of the text, reflecting the multiple strands of conflict
as well as the course of study Freneau worked through during his formative years.
At first glance, “The Power of Fancy” (1770) reads as a prototypical celebratory
paean to the imagination, similar in nature and scope to the writings of British
and American authors in the eighteenth century, from Mark Akenside’s “The
Pleasures of Imagination” (1744) and Joseph Warton’s “To Fancy” (1746) to
Phillis Wheatley’s “On Imagination” (1773). Like these authors, the poet opens
his text with an extended description of the imagination, which, like his
predecessors, he personifies and genders as a female.2 “WAKEFUL, vagrant,
restless thing,/ Ever wandering on the wing” (1786: ll. 1-2), fancy is represented
as an active and dynamic principle, “wondrous” (l. 3) and “unknown” (l. 6) in its
workings, and vested with divine authority, presiding over the mind as a “regent”
(l. 4), a role the poet assigns by virtue of her celestial origin. Twice referred to as
a “spark” (ll. 5, 7), the imagination is rendered as a heavenly power, a privileged
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mode of perception that affords humankind intellectual and spiritual elevation,
and a distinctive creative capacity likening the poet to the divine: “THIS spark of
bright, celestial flame,/ From Jove’s seraphic altar came,/ And hence alone in
man we trace,/ Resemblance to the immortal race” (ll. 7-10). The terms in which
fancy is addressed echo eighteenth-century writings on the imagination, which
was often considered the central element of cognition in philosophical and literary
discussion because of its presumed capacity to link ideas and experiences into
(complex) thought (Engell 1981: 3-10; Holbo 1997: 22-25; Schlutz 2009: 3-14;
Cahill 2012: 1-5; Holochwost 2020: 3-11). The primacy accorded to fancy above
other modes of cognition and perception in the period explains the reference to
the imagination’s divine nature and regal authority in the poem — a depiction
that reinstates an oft-trodden portrayal that can be readily found in multiple
other renditions of the matter with which Freneau became familiar at Princeton.3
Presenting himself as a loyal subject at the service of the imaginative faculty, the
poet completes his celebration with a detailed exploration of the terms whereby
the imagination energises or, rather, galvanises the mind. This power, the poet
intimates, relies on its unique capacity to establish conceptual links between
ideas. This much is suggested when the poet describes in the opening lines of the
text the whole of creation as the product of divine fancy combining preexisting
ideas into a complex and cohesive unit: “What is this globe, these lands, and seas,/
And heat, and cold, and flowers, and trees,/And life, and death, and beast, and
man,/ And time—that with the sun began—/But thoughts on reason’s scale
combin’d,/ Ideas of the Almighty mind?” (1786: ll. 15-20, emphasis in the
original). Like their creator’s, human fancy realises its creative power through the
establishment of trains of associations between “[e]ndless images of things” (l.
143) and “[i]deal objects” (l. 145), refashioned into “[n]oble fabrics” (l. 23), new
“shape[s]” (l. 78) and “livelier colours” (l. 108) in her “bright, celestial flame” (l.
7). Freneau’s fancy, it follows, is of the associationist kind, and, as such, conforms
to the prevailing eighteenth-century theory that the imagination creates new
ideas by combining memories, experiences and sensible stimuli. This theory, it
should be noted, had a particular following among Scottish philosophers from
the “Common Sense” school, whom Princetonians studied as part of President
Witherspoon’s course on moral philosophy. Through these thinkers, Freneau and
his classmates learned about the imagination’s boundless capacity for cognitive
linking but also about the potential corruption to which excessive imaginative
associations could lead the mind (Martin 1961: 3-27; Lesley 1970: 90-126;
Holbo 1997: 22-27; Court 2001: 30-33; Craig 2007: 46-59; Cahill 2012: 25-26;
Holochwost 2020: 3-11). This explains the poet’s move to include reason as the
arbiter whose “scale” (Freneau 1786: l. 19) assesses the products of divine
imagination and, one would assume, the human mind: fancy, the text implies,
creates through cumulative and continued association, yet under supervision.
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This point is not to be taken lightly, for it directs the reader to one of the central
tensions the text takes up as a theme. In the poem, after all, fancy does not submit
to but, rather, resists control, which it can do quite successfully and with ease due
to its perpetual, accelerated motion. “Sense”, as the speaker asserts, “can never
follow her” (1786: l. 82), for only fancy may strike her “SWIFT” (l. 57), though
“unseen” (l. 22), course through the “painted realms” (l. 142) where,
notwithstanding reason’s efforts, she holds sway as the undisputed “regent of the
mind” (l. 4). To prove this point, the central section of the text elaborates in
detail on a “vision” (l. 106), mediated by the power of fancy and phrased in terms
of an imaginary journey around the world, in which the poet, both royal subject
and travel companion, joins fancy on an eastbound flight from the Atlantic
seaboard to California by way of Europe, India and the Pacific Islands. Freneau’s
college writings often elaborate on such journeys. The Rising Glory of America,
too, opens with a cursory view of major locations associated with Western
civilisation, from Ancient Egypt to Britain through Greece and Rome, only to
end up asserting that the text will sing “[a] Theme more new” (1772: l. 24), the
rise of a new imperial seat in America. Exploiting one of the most recurrent tropes
in late-colonial political literature, translatio imperii, the text vindicated America’s
prospective centrality in the global theater of nations by claiming that the seat of
power had historically moved westwards (McWilliams 1988: 159-160; Wertheimer
2009: 21-22; Giles 2012: 142-143; Adams 2013: 394). Though resorting to the
journey trope, “The Power of Fancy” strikes a different tone, thematically as well
as geographically. James Engell suggested as much when he noted that the text
“is a progress poem in reverse, a stunning redirection of the usual British theme
of the progress of poetry westward […] The reverse progress [comes across as] a
continuous eastering, an ‘orienting’, until fancy returns to the New World on the
California coast” (1981: 194). Reversing the westward course of empires for an
eastbound flight, Freneau subverts the foundations animating late-colonial
political writings as he reorients the journey trope in a move that bespeaks fancy’s
power to transcend limitations.
This power becomes conspicuous in the journey that fancy and the poet
undertake, itself a trope occasionally found in eighteenth-century poetry. David
Mallet’s The Excursion also has the reader follow a journey where fancy takes the
poet around and beyond the globe: “Fancy, with me range Earth’s extended
Space,/ Surveying Nature’s Works: and thence aloft,/ Spread to superior Worlds
thy bolder Wing,/ Unweary’d in thy Flight” (1728: ll. 6-9, emphasis in the
original). Like Mallet, Freneau’s journey with fancy is conducted both on the
sensible and on the noumenal worlds. Engaging the imagination, the poet claims
to partake in an experience of creative transcendence where the barriers that
would otherwise define phenomenal existence collapse, enabling the poet to
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perceive existence at large. Thanks to fancy, the poet may not only explore the
world but also “[l]isten[ø] to the chimy tune/ Of the bright, harmonious spheres”
(1786: ll. 30-31), a reference to the Pythagorean belief that the movement of
celestial bodies followed a harmonious arrangement, which also informed the
organisation of the cosmos. Fancy, in that sense, affords the poet an experience
not far removed from what Thomas Akenside’s “The Pleasures of Imagination”
identified as the imaginative faculty’s capacity for ontological and epistemological
certainty: “[F]or with thee comes/ The guide, the guardian of their lovely
sports,/ Majestic TRUTH; and where TRUTH deigns to come,/ Her sister
LIBERTY will not be far” (2015: ll. 21-24). Freneau’s fancy, like Akenside’s,
affords a privileged mode of perceptual liberation and creative self-assertion,
which grants the poet the power to ascertain and alter the order of possibility. In
the text, fancy comes across as a creative as well as regenerative force, a “spark”
(1786: ll. 5, 7) that galvanises “[n]oble fabrics” (l. 23) and “[e]ndless images” (l.
143) into being while also reenergising “faded scenes” (l. 101) into “livelier
colours” (l. 108). Elevated by fancy, the poet depicts himself as an agentive force
who can perceive and recast reality at whim — an idea that anticipates Percy
Bysshe Shelley’s claim that “[p]oets are the unacknowledged legislators of the
World” (2018: 883).
4. Taming Fancy: Creative Autonomy and Imaginative
Restraints
The poet’s response to the power that fancy affords is presumptively positive.
Presiding over the creative process, fancy is the recipient of much praise and
commendation. This image, however, is consistently, though subtly, questioned as
the poet begins to detect flaws in fancy’s operations. In the conclusion to the text,
as a case in point, the speaker claims as follows: “Fancy, to thy power I owe/ Half
my happiness below” (Freneau 1786: ll. 147-148). The quantifier “half” in the
passage invites discussion, for it is not rare to locate similar suggestions of fancy’s
partial or, rather, defective nature. As he celebrates the experience of perceptual
transcendence that fancy makes possible, he yet again suggests that, through her
mediation, he can “[l]isten[ø] to the chimy tune/ Of the bright, harmonious
spheres” (ll. 30-31), which he is nonetheless quick to qualify as a flawed endeavor,
for he can listen only to “[n]otes that half distract the mind” (l. 40). The idea the
text advances is that fancy affords an experience that cannot be fully enjoyed, as if
the imagination ultimately failed to achieve the elevation the poet seeks. John Keats’
“Ode to a Nightingale” elaborates on a similar idea as the poem, also a vision
mediated by fancy, concludes, “Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well/ As she is
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fam’d to do, deceiving elf” (2018: ll. 73-74). The idea that fancy is deceitful, which
was prevalent in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writings, is one that,
admittedly, Freneau would address more explicitly in later publications. Like Keats,
however, the poet presents the imagination as a limited and, to some extent, limiting
power, which brings about a much less gratifying experience than it first appeared.
The reason for this flawed performance, the poet intimates, has to do not so
much with an inherent defect as with the terms in which fancy exerts its power.
The central section of the poem provides evidence as to the underlying power
dynamic that animates the relationship between the imagination and the speaker,
and his reaction to what he perceives as an oppressive demand for subservience.
As the “regent of the mind” (Freneau 1786: l. 4), fancy expects the poet to submit
to her command, forcing him to follow her lead on the allegorical voyage they
both conduct in her “painted realms” (l. 142). Rather than moving alongside him
and enabling him to explore her domains at will, fancy controls the path as well
as the pace of the journey, so much so that the speaker struggles to follow and is
occasionally forced to ask his guide for assistance: “Lo! she leads me wide and
far,/ Sense can never follow her—/ Shape thy course o’er land and sea,/ Help me
to keep pace with thee” (ll. 81-84). That the poet struggles to follow fancy seems
like an interesting point to make but one that should not come as a surprise, for
fancy “[b]ears” (l. 111), “[l]eads” (ll. 35, 81, 113), “[p]laces” (l. 116), and, in
essence, drags him around the world, supervising the poet’s exposure to her “[i]
deal objects” (l. 145) and, hence, controlling the extent of his creative potential.
Literally carried by fancy, the poet comes across on closer examination not as an
agentive force but, rather, as a passive observer at the mercy of the “Fickle
Goddess” (l. 65) he acknowledged as regent in the opening lines.
It is difficult not to see in the poem traces of the same conflict Wheatley took up
as a theme in her own take on the matter. In “On Imagination”, the poet begins
what reads at first as an ode to the imagination with a praise to a faculty she also
identifies in royal terms as an “imperial queen” (1988: l. 1). For the two poets,
the imagination presides as a monarch over the mind, enabling the experiencing
self to transcend sensible limitations by releasing him (or her) in visions that, as
Wheatley puts it, “amaze th’ unbounded soul” (l. 22). The terms of reference the
poets use become telling when one considers the context in which the texts were
composed. As colonial resistance to imperial authority spread, Freneau and
Wheatley see a monarch at the helm of human cognition and perception — a
move that leads them to struggle with the same tensions late-colonial Americans
experienced with power and authority beyond the domains of poetry. These
struggles manifest in “On Imagination” in what Wheatley, much like Freneau,
identifies as the imagination’s insistent demands for submission: though seemingly
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a liberating force, the imagination ultimately attempts to “bind” the mind with
“silken fetters” (l. 11) into a “soft captivity” (l. 12). Edward Cahill provides a
lucid analysis of how this conflict manifests in Wheatley’s text, writing that,
[i]nsofar as the “soft captivity” of aesthetic pleasure enables liberty of imagination,
it might be read as a bold expression of abstract liberty and a dangerous form of self-
authorizing individualism, especially for a slave. But insofar as the poem emphasizes
the imagination’s authoritative role as the “ruler” of her “subject-passions”, it
functions as precisely the kind of Cato-like bracketing of selfhood demanded by
republican virtue. (2012: 60)
This contradiction, which Wheatley veils in what reads at first as a paean to the
imaginative faculty, remains central to her approach to the imagination, and
parallels Freneau’s own rendering.
Like in “On Imagination”, in “The Power of Fancy”, the imagination is not
presented merely as a benevolent assistant but as a despotic figure, insofar as she
allows the poet to participate in an experience that requires him to submit to her
guidance and command. Although quick to engage and praise her power, the
poet, aware of fancy’s demands, seems unwilling to endorse full submission and,
instead, attempts to reclaim authority by commanding, rather than obeying,
fancy, such as when he demands through accumulated imperatives that she “[w]
aft [him] far to southern isles” (Freneau 1786: l. 73), “[s]hape [her] course o’er
land and sea” (l. 83), and, as the text concludes, “stop, and rove no more” (l.
124). There is an element of predictability in the fact that a British colonist, on
the brink of the Revolutionary War, purports to rebel against a figure explicitly
associated with monarchic authority — a figure that, contrary to his
contemporaries, Freneau astutely identifies not as a “queen” but as a “regent”,
curtailing her claim to absolute power.4 Though still carried by the imaginative
faculty, the poet resists full submission to her authority, managing to redirect the
course of the creative process originally spurred by the power of fancy so that it
continues to unfold on his own terms. Fancy and the poet’s struggle for power,
however, is never fully solved, so much so that, by the end of the text, they
continue to vie for creative authority. This may explain the poem’s concluding
lines, which, to some extent, come across in this light as a call for reconciliation:
“Come, O come—perceiv’d by none,/ You and I will walk alone” (ll. 153-154).
This is not the only instance in which the poet tries to appease fancy and
encourage her to join him, not as his regent but as his equal. Earlier in the text,
the poet urged fancy neither to command nor to obey but to walk alongside him
so that, working in tandem, they might “wandering both be lost” (l. 119) and
retire “to some lonely dome” (l. 35), where the creative process, a theme of the
poem, may go on unmediated by external or, for that matter, internal constraints.
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“The Power of Fancy”, hence, points to a potential compromise between fancy
and the poet’s competing demands for authority — a compromise defined by a
foundation of shared sovereignty. Such a compromise remains elusive, as does the
possibility for the poet to exert the power of fancy without restraint. Rather than
a “conventional view of imagination” as a “cooperative” faculty (2005: 66), to
use a phrase from Annie Finch, Freneau ends up taking a highly ambivalent
position on the limits of the imagination, which becomes a restraining force
precisely when the individual attempts to conjure up its creative and liberating
potential for a private purpose. Given the nature of late-colonial Princeton’s
curricular and extracurricular organisation, that the poet should have remained
conflicted as to the private application of the creative powers of the mind may
come as no surprise. Witherspoon explicitly argued in his “Lectures on
Eloquence” that, when “kept in great moderation” (2015b: 291), and when
directed to serve a public cause, the imaginative faculty could have a positive
influence but, otherwise, “[i]magination is not to be much used” (2015b: 291).
Elaborating on the anti-imaginistic discourse that informed much of eighteenth-
century Anglo-American philosophical, literary and aesthetic thought,
Witherspoon exposed his student body to a civic paideia that problematised the
pursuit of private modes of self-representation and expression. In texts like “The
Power of Fancy”, Freneau addresses the extent of its creative expectations and,
hence, questions the burden and limitations it imposed on the poetic mind.
This query is phrased, however obliquely, in the context of a battle of the sexes, a
power struggle between the male and female forces operating in the text, namely,
the poet and fancy. The explicit gendering of fancy as a female figure in the opening
lines and the ensuing battle for autonomy that pits the imaginative faculty against
the poet, an implicitly male figure, is not rare among eighteenth-century writings.
Barbara C. Freeman examined how this dynamic informed the works of Immanuel
Kant, particularly his understanding of the sublime, which, for him, “presupposes
an interplay between two highly personified faculties of the mind, the imagination
and the reason. This dyad is in fact a barely disguised hierarchy that provides the
grounds for debasing one half of the couple at the expense of the other” (1997: 69).
As detailed in his Critique of Judgment (1790), Freeman continues, “the attainment
of the Kantian sublime is dependent upon a sacrifice; its cause is the collapse of the
imagination’s capacity to connect empirical reality with the realm of abstract
ideality” (1997: 69-70). This collapse unfolds in Kant’s discussion as the
imagination (gendered as female) battles for control with reason (gendered as
male), a process that required the latter’s victory to enable the experiencing self’s
perceptual and cognitive transcendence via the sublime. As Freeman concludes,
“what is at stake is a certain violence that imposes a hierarchical relation whose
paradigm is achieved through a self-sacrifice by the putatively weaker partner” (72).
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This dynamic, which would become prevalent in the writings of the Romantics, is
anticipated in “The Power of Fancy”. Unlike his counterparts in Europe, Freneau’s
take on the matter fails to bring about the collapse that Kant envisioned. Admittedly,
the dynamic established between the female and male drives in Freneau’s poem is
not one that can be pinned down to an allegorical rendition of imaginative and
rational forces in battle. Be that as it may, the break that would result in the self’s
liberation in the Kantian tradition via sublime transcendence does not occur in
Freneau, who, despite his resistance, endeavors to find common ground with fancy
and negotiate a compromise, which never fully materialises neither in this text nor
in later writings.5 In the absence of this break perhaps lies the poet’s inability to
transcend the barriers of the imagination, attain creative autonomy, and escape
from, as Wheatley would put it, fancy’s “silken fetters” (1988: l. 11).
5. Concluding Remarks
Princeton University Library holds a copy of the eighth volume of The Works of
Alexander Pope (1757), formerly part of the Freneau library. The volume contains
a collection of the letters written by the British poet, in the margins of which
Freneau scribbled occasional lines and reflections. Foremost among these
marginalia lies a brief stanza located below Alexander Pope’s letter to Richard
Steele, the co-founder of the influential British magazine The Spectator, dated
November 7, 1712. In the letter, Pope provides a translation of Emperor Hadrian’s
famed last words as recorded in Historia Augusta, where the Roman leader
addresses his soul as the “pleasing companion of [his] body” and compares,
rather melancholy, “[its] former wit and humour” to its current “trembling,
fearful, and pensive” state (Freneau 1774: 228). Elaborating on Pope’s translation,
Freneau noted what comes across as a revision of “The Power of Fancy” in the
margins. The fragment, which bears the date “1774”, reads as follows: “Little
pleasing wandring [sic] mind/ Guest and companion soft and kind/ Now to
what regions will you go/ All pale and stiff and naked too/ And just no more as
you were wont to do”. Far from serving as the galvanising power conjured by the
original poem, the imaginative faculty stands, like Emperor Hadrian’s soul, in a
state of decay. “[P]ale”, “stiff” and “naked” (l. 4), the poet’s “mind” (l. 1) or,
rather, fancy has lost its vigor, leading the poet to wonder whether it can still exert
its liberating and creative power as it was “wont to do” (l. 5) or, were it not to be
the case, then, “to what regions will [it] go” (l. 3).
Even though the fragment was composed on a later date, its connection to “The
Power of Fancy” is telling, insofar as the faculty with which the poet had struggled
to come to terms during his formative years has seen its condition worsen after his
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graduation. Echoing the calls for union and resistance then spreading across the
Thirteen Colonies, the imperial crisis brought profound politicisation to
Princeton, leading President Witherspoon to introduce an ambitious program of
curricular and extracurricular reforms to raise a generation prepared and desirous
to resolve the crisis. This civic paideia, however, remained a source of much
conflict for the poet, whose college writings suggest multiple layers of tension
underpinning his response to the demands late-colonial Princeton made for
prospective public writers. In his early writings, the poet envisioned the possibility
to escape from such demands through the mediation of the power of fancy.
Rather than affording perceptual transcendence, however, fancy partly releases
the mind, but it does so by anchoring him to a frame of reference where his
creative impulses are tamed under her command. The type of fancy the poet
praises but also resists in the text, in this light, responds to that “instructed
vision” (Martin 1961) that Princetonians were encouraged and educated to
endorse — a controlled imaginative power that Freneau fails to embrace and,
instead, contests, though to no avail. In later years, the tension between the
impulses that dominate college writings like “The Power of Fancy” would
rapidly escalate, forcing the poet to choose between writing in the service of the
American Revolution and finding a space to assert his own creative autonomy as
the country came into being.6 It was at Princeton, nonetheless, that the “Poet of
the Revolution” first encountered the problem of the imagination, and it was the
experiences at this institution that laid the foundations upon which his later
writings would address the potential for creative autonomy afforded by the
power of fancy — a power he both admired and resented throughout his career.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation and founded on original
archival work, which would not have been possible without the funds provided by
the University of Seville’s Departments of Internationalization and Research
(VIPPIT-2018-II.2), as well as the assistance and support provided by Dr. Ramón
Espejo Romero (University of Seville).
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1. The terms “imagination” and
“fancy” have a complex history. For most of
the eighteenth century, both referred to the
same faculty. Although the foundations upon
which nineteenth-century thinkers would
mark the distinction between them were
introduced in the eighteenth century, in
general terms, they were virtually
interchangeable by the time Freneau attended
Princeton (Engell 1981: 172-183; Pyle 1995: 38-
39; Cahill 2012: 246; Costelloe 2013: 195;
Holochwost 2020: 9-10). This paper,
accordingly, uses these terms interchangeably.
2. From classical to early modern
literature, the imagination was gendered
either as male or female. Beginning in the
early modern period, the representation of the
imagination as a woman became increasingly
consolidated, becoming standard practice in
late-colonial writing. See Maura Smyth (2017)
for an extensive analysis.
3. . The opening lines in Mark
Akenside’s “The Pleasures of Imagination”
provide a case in point, considering that the
poet dubs fancy the “smiling queen of every
tuneful breast” (2015: l. 9, emphasis added).
Likewise, Joseph Warton’s “To Fancy”
introduces the imagination as a “crown’d”
(2015: l. 12) figure, a “Goddess” (l. 49), later
acknowledged to rule the poetic mind as
“queen” (l. 129).
4. In context, the term “regent”
affords two possible readings: a generic term
for a person who rules or governs (OED n. 1a)
and a specific term for a person vested with
authority by or on behalf of another for a
period of time (OED n. 2). Unlike Wheatley’s
“imperial queen” (1988: l. 1), Freneau’s
terminology affords the possibility of rebellion
because fancy’s authority is as temporary as a
regent’s.
5. Evidence supporting this idea
lies in the terms framing the poet’s relation to
“The Power of Fancy”. The full text was issued
only in the 1786 edition. In the 1795 and 1809
editions, it was extensively revised and
separated into two texts, “Ode to Fancy” and
“Fancy’s Ramble”, which omit most of the
central conflict of the poem. Rutgers
University Library holds Freneau’s personal
copy of the 1786 edition (RUL, “Freneau
Collection”, Association Volumes, Item 8, Box
1). “The Power of Fancy” is almost entirely
crossed out, which suggests how conflicted
the poet remained in later years both with the
text and with the ideas he tried yet failed to
reconcile.
6. See, for example, “Mac
Swiggen; a Satire” (1775), “The Beauties of
Santa Cruz” (1779) and “The House of Night, a
Vision” (1779).
Notes
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Received: 15/07/2024
Accepted: 15/01/2025
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SARA VILLAMARÍN-FREIRE
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
sara.villamarin@usc.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1287-0754>
TAINTED BY (WHITE) TRASH: CLASS,
RESPECTABILITY AND THE LANGUAGE OF WASTE
IN DOROTHY ALLISON AND BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
CORROMPIDO POR LA BASURA (BLANCA):
CLASE, RESPETABILIDAD Y EL LENGUAJE
DE LOS DESECHOS EN DOROTHY ALLISON
Y BONNIE JO CAMPBELL
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510514
Abstract
This article addresses the depiction of class, whiteness, dirt and respectability in the
short stories “Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee”, by Dorothy Allison, and “Boar
Taint”, by Bonnie Jo Campbell, from the perspective of waste studies and whiteness
studies. Characters in these stories erect discursive barriers between themselves and
others, deemed ‘white trash’ — a pervasive stigmatype connected to the working
poor experience in the US. By enforcing hierarchies that conflate cleanliness and
respectability, these characters seek to prove their adherence to unmarked forms of
whiteness while resisting assimilation into the white trash category. The negotiation
of (intra-)class divisions, especially between middle and working classes, exposes the
malleability of social hierarchies predicated on relationships of waste. In the end, the
protagonists’ rejection of white respectability re-signifies their association with waste
and leads them to find pride and community in their working-class occupations,
without necessarily embracing a purported white trash identity.
Keywords: white trash, waste studies, whiteness, respectability, working class.
Resumen
Este artículo aborda la descripción de las relaciones de clase, la blanquitud
(whiteness), la suciedad y la respetabilidad en los cuentos “Meanest Woman Ever
Sara Villamarín-Freire
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210
Left Tennessee”, de Dorothy Allison y “Boar Taint”, de Bonnie Jo Campbell,
desde la perspectiva de los waste studies y los estudios de blanquitud. Los personajes
en estas historias erigen barreras discursivas entre ellos mismos y otros a quienes
consideran “basura blanca” — un “estigmatipo” dominante conectado a la
experiencia de la clase trabajadora pobre en los Estados Unidos. Al imponer
jerarquías que fusionan higiene y respetabilidad, estos personajes tratan de
demostrar su adherencia a formas no marcadas de blanquitud mientras resisten ser
asimilados a la categoría “basura blanca”. La negociación de divisiones de clase,
especialmente entre las clases media y trabajadora, revela la maleabilidad de las
categorías sociales basadas en relaciones de desecho. Al final, el rechazo de las
protagonistas a la respetabilidad blanca confiere un nuevo significado a su
asociación con la “basura” y las lleva a considerar sus ocupaciones de clase
trabajadora con orgullo, sin por ello abrazar necesariamente una supuesta identidad
como “basura blanca”.
Palabras clave: basura blanca, waste studies, blanquitud, respetabilidad, clase
trabajadora.
1. Introduction
Dorothy Allison’s exploration of poor white experiences in Trash: Stories (1988)
has received limited attention when compared to her oft-mentioned novels Bastard
out of Carolina (1992) and Cavedweller (1998). Even less attention has been given
to Bonnie Jo Campbell’s American Salvage (2009), a collection of short stories set
in post-industrial Michigan at the turn of the millennium and populated by
characters whose lives are likened to the remnants of a disintegrating social order:
“It’s as though there was some kind of apocalypse and nobody noticed, and now
a large number of folks are living off the debris that’s left behind” (Campbell in
Kothari 2008). Despite noticeable differences in their respective backgrounds,
themes and preoccupations, both authors often focus on the lives of those left
behind — more specifically, on the experiences of the white American underclass
and the stigma they carry.
In this article, I scrutinise contemporary iterations of the white trash trope in
Allison’s “Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee” and Campbell’s “Boar Taint”
from the perspective of waste theory and whiteness studies. My analysis seeks to
shed light on the rhetorical strategies mobilised by those characters who are
perceived as being ‘white trash’. I am thus interested in examining how the class
hierarchies used in these stories draw from the language of waste to establish poor
whites as both polluted and polluting, continuing a long tradition of presenting
the white underclass as inherently tainted. To that end, the article includes a
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succinct overview of the origins and evolution of the term ‘white trash’, followed
by an analysis of how some characters in Allison’s and Campbell’s stories
demonstrate allegiance to white respectability by invoking discursive divisions
based on notions of cleanliness and dirt. However, these stories also feature other
characters who reject the conflation of respectability and (racial) purity, and strive
to reappropriate the term ‘trash’ in order to vindicate class dignity and physical
labor. I contend that the protagonists in these stories reshuffle the principles of
respectability, purposefully downplaying the negative connections between
working-class occupations, dirt and the poor white stigmatype, without necessarily
embracing a purported white trash identity.
2. Poor Whites through the Lens of Waste Studies
Dirt, waste and trash are “essentially disorder” or “matter out of place”, in Mary
Douglas’s famous definition (2001: 2, 36). Waste exists as “the by-product of a
systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves
rejecting inappropriate elements” (36). However, the very existence of waste is
what constitutes any “dominant system of order” in the first place, given that the
system can only be maintained on the condition that it expels any elements
perceived as potential “threats against that order” (Liboiron and Lepawsky 2022:
150). Defined relationally as the absence, lack or negation of another entity, waste
is therefore “contextual, place-based, situated, and historically specific” (149).
Considering that “some pollutions are used as analogies for expressing a general
view of the social order” (Douglas 2001: 3), one of the most productive areas of
inquiry to branch from waste studies examines how certain social dynamics are
mapped according to models and relations of wasting.
Exploring how these models are incorporated into the construction of social
hierarchies has helped shed light on their inner mechanisms and subsistence, as
well as on the discursive strategies used to negotiate the boundaries between
pollution and cleanliness. Susan Morrison argues that one of the ways in which
humans separate themselves from those deemed inferior is by incorporating the
language of waste into the “rhetoric of othering” in order to make undesirable
individuals “cognate to waste”, thereby constructing “unprivileged races, religions,
and ethnicities as unclean or inhuman” (2015: 97). This rhetorical application
stems from the threatening dimension of waste as an abject presence that ought to
be expelled “in the interest of maintaining a boundary between what is connected
to the self and what isn’t” (Hawkins 2006: 24). The compulsion to separate
oneself from polluted elements originates in the perception that “things deemed
dirty, spoiled, or noxious carry polluting effects, by touching” (Zimring 2015: 1).
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Transferred to the social plane, this fear of pollution translates into “projective
disgust” as one imaginarily anticipates contamination (Morrison 2015: 102,
emphasis in original). It is often not enough to jettison tainted individuals from a
system (or push them to the margins) to preserve it; non-tainted individuals are
driven to reinforce these symbolic boundaries rhetorically to maintain their distance.
When labelling and categorising tainted individuals, few expressions are blunter
than ‘white trash’. The term, whose origins date back to the rural American South
in the first half of the nineteenth century (Isenberg 2017: 135; see also Harkins
2004, Wray 2006), designates members of the white underclass who bear “certain
socially stigmatized traits or characteristics” (Hartigan 1997: 50). White trash
conjoins “an ethnoracial signifier” and “a signifier of abject class status” to name
“a kind of disturbing liminality […], a dangerous threshold state of being neither
one nor the other” (Wray 2006: 2-3). Whereas ‘white’ is generally used to code
‘wealth’, its coupling with the insult ‘trash’ to denote ‘economic waste’ leads to an
atypical denomination, given that “whiteness is so rarely connected to poverty in
the US imaginary” (Newitz and Wray 1997: 8). Even though its origins are
connected to the social organisation of the plantation economy, the term white
trash has long crossed geographical limits to emerge as a repository of every
reprehensible trait from which other whites want to distance themselves —
including associations with chronic and extreme poverty, illiteracy, laziness, genetic
inferiority (often manifested in scrawny or sickly constitutions), criminality,
perversion, sexual degeneracy and debased appetites, to name a few.
Throughout US history a plethora of stigmatypes, including ‘cracker’, ‘hillbilly’,
‘redneck’ or ‘clay-eater’, have been attached to whites on the fringes of whiteness
who display any traits mentioned above. The term refers to “stigmatizing boundary
terms that simultaneously denote and enact cultural and cognitive divides between
in-groups and outgroups, between acceptable and unacceptable identities, between
proper and improper behaviors” (Wray 2006: 23). An important aspect of
stigmatypes is that they function like relations of waste, that is to say, shaping
categories by recourse to absence or negation. In this case, white trash functions
both as “a rhetorical identity” and “a category of pollution through which white
middle- and working-class Americans evaluate the behaviors and opinions of other
whites of similar or lower class status” (Hartigan 2005: 113). From this perspective,
the use of ‘trash’ is indicative of “self-conscious anxiety among whites over threats
of pollution that threaten the basis for belonging within whiteness” (99). As a
negative identity whose main attribute is the lack of adherence to unmarked,
hegemonic forms of whiteness, white trash is “a means of inscribing social
distance”, especially for middle- and working-class whites “who occupy a place
‘just above’ the class divide from poor whites, straddling a line they are forever
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fearful of crossing” (Hartigan 1997: 50). An imperfect or failed performance of
whiteness may result in being labeled trash and hence socially marked as Other
— a white Other.
What makes poor whites unassimilable into normative whiteness is their
transgression of racial decorum. Whiteness is associated with domination and
hegemony (Hartigan 2005: 2) but depends on remaining invisible to preserve its
claims of universality, as Dyer argues: “Whites must be seen to be white, yet
whiteness as race resides in invisible properties and whiteness as power is maintained
by being unseen” (2017: 45). The breach of white decorum positions poor whites
as “an embarrassing and symbolically messy group which has to be distinguished
from the pure white middle class” (Grué 2014: 39). Functioning as a “contrastive
strategy or rhetorical boundary construction”, the category “white trash”
unambiguously separates white individuals from “a certain form of racial detritus”,
that is, “whites who, through their poverty and ungainliness, fit insecurely within
the body of whiteness as a hegemonic order of political power and social privilege”
(Hartigan 2005: 114). Whenever the boundaries of racial decorum are found to
be precarious, the language of waste is mobilised to demarcate what, or who,
adheres to the standards that regulate unmarked whiteness.
Even though poverty is a significant attribute of white trash as a category, it is not
what makes or breaks where the line is drawn.1 Not all poor whites are white trash.
Yet ever since the term was first introduced, it has been used inconsistently;
sometimes, a person’s character or morality could place them in the category,
overriding economic factors, and sometimes individuals meet both criteria.2
Insofar as the attributes assigned to white trash depend on how whiteness perceives
itself, the term has changed over time. Representations of poor whites (especially
in Southern literature) can be understood as “barometers of the cultural anxieties
gripping middle-class white people” in different periods (Hubbs 2022: 7).
Nonetheless, there are several traits, including a series of physical, intellectual and
moral shortcomings, that are commonly associated with white trash — in opposition
to other whites who, as Dorothy Allison argues, were categorised as “the good
poor — hard-working, ragged but clean, and intrinsically honorable”:
I understood that we were the bad poor: men who drank and couldn’t keep a job;
women, invariably pregnant before marriage, who quickly became worn, fat, and old
from working too many hours and bearing too many children; and children with
runny noses, watery eyes, and the wrong attitudes. […] We were not noble, not
grateful, not even hopeful. We knew ourselves despised. (Allison 2018: vii)
The separation between the ‘good poor’ from the ‘bad poor’ is nonetheless
malleable and has evolved throughout time. In colonial times, the overlap between
the language of class and the language of race still assigned “symbolic properties,
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characteristics, and traits” indistinctly to “poor whites, Indians, and blacks” alike
(Wray 2006: 22-23).3 Around the mid-nineteenth century, mounting racial
tensions and concerns about the stability of the existing social order, especially in
Southern states, led to a shift not only in terminology but also in the
conceptualisation of poor whites “as somehow less than white, their yellowish skin
and diseased and decrepit children marking them as a strange breed apart”
(Isenberg 2017: xxvii).4 For many upper- and middle-class commentators, the
degradation of poor whites translated into a distorted version of whiteness that
challenged their perceived racial affiliation. Chronic poverty, malnutrition and
other ills stemming from the socioeconomic condition of poor whites were
increasingly understood to be consequences of some intrinsic degeneracy.
Overall, race became increasingly codified in terms of purity and cleanliness as the
nineteenth century progressed, which ties in with Mary Douglas’s observation
that waste categories are used to buttress social hierarchies “wherever the [social]
lines are precarious” (2001: 140). During the postbellum period, these divisions
sharpened as “the rhetoric and imagery of hygiene became conflated with a racial
order that made white people pure and anyone who was not white, dirty” (Zimring
2015: 89). This rhetoric can be traced in print sources, especially among Southern
authors who located poor whites “along a primitive/civilized scale all too often
applied to slaves and other people of color” (Mellette 2021: 9). The expansion of
print media during the period contributed to the spreading of this rhetoric beyond
geographical demarcations and likewise established a visual-verbal repository of
poor white types in the collective imaginary nationwide.5
The eugenics movement at the turn of the century and its emphasis on “racial
blood” (Dyer 2017: 24) helped solidify the stereotype that “large numbers of
rural poor whites were ‘genetic defectives’” (Newitz and Wray 1997: 2) and
“represented a grave internal threat to the white race” (Hubbs 2022: 4). Again,
the language of waste separates poor whites from the rest, marking them as
inherently flawed and dangerous on account of their twofold status as polluted
individuals and polluting agents. Early examples of eugenicist reports published in
the 1870s “claimed that ‘degenerate’ poor white families biologically transmitted
morally unacceptable and socially and culturally inappropriate qualities to
generation after generation” (Wray 2006: 68), perpetuating a race of mongrels
and criminals. The vocabulary in use borrowed heavily from animal husbandry and
“highlighted unnatural breeding, unfit governance, and the degenerate nature of
the worst stocks” (Isenberg 2017: 176). While the popularity of eugenics waned
in the 1930s and 1940s, it made a decisive contribution to the solidification of
widespread assumptions about poor whites, which persist in the US collective
imaginary to this day (Newitz and Wray 1997: 2).6
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Nowadays, ‘white trash’ remains a polarising term, regardless of some tepid
attempts to dignify the label — notably, among working-class writers associated
with the ‘grit lit’ genre who have sought to contest negative representations of
poor whites (see Hubbs 2022: 108-20).7 Other derogatory labels have fared
better, yet ever so slightly.8 Nevertheless, white trash continues to be a negative
identity in at least two senses of the word: first, its existence is predicated on the
negation of the traits associated with unmarked whiteness, which implies it is a
mutable concept; second, although the images of both unmarked whiteness and
white trash transform over time, the latter works by accrual, accumulating decades
of reified prejudice. In other words, it is hard to claim white trash as an identity
due to its pejorative nature, but especially because its existence is not predicated on
possessing certain attributes, but on not possessing them. Any attempt to carve out
a white trash identity must be considered carefully, lest they suppress the term’s
“historical and economic complexity” and turn it into an ahistorical, static notion
— or worse, a commodity or aestheticised “consumable identity” that the middle
classes can find “attractive” (Smith 2004: 375, 385). The complicated relation
with white trash as a social category, as well as the struggle to delineate an
alternative identity that departs from, yet re-signifies, the meaning of waste as a
boundary that ought not to be trespassed, are central concerns in the short stories
by Dorothy Allison and Bonnie Jo Campbell analysed below.
3. Warding off Trash
While the two short stories I examine in this study vindicate the association with
trash, to some extent they are likewise firmly anchored in ideas and projections of
white respectability that the main characters directly challenge or renegotiate. I use
the term ‘respectability’ or ‘white respectability’ to denote a set of social codes,
attitudes and beliefs that characters in these stories associate with upper- and
middle-class normative whiteness. In Dorothy Allison’s “Meanest Woman Ever
Left Tennessee”, the character of Shirley Boatwright constantly draws boundaries
between herself and other poor whites to dispute her association with white trash.9
Frustrated that she must live with her husband and children, whom she sees as an
inferior breed, Shirley is physically and verbally abusive, obsessed with making her
family comply with her idea of ‘quality’. This becomes a paradoxical request, as she
also claims they can never truly be ‘quality people’ on account of their innate lowly
status. Bonnie Jo Campbell’s “Boar Taint” follows Jill, a young woman who has
relocated from Ann Arbor to a rural community in southwest Michigan after
marrying Ernie, a local farmer, as she goes to purchase a hog from a poor white
family, the Jentzens. The story offers a nuanced depiction of respectability and
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social stigma by showcasing different rhetorical negotiations of class allegiances
—specifically, the existing intracommunal divisions and the perception of the same
community from an external viewpoint— and considers the malleability of these
divisions depending on the position one occupies in the social ladder.
Both stories feature characters who refute their association with the white trash
stigma by demonstrating allegiance to respectability. To this end, they stage a
rhetorical displacement that involves situating someone else at the bottom of the
social hierarchy, thus transferring any associations with white trash to that inferior
position by mobilising the language of waste. If “to see ourselves as higher socially,
we need to cordon ourselves off from direct contact with muck”, these characters
epitomise “[t]he desire to dissociate ourselves from excrement, filth, and waste as
much as possible” in order to maintain rigid class distinctions (Morrison 2015:
47). The problem is that, as these stories make apparent, it is often not enough
to refute one’s identification with white trash for it to be effective. Adherence to
respectability is often meaningless if it is not corroborated by an outsider’s
perspective. In “Meanest…”, Shirley’s insistence on her superior status is met with
contempt by her fellow workers at the mill; even though she seeks to ingratiate
herself with the foremen by informing on her fellow employees, there is no proof
they regard her as anything else than a pawn at their service. In “Boar Taint”,
Ernie’s distancing from the Jentzen family is challenged by Jill’s outsider
perspective; influenced by her urban, middle-class family, Jill cannot help but
notice the similarities shared by Ernie and the Jentzens — which, by extension,
bring her closer to the Jentzens than she might have imagined.
As I advanced earlier, the borders of respectability are erected in these stories by
mobilising the language of waste against individuals perceived as inferior. In
“Meanest…”, Shirley cultivates clear-cut discursive boundaries that allow her to
sort people into either ‘quality’ or ‘trash’, two poles that determine how she treats
others. For Shirley, née Wilmer, the Boatwrights belong to a diseased breed of
“devils and worms and trash” whose “natural substance was dirt and weeds”
(Allison 2018: 21). Her verbal attacks draw from the white trash stigmatype;
namely, she is adamant that her husband’s father is a drunk and his sisters are lazy
and live in dirt-floor cabins (24). Her attitude toward her husband and children
seemingly stems from her family’s rejection after she married — presumably, below
her social station: “My side of the family don’t even want to know you’re alive”
(24). She obsessively strives to demonstrate to others that she is still “one of the
quality” (21, emphasis in original) by adhering to a rigid code of respectability. For
instance, she assigns value to different types of jobs, claiming that “[m]ill workers
are a better class of people than miners” (23). Likewise, she conflates respectability
and cleanliness, as it is made apparent in her stories of “how big and clean” the
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Wilmer house was, “how the porch shone with soapstoned wood and baskets of
sweet herbs that Grandma Wilmer used in her cooking, how the neighbors admired
her mother and looked up to her daddy” (24). Depicted as the quintessential
proper place, Shirley’s childhood home mirrors the commendable moral quality of
those living in it.
Even though Shirley’s obsession with cleanliness and dirt is central to the story, it is
suggested that she believes respectability to be an inherent biological trait. In each
of the story’s fragmentary vignettes depicting Shirley’s unmotivated abuse, her
eugenicist rhetoric ascribes manifestations of racial degeneracy to her children, such
as laziness (“Trash don’t know the meaning of use. Just like you kids”), promiscuity
and sexual degeneracy that verges on the monstruous: “Wouldn’t nobody take an
interest in you if you were to birth puppy dogs and turtles — which you might.
You might any day now” (Allison 2018: 24). Whereas Shirley believes her own
superior status is discernible to the naked eye, noting that “[t]he better people
[…] know their own” (21-22), she rules out the possibility that any of that status
has been passed on to her children: “Boatwrights, you’re all purely bred
Boatwrights” (24, emphasis added). Her fear of pollution is likewise apparent in
how she reacts to her many pregnancies, to the extent that she accuses her
husband of putting “death and dirt” in her: “All I’ve got out of you is death and
mud and worms” (26). Besides bringing Shirley closer to the stereotypically large
white trash family, each new pregnancy entails that she must carry degenerate
Boatwright blood inside her, forcing unwanted contact with a source of pollution
and thereby posing a threat to her integrity. These forced contacts further enrage
Shirley, fueling her hatred for her children.
Even if respectability is coded as an inherent biological trait, this does not prevent
Shirley from chastising her children for not living up to her standards. She
constantly polices their bodies and personal hygiene and berates them whenever
she finds any flaws: “That neck don’t look clean to me, Bo. You trying to grow
mold in those armpits, Mattie? Why are you so dirty and stupid?” (Allison 2018:
23). This is perhaps the clearest example of how the rhetoric of waste is used by
Shirley to erect boundaries that her children will never be able to cross. These
divisions act as reminders that they can never be assimilated into white respectability.
As the story approaches its climax, Mattie observes Shirley berating her younger
brother Bo for his table manners:
“Quality people use serving dishes”. Shirley slapped Bo’s hand. “Quality people
don’t come to the table with grease under their nails”.
“I washed”. […]
“If you’d really washed, you would be clean”, Shirley was saying. “Nobody in my
family ever came to the table with dirt under their nails. You go wash again”.
My family, Mattie thought. My family. (Allison 2018: 29)
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By “oppressing others” whom she sees as lower than herself, Shirley seeks to
prevent “becoming the lowest form of trash herself” (Morrison 2015: 52). This
attitude is also manifested in her workplace, yet it does not have the same effect
— mainly because other workers see Shirley for what she is: a snitch. This difference
will become the catalyst for Mattie’s rebellion at the end of the story.
Whereas “Meanest…” is rather straightforward in the way it represents how
respectability is constructed and understood, “Boar Taint” complicates matters by
departing from Ernie’s working-class perspective and then inserting Jill’s middle-
class outlook. The initial portrayal of the Jentzens as seen by Ernie draws from the
white trash stigmatype. The road to their farm is “long” and “slow”, leading “past
where the blacktop gives way to gravel and farther past, where it twists and turns
and becomes a rutted two track” (Campbell 2009: 151). This description
establishes them as backwoods people, not to be trusted — an impression
reinforced by Ernie’s reservations about the purchase: “That’s an awful cheap
price for any kind of hog […]. You got to ask yourself” (152). Moreover, his
recollections of having been classmates with a Jentzen kid tap into the white trash
imaginary, depicting them as extremely poor, malnourished and illiterate: “Had
only one pair of overhauls to his name. He never brought anything to eat for
lunch, not even lard-and-salt sandwiches like us regular poor kids. He still couldn’t
read in the fifth grade” (152, emphasis added). Access to normal food separates
“regular poor kids” from the Jentzens and their debased or inexistent appetites,
continuing a long tradition of identifying strategies to ward off hunger as
symptomatic of depravity (Hubbs 2022: 94): “Them Jentzens still living on
woodchuck meat and dandy-lion greens?”; “Jentzens got a good crop of pokeweed
this year?” (Campbell 2009: 163, 165).10 Unlike Shirley in “Meanest…”, Ernie
does not straightforwardly claim adherence to respectability, but his characterisation
of the Jentzens clearly portrays them as an inferior class to the “regular poor”,
working-class type Ernie believes he represents.
By contrast, Jill’s encounter with the Jentzens is not constructed by invoking the
“good poor” versus “bad poor” rhetoric used by Ernie. For Andy Oler, Jill’s
encounter with the Jentzens replicates the conventions of “hillbilly horror” as it
exploits cultural anxieties, in this case related to the dangers posed by polluted
whiteness entwined with rural decline (2019: 171). As a middle-class urbanite-
turned-farmer, Jill’s experience with backwoods people originates from a different
place than Ernie’s, even though both versions are ultimately caricatures of white
poverty. The scene as viewed through Jill’s eyes suggests that she makes sense of
her encounter with the Jentzens through the lens of “the city dweller versus evil
rural folk paradigm” (Murphy 2013: 135).11 Jentzen farm is a decaying “turn-of-
the-last-century house”, shrouded in darkness; when Jill enters, “her work boots
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press grit into the plank floor” (Campbell 2009: 153-54). The people inside are
silent and do not quite fit inside the room. Jill first distinguishes “the silhouette of
a shriveled old man in a thin undershirt, sitting motionless at a table”, and then
four more men, their faces looking “uniformly grimy” in the dim light of the stove
(154). One of them, “with dark blond hair stringy from sweat”, sits panting with
“[h]is mouth hung open”, which reminds Jill of “the way her chickens sweated
through their open mouths on the hottest days” (155). Meanwhile, the only
woman present, “thirty-five at the most”, is described as having a rough face and
raw hands, swollen ankles and two missing teeth (156). The emaciated, animalesque
profiles, combined with the suffocating atmosphere of the kitchen, make the
Jentzens feel grotesquely alien, reinforcing the association between the decaying
exterior and the physical decadence of those crammed inside.
Jill’s urban, middle-class upbringing places her farther away from both the Jentzens
and her husband, a situation that renders her incapable of spotting all the
differences between them, which Ernie perceives to be blatantly obvious. Instead,
she can spot their common quirks and habits from her outsider’s perspective.
Namely, she quickly notices that the Jentzens are “not hooked up to the power
grid” and remembers how she had to persuade Ernie “to get the electricity
connected to the house and barn”, a recently introduced feature that did not
prevent him from sitting “at the kitchen table with the oil lamp or the Coleman
lantern” when left to his own devices (Campbell 2009: 153). Jill’s observation that
“[p]eople back home in Ann Arbor refused to believe there were still folks without
electricity in America” (153) draws a line, not between Ernie and the Jentzens, but
between “people back home” and rural Michigan, blurring Ernie’s claim to
respectability as part of the good poor. Later, as she notices a mended tear in the
screen door, she is reminded of how they, too, “had repaired their screen with duct
tape last week, and she had felt bad, thinking about how her father used to replace
a porch screen when it had the tiniest hole” (157). Jill’s father’s attitude is
indicative of a middle-class ethos of consumerism and disposability, one he deems
to be the superior option: “Her father couldn’t understand how Jill could choose
a life where there was no time to relax and do things right” (157, emphasis added).
Jill imagines him pontificating on her life choices from his office: “Her father
might enjoy leaning back in his office chair about now and telling her she’d wasted
twenty-five —no, thirty— dollars and a quarter-tank of gas” (162). Compared to
Jill’s father and his respectable middle-class persona, Ernie’s mindset is very much
aligned with that of the Jentzens.
Although they represent “the clearest image of the struggling Midwestern farmer
on the brink of collapse in the twenty-first century” (Ortega 2023: 53), the
Jentzens are not the only ones who struggle financially. Jill and Ernie are going
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through a rough patch after Jill squandered most of her grandmother’s inheritance
investing in a series of failed agricultural schemes (Campbell 2009: 159). Their
neighbor has “lost about everything except his house and garage in the last few
years” and now works in retail, while his estate has been sold by the bank to “a
larger corporate farm” (163). These circumstances raise doubt regarding the
community’s socioeconomic prospects. While observing Jentzen farm, Jill notes
that “[a] big clapboard house like this […] could have been a showpiece in the
historic district in Ann Arbor, with the siding, trim, and glass all repaired”, but
here it is just a rotting anachronism “doomed to collapse” (154). The house and
its inhabitants are remnants of a lifestyle that will only get increasingly obsolete as
corporate farming takes over; Ernie and his community will follow suit. This
realisation hits Jill as she returns home, hog in tow, to find Ernie, their neighbor
and his son “sitting at the porch picnic table with the Coleman lantern” (162).
The eerie resemblance between this scene and what she witnessed back at Jentzen
farm pushes Jill to the edge: “She wanted to unhook the trailer, pull out of this
driveway, and head south until she was far enough away that she could look back
and see it all in miniature” (163). Jill’s assimilation into the category of trash, like
in Mattie’s case by the end of “Meanest…”, appears to be inevitable. However,
both these characters manage to re-signify the implications of assimilation through
their labor — in Mattie’s case, by choosing to sign up with the union and, in Jill’s
case, by doubling down on her commitment to live as a farmer despite the threat
of economic decline.
4. Re-signifying Trash through Labor
After examining the rhetorical strategies deployed to establish (intra-)class divisions
in Allison’s and Campbell’s stories, I would like to address how the association with
waste is repurposed by the characters of Mattie and Jill, who vindicate this
connection — even if that aligns them with the white trash stigmatype. In both
cases, this vindication entails a rejection of respectability embodied by parental
figures: Mattie refuses to follow her mother’s example at work, choosing class
solidarity over aspirations of upward mobility; meanwhile, Jill makes the choice to
stay a farmer despite her father’s prejudice, even if that implies grappling with
economic uncertainty. In doing so, these characters reshuffle the traits of
respectability, finding a sense of pride in their association with what others see as
trash. Although both stories opt for an open ending, it is hinted that their decision
to recast their association with waste may be the solution to their respective conflicts.
Throughout “Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee”, Mattie seems to be the only
Boatwright sibling to stand up to her mother’s attacks: “she hated the way Mattie
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would stare back at her and refuse to drop her eyes” (Allison 2018: 23). The other
children think Mattie is “crazy”, but nonetheless “worshiped her craziness and
suspected that without her they might have all curled up and died” (23). Although
Shirley reviles all members of her family, she is especially vicious to Mattie and
often singles her out for her alleged depravity. In Shirley’s eyes, Mattie is
simultaneously promiscuous and undesirable, in tune with other portrayals of
white trash sexuality as voracious and deviant.12 She tells Mattie she is a “whore”
who is not “worth two cents a night” (25) and takes every opportunity to drum it
into her: “[Mabel Moseley] said you were shaking your ass and swinging your hair
like some kind of harlot” (30).
In the story, Mattie’s rebellion runs parallel to her entrance in the workforce and
her sexual awakening. When she and her brother Bo are forced to find work at the
textile mill, Mattie soon discovers that other women “stepped aside when her
mama passed”: “Everybody said Shirley Boatwright believed her piss was wine.
Everybody said she repeated whatever she heard to the foreman on the second
shift” (Allison 2018: 27). Shirley’s attempts to get ahead have earned her a place
in the finishing room, “[s]afely separated from the rest of the mill by a wire-and-
glass wall” (27), but she does not instill respect in others — only resentment and
animosity. Realising her mother’s real role in the mill starts to affect Mattie’s views.
Moreover, on her way to work every morning, she often runs into a young man
who openly flirts with her: “Lord, I do love to look at pretty girls” (Allison 2018:
28). Mattie notices that this is “the first time anyone had ever suggested [she]
might be pretty” and becomes flirtatious, too, which in turn emboldens her: “She
didn’t know what she wanted to say to anybody. She only knew she wanted to start
finding things out. She felt as if her eyes were coming open, as if light were
sneaking into a dark place inside her” (28-29). This positive association between
desire and freedom recasts Mattie’s sexuality in a different light; instead of the
monstruous depravity Shirley perceives, it is presented as a liberating force that
shapes Mattie’s aspirations in life.
This change in perspective leads Mattie to openly question Shirley and her
worldview. This is reflected in the story’s progressive shift in focus, from Shirley to
Mattie, showcasing her contrasting opinions. Whereas Shirley’s food is “[w]hite
on white”, her daughter fantasises with the vibrant colors of “[b]lack-eyed peas
with pork and greens […]. When she had her own kitchen, there would be lots of
color” (Allison 2018: 29). Examining the gaps between the floorboards, Mattie
wonders, “What would it be like […] to live in a house with dirt floors?” (30). This
leads to the final scene where Mattie antagonises Shirley by bringing up the “union
man” to her brother: “‘Trade union’. Mattie filled her fork again and then looked
right past her mama to Bo. ‘You think we ought to sign up?’” (31). As Shirley gets
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up, most likely to slap her, Mattie finds herself thinking that “when she had kids,
she’d sit them all down on the dirt floor and tell ‘em to sign with the union” (31).
Confronting her mother entails embracing a lifestyle that radically clashes with
hers; thus, Mattie begins to chart an alternative pathway that casts the association
with dirt in a positive light, rejecting her mother’s brand of respectability and
embracing working-class allegiance. By depicting Shirley as a snitch allied with the
foremen, the story also makes the case that Mattie’s fantasy to live in a dirt-floor
cabin and sign with the union repurposes Shirley’s aspirational middle-class
respectability as working-class dignity.
For Jill in “Boar Taint”, repurposing respectability also entails rejecting parental
influence and embracing her association with dirt. Like Mattie’s, her future is
uncertain. Jill has gone from “post-graduate student working with experimental
bean crops” (Campbell 2009: 153) to full-time farmer in the span of thirty-six
months and struggles with her sense of belonging. Whereas she keeps squandering
money on failed schemes, such as experimental soybeans that never sprouted or a
milking operation that soon becomes obsolete, Ernie sticks to “his hundreds of
acres of the same corn, oats, and beans he’d been harvesting for the last three
decades” (152) and seems to regard Jill’s failed ventures with a mixture of
skepticism and pity (159). This perception is perhaps conditioned by Jill’s
insecurity, fueled by her family’s deprecating opinions: “Her family was right: just
because she’d studied agriculture for six years didn’t mean she knew a damned
thing about farming” (161). Her father seems to be particularly critical of Jill’s
choices, as he tells her that “marrying Ernie was proof positive she didn’t know a
damned thing about real life” (161). In the story, Jill tries to navigate her feelings
of inadequacy and alienation, as well as the looming threat of economic decline
— all sentiments that become more acute after her encounter with the Jentzens.
The hog ordeal reveals that the real threat for Jill does not lie in being attacked by
the Jentzens, but in becoming the Jentzens. Besides the uncanny parallels between
Ernie and the men, Jill notices unsettling similarities between herself and the only
Jentzen woman:
Despite the swollen ankles and two missing teeth, the woman appeared not much
older than Jill, maybe thirty-five at the most. Her hair was still a rich brown, but her
face was rough, as though sunburned season after season. Jill always tried to
remember to put on sunscreen, but rarely reapplied it after sweating it off. The
woman held out her raw hand, and as Jill gave her the five and the twenty, she noted
her own hand was torn up from scrubbing the cow barn’s concrete floors and walls
to prepare for this morning’s inspection. (Campbell 2009: 156)
These eerie coincidences haunt Jill, who becomes aware of how the gap she had
imagined between herself and the Jentzens is closing: “Until Jill had seen the
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Jentzen woman, she hadn’t understood what her family feared for her” (162).
This realisation dawns on her on the drive home. Believing the hog has collapsed
and died from an infection, and swarmed by negative thoughts, Jill grabs a fancy
“imported dark chocolate bar with hazelnuts” she had just acquired at the grocery
store “as an indulgence” (153) and messily devours it with “mud-crusted hands
smell[ing] of pig shit”:
She […] tore away the wrapper with her fingers and teeth, undressed the top of the
chocolate bar, spit out bits of foil. She bit into the heat-softened chocolate and
chewed and swallowed wildly. The luxury of it made her feel drunk. She tore away
the rest of the wrapper and devoured the whole damned thing. Despite the pig stink,
it tasted better than anything she’d eaten lately […]. (161)
In this passage, Jill becomes physically and symbolically tainted from the perspective
of white respectability. She partially confirms her family’s fears were founded as she
breaks away from middle-class respectability and decorum. Seeing that “her ideas
for extra income” may in fact be “hurrying the end along” (Campbell 2009: 162),
she is flabbergasted to find Ernie and their neighbors sitting around the Coleman
lantern, an image that seems to confirm Jill’s fears that they are, indeed, just like
the Jentzens: “What would her father say if he were here? Would he make clever
remarks about failing farms and inbred families at the ends of dirt roads where
everybody had six fingers on each hand?” (164). In this imaginary scornful
comment, Jill has crossed over to the other side, aligned with the “failing farms
and inbred families” her father likes to ridicule.
Even though she is tempted to flee, unsure whether “she belonged here at all”
and whether Ernie “see[s] her as a farmer” (Campbell 2009: 164), Jill chooses to
stay. In doing so, she insists on placing value in rural life even if that entails living
in contact with polluting substances, like soil and manure. Despite the influence
her father holds on her, Jill manages to separate the physical taint that is involved
in farm work from the symbolic taint her father conflates with it: “Her father
couldn’t understand […] how the contours of the farm interlocked precisely with
the contours of her mind” (161). Ultimately, it is Jill’s passion which gives her the
resolve to persevere: “All she’d ever wanted, from the time she was a kid, was to
work with land and animals, to work beside a good man” (161). However, she
charts her own course after witnessing the fate of the Jentzen woman. In an interview,
Campbell noted that the Jentzen men are “especially terrifying” to Jill because she
feels they “might devour her for sustenance”: “The challenge for Jill staying on the
farm with Ernie is that she has to imagine a way she can stay on her own terms and
without her own men devouring her” (in Kothari 2008). The end suggests there
might be hope in her sense of innovation, as opposed to the stagnant ways of failing
farmers (Ortega 2023: 54).
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In the end, Jill pursues what might be the only viable alternative left, striving “to
salvage what she can of the farm’s future” (Ortega 2023: 52) in her attempts to
adapt “their agricultural practice to a changing economy”, whereas Ernie
“continues to farm as he always has, despite evidence that his is a declining way of
life” (Oler 2019: 171). Although Jill realises that, “like all the farmers in this
downward spiral, she and Ernie could lose everything” (Campbell 2009: 162), the
story concludes on a somewhat high note after she discovers the hog is alive and
will only need some antibiotics to thrive. Despite the bleak economic prospects,
she reassures herself that her pig-roasting plan “was once again looking very
promising”: “This boar had turned out to be exactly what she needed, a creature
even bullets could not stop” (167). This ending is only possible after Jill rejects
both her father’s prejudice against rural life and Ernie’s prejudice against the
Jentzens. In staying, Jill ignores her own inevitable association with the poor white
stigmatype and tries to make an alternative pathway for herself.
5. Conclusion
Bearing all these aspects in mind, both “Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee”
and “Boar Taint” depict labor as a source of pride by reshuffling the tenets of
middle-class respectability, represented by the characters of Shirley and Jill’s father,
to compose a portrayal of working-class dignity wherein associations with dirt and
manual labor are cast in a positive light. Whereas Allison’s story puts emphasis on
the value of class solidarity by linking dirt-floor cabins and trade unions in Mattie’s
rebellion against the tyrannical rule of white respectability, embodied by her
mother, Campbell’s story looks past stereotypical depictions of rural folks and farm
life as backwards and degenerate, showcasing instead the intrinsic value of physical
work. Arguably, if Jill had not been tainted by driving to Jentzen farm and wrestling
the hog into her truck, she would have relinquished the opportunity to salvage the
farm’s future; if becoming tainted renders her closer to the Jentzens and the white
trash stigmatype, it is a price she is willing to pay. Similarly, Mattie does not mind
being associated with her family and fellow workers’ lowly status, as long as she can
distance herself from the abuse and impossible expectations her mother places on
her siblings and her.
Each story illustrates how the upper and middle classes benefit from the working
classes’ investment in respectability by including a plot that presents these internal
class divisions as having a direct negative outcome for their livelihoods. In
“Meanest…”, Shirley’s desire to move up in society grants the foremen access to
information on other workers, potentially jeopardising their activities. In “Boar
Taint”, farmers continue to believe they do not have it as bad as the Jentzens
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despite proof to the contrary, instead of finding a common cause against the
expansionist threat of corporate farming. Although the stories do not exactly
vindicate a purported “white trash identity”, they do reject the white trash
stigmatype and its discursive links with waste. Instead of dwelling on the rhetoric
of othering deployed by their fellow characters, Mattie and Jill re-signify their ties
with waste by introducing new, positive associations between dirt and self-worth
— while Mattie vindicates her working-class affiliation and rejects Shirley’s
aspirations of social ascent, Jill similarly relinquishes her father’s middle-class ethos
and finds pride in her newly acquired expertise as a farmer, even if that opens a rift
between her family’s social station and her own. Dorothy Allison and Bonnie Jo
Campbell provide relevant examples of how literature can contribute to dignifying
working-class lifestyles in the US by fostering positive representation, namely by
showcasing life choices that place value in what is often regarded as worthless, but
also by presenting the plurality of poor white experiences instead of falling for
reified identities and negative stereotypes.
Notes
1. For a thorough analysis of the
changing identities of the ‘undeserving poor’
throughout US history, see Katz (2013).
2. See Forret (2006), esp.
“Introduction”.
3. At least until the first half of the
nineteenth century, terms like “immoral, lazy,
and dirty” were still applied to “Irish
immigrants, African Americans, Indians, and
poor Southern whites alike” (Zimring 2015:
30). Later, however, race divisions pushed
understandings of poor Southern whites as
not entirely white, solidifying the conflation of
poor moral character and race while
downplaying the role of class.
4. Nancy Isenberg discusses the
“ingrained physical defects” that
characterised white trash Southerners in
nineteenth century descriptions, noting that
by being “classified as a ‘race’ that passed on
horrific traits”, the possibilities of improvement
or social mobility for poor whites were
eliminated (2017: 135-36). This connects to
fears of social arrivisme in the South during
Reconstruction, epitomised in the figure of
the scalawag, and the desire to maintain
preexisting social hierarchies on account of
alleged racial and biological differences (see
Isenberg 2017, ch. 8). In parallel to these
transformations in the US South, the growth
of an urban underclass living in deplorable
sanitary conditions cemented the belief that
“poverty and immorality went hand in hand”
regardless of location (Zimring 2015: 30).
5. Among these characters, Ransy
Sniffle, created by Augustus Baldwin
Longstreet, paved the way for subsequent
representations of poor whites. Sniffle was
“notable for his poor diet, his physical
deformities, his laziness, apathy, and low
intelligence, and his oddly colored skin”
(Wray 2006: 40). Moreover, illustrators like
E.W. Kemble disseminated the stereotypical
image that would come to be associated with
white trash (see Hubbs 2022). For further
reading on the presence of poor white
stereotypes in nineteenth century media, see
Harkins (2004).
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6. For a thorough chronological
review of the antecedents and rise of
American eugenics in relation to poor whites,
see Isenberg, especially chapters 6 to 8 (2017:
135-205). For a shorter yet compelling
overview, see Wray, chapter 3 (2006: 65-95).
Regarding the persistence of eugenics-
influenced visions of poor whites as
intrinsically degenerate, especially in rural
contexts, see Murphy (2013) for a
comprehensive discussion of the hillbilly
trope in contemporary backwoods horror film.
7. For a nuanced discussion of the
factors influencing the commodification and
vindication (or lack thereof) of white trash
identity in recent years, see Hartigan (2005:
109-33) and Smith (2004).
8. For instance, ‘redneck’ and ‘hillbilly’
have been partly revitalised by their association
with country music, authenticity, and simple
life, yet those perceived as rednecks and
hillbillies continue to be lampooned by
normative whites (see Harkins 2004; Hartigan
2005; Isenberg 2017, esp. 256-261).
9. Henceforth, “Meanest…”.
10. For further reading on the
association between hunger, moral
bankruptcy, and bizarre eating habits among
poor whites, see Hubbs (2022), esp. 96-100.
11. Murphy makes the case that rural
Gothic narratives “often pivot upon ill-fated
encounters between people who are tied to
one place, and those who are ‘just passing
through’”, who become victims of locals
“whose aggressiveness, resentment, and
degeneracy is always linked to the fact that
they tied to a deprived rural locale which
epitomises the stagnation of what was once
‘frontier territory’” (2013: 142). Jill’s
expectation of violence is shaped by her
knowledge of the Jentzens’ stagnation, but
also by her feelings of alienation as a middle-
class outsider trying to fit in a community
whose inner dynamics she still struggles to
understand.
12. Sexuality among poor whites has
been historically depicted as raw, aberrant,
and aggressive, characterised by a type of
promiscuity that may incorporate taboo
practices like incest and zoophilia. To name a
well-known example, the popularity of
Deliverance (1972, dir. John Boorman) with its
deviant, rapist hillbillies, has contributed
greatly to the perpetuation of this stereotype
in contemporary depictions of poor white
sexuality.
Class, Respectability and the Language of Waste in Dorothy Allison and Bonnie Jo Campbell
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227
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CAMPBELL, Bonnie Jo. 2009. American Salvage. W.W. Norton.
DOUGLAS, Mary. (1966) 2001. Purity and Danger. An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo.
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DYER, Richard. 2017. White. Routledge.
FORRET, Jeff. 2006. Race Relations at the Margins: Slaves and Poor Whites in the Antebellum
Southern Countryside. Louisiana State U.P.
GRUÉ, Mélanie. 2014. “The Internal Other: Dorothy Allison’s White Trash”. Otherness: Essays and
Studies 4 (2): 31-50.
HARKINS, Anthony. 2004. Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon. Oxford U.P.
HARTIGAN JR., John. 1997. “Name Calling. Objectifying ‘Poor Whites’ and ‘White Trash’ in Detroit”.
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HARTIGAN JR., John. 2005. Odd Tribes. Toward a Cultural Analysis of White People. Duke U.P.
<https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822387206>.
HAwKINS, Gay. 2006. The Ethics of Waste. How We Relate to Rubbish. University of New South
Wales Press.
HUBBS, Jolene. 2022. Class, Whiteness, and Southern Literature. Cambridge U.P.
ISENBERG, Nancy. 2017. White Trash. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Atlantic
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Press.
MELLETTE, Justin. 2021. Peculiar Whiteness: Racial Anxiety and Poor Whites in Southern Literature,
1900-1965. University Press of Mississippi.
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MURPHY, Bernice M. 2013. The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture: Backwoods Horror and
Terror in the Wilderness. Palgrave Macmillan.
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1-12.
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ORTEGA, Alejandra. 2023. “The Cultural Critique of American Patriarchal Capitalism in American
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(3): 369-87.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Reviews
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231
PATHOLOGIZING BLACK BODIES: THE LEGACY OF PLANTATION
SLAVERY
Edited by Constante González Groba, Ewa Barbara Luczak and Urszula
Niewiadomska-Flis
Routledge, 2023
DOI: https://doi.10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202510154
VANESA LADO-PAZOS
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
vanesa.lado.pazos@usc.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4092-2398>
In 2007 Saidiya Hartman famously defined the afterlife of slavery as an existence
determined by “skewed life chances, limited access to health and education,
premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment” (2007: 6). Since then, the
discipline of Black studies has actively embraced the productive intersection
between the past and the present to point up the tragic perpetuation of racial
oppression and the relentless struggle of the African American community in the
United States. This continuity between the past and the present was evidenced in
April 2020 when the entire world, immersed in the devastating Covid-19
pandemic, watched video footage of the murder of yet another African American
man at the hands of the police. What was perhaps less apparent was the
disproportionate toll that the pandemic itself had on the Black population of the
country, a paradigmatic example of the invisible impact of structural racism.
Pathologizing Black Bodies: The Legacy of Plantation Slavery (2023), co-authored
by Constante González Groba, Ewa Barbara Luczak and Urszula Niewiadomska-
Flis, explores the multiplicity of mechanisms through which these means of
oppression are actualized in the present and represented in literature. The first in
the series Routledge Studies in African American Literature, the monograph stems
from the conception of the Black body as a site of inscription of historical violence,
oppression and trauma, and scrutinizes this bodily “criminalization, sexualization
and medicalization” (1). The book is divided in three sections centered around
eugenics, trauma and food studies, which examine the corporeal imprint of slavery
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232
as shown through the medical experimentation, capitalist commodification and
exploitation as well as the fungibility of the racialized body. Alongside this, the
detailed analysis provided in each of the parts assesses the different acts of resistance
undertaken at an individual and communal level.
The first part, “Pathologizing ‘Blood’”, comprises two chapters in which Luczak
tackles the application of scientific racism to the medical sciences and analyzes the
tension between the structural implementation of these discourses and individual
attitudes through two cases of study. The first chapter is concerned with the
emergence of racial seroanthropology in the 1920s as a discipline that mobilized
the symbolic power of blood for segregationist purposes. Through the
contextualization and analysis of Wallace Thurman’s short story “Grist in the Mill”
(1926), the author discusses the main cultural meanings of blood —namely, an
essentialist substance, a symbol of danger, an emblem of community and a mark of
purity (39)— and how these meanings are exposed and subverted in the narrative.
This ideology was used to defend white superiority on biological grounds, and
interracial contact was purported to endanger the well-being of the individual and
the body politic. Labeled a “mock gothic fiction” (39) due to its treatment of
conventional gothic tropes with an ironic and sarcastic tone, the short story taps
into the long tradition of the genre in Southern literature. The narrative instantiates
the process of appropriation and subversion of traditional associations between
Blackness and monstrosity singled out by Maisha Wester in her seminal study of
African American gothic forms (2012: 28). The second chapter continues to
develop the ramifications of eugenics as a pseudo-scientific discourse, this time
with the examination of involuntary sterilizations in Toni Morrison’s Home
(2012). Through the fictionalization of characters and events, the novel invokes
figures such as Dr. Marion J. Sims, heralded as the father of gynecology, and his
infamous experiments on enslaved women; Eunice Rivers, the nurse who
coordinated the Tuskegee syphilis experiments (1932–1972); and the 2010
scandal regarding the 7,600 sterilization procedures performed by the state of
North Carolina between 1933 and 1973 that disproportionately targeted Black
women. The novelty of this study resides in Luczak’s accurate analytical approach
to Morrison’s novel through standpoint eugenics, a framework that employs the
“epistemological perspective of eugenic victims” and vests it with a “greater weight
in unearthing the medical profession’s abusive practices” (53). In addition to
focusing on victims, Luczak examines the role of the bystander, highlighting how
the intersection of race and gender becomes a fundamental axiom of what the
author calls “female solidarity witnessing” (70).
In the second part, “Pathologizing the Body”, González Groba further develops
the dimensions of corporeal pathologization by exploring the representation of the
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233
racialized body as a disruptive element in need of containment, as well as the
reversal of this tendency in antiracist discourses. The third chapter is concerned
with the examination of literal forms of subjugation in two critically acclaimed
contemporary novels, Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) by Jesmyn Ward and The
Nickel Boys (2019) by Colson Whitehead. The prison structures that govern
Parchman Farm and the Arthur G. Dozier reformatory are testaments to the
spatial legacies of plantation slavery, and the authors’ mobilization of the tropes of
the ghost and the double rely on the potential of gothic literature to articulate a
profound social critique. Ward’s specters signify on the intergenerational
transmission of trauma and its iteration in the present. In turn, Whitehead’s
engagement with the doppelgänger reveals a division of the self predicated on the
two main trends of the racial discourse: the possibility of transcendence is pitted
against the pessimistic belief in the insuperability of antiblackness. Intimately
related to the exercise of spatialized rememory vested with supernatural overtones
that Rebecca Evans calls “gothic geomemory” (2021: 446), these spaces and
beings underscore a transhistorical process of de-subjectification and erasure of the
Black body. As counterpart to Luczak’s analysis, in the fourth chapter González
Groba expands on the discussion of the body politic as a metaphorical organism.
The comparative analysis of Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream (1949) and Ibram
X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist (2019) draws a parallel between both authors’
employment of cancer as a metaphor for racism that effectively redresses the
construction of Blackness as pathological. Each of them addresses their most
immediate socio-historical context: while Smith sought to account for the malady
of segregation in her native South, Kendi focuses on systemic racism at a national
level, its origins and the mechanisms that enable its perpetuation today. Both
authors converge in their categorical indictment of the politics of disposability
(2023: 115) that devaluate African American lives. Drawing on their personal battle
with this disease and survival, Smith and Kendi advocate for the urgent enactment of
radical measures that will avoid a metastatic expansion of racism and thus irrevocably
imperil the “moral”, “political” and “cultural health” of the nation (122).
The third part, “De-Pathologizing Access to Food and Land”, discusses the
afterlife of slavery within the sphere of food production and consumption and
focuses on African American emancipatory strategies. The fifth chapter is concerned
with food representation in hip-hop through artists such as Goodie Mob, Dead
Prez, Notorious B.I.G. or OutKast, where it features both as a distinctive marker
of Black identity as well as a testament to endemic racism. Niewiadomska-Flis
examines current patterns of food distribution as bearing the imprint of plantation
slavery dynamics in practices such as supermarket redlining that deprives minority
areas of access to a broad variety of nutritional options. The author interrogates
the interconnections among race, poverty, food accessibility and health through
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234
the concept of food apartheid coined by Ashante Reese and “born at the
intersection of residential segregation, economic capital (capitalist accumulation)
and dispossession” (146). Niewiadomska-Flis delineates a health-conscious turn in
hip-hop culture that seeks to raise awareness of dietary-derived health issues and to
advocate for a healthier and greener revision of African American foodways.
Faithful to its combative style, this process of “decolonizing their communities’
diets” becomes a powerful “act of rebellion against racial injustice and
discrimination” (153). In the sixth chapter, the author explores the relationship
between African Americans and land, one that has been historically marked by
dispossession. Dispossession originated during slavery and was perpetuated
through subsequent systems such as sharecropping, peonage or convict leasing.
This opposition to Black land ownership as a chief mechanism of racial subjugation
continued into the twentieth century with the blatant discriminatory practices
enacted by the US Department of Agriculture. In this context, Niewiadomska-Flis
proposes Natalie Baszile’s 2014 novel Queen Sugar as a counter-narrative of land
reclamation and identity affirmation in a cultural space dominated by whiteness.
Her analysis of the narrative’s sugarcane plantation through the lenses of Michel
Foucault’s concept of heterotopia and Sarah Ahmed’s notion of affective economy
underlines the problematization of the Southern rhetoric of the pastoral idyll
through the African American protagonist who must confront the realities of
agrarian structural racism. In turn, successfully accessing land will allow for a
redefinition of a traditionally white co-opted space into a “site of [black] sovereignty
and sustainability” (165) mediated by the community’s solidarity and a shift
toward cooperative economics that also entails a redefinition of the self.
Pathologizing Black Bodies: The Legacy of Plantation Slavery offers an exhaustive
account of the manifold manners in which African American existence has been
pathologized and of the imprint that slavery has left on many spheres of Black life.
These inquiries are informed by a multiplicity of theoretical concepts that emanate
from different analytical frameworks, thus providing a comprehensive and detailed
assessment of the multi-dimensional phenomenon of systemic racism in the United
States. Luczak, González Groba and Niewiadomska-Flis examine a vast array of
texts and genres ranging from the short story to hip-hop lyrics, extending from the
early twentieth century to the present and with plotlines dating back to even earlier
periods. These two facets of the monograph demonstrate the continuation of racial
oppression and the pervasiveness of this issue within the contemporary social
debate, thus speaking to its main quality: its timeliness. The book directly engages
the inescapable hold of history and the presentness of the past, one that has been
theorized by myriad Black intellectuals from a historical, social, cultural and
philosophical perspective in recent years. From Michelle Alexander’s assessment of
our era as “the New Jim Crow” (2010) to Christina Sharpe’s description of Black
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235
life as perpetually embedded “in the wake” of slavery (2016), the discussion
carried out in these pages dismantles the grounds for a falsely-proclaimed postracial
age. Thus, with its acute critical analysis and exhaustive historico-theoretical
survey, the monograph stands as an active call for racial justice and as a relevant
asset in the expansion of Black studies.
Acknowledgements
The research for this project was funded by an FPU fellowship (19/01806) from
the Spanish Ministry of Universities and the research group Discourse and Identity
(GRC ED431C2023/15, Xunta de Galicia).
Works Cited
ALExANDER, Michelle. (2010) 2019. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colourblindness. Penguin.
EVANS, Rebecca. 2021. “Geomemory and Genre Friction: Infrastructural Violence and Plantation
Afterlives in Contemporary African American Novels”. American Literature 93(3): 445-472.
<https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-9361265>.
HARTMAN, Saidiya. (2007) 2021. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route.
Serpent’s Tail.
SHARPE, Christina. 2016. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Duke U.P. <https://doi.
org/10.1515/9780822373452>.
wESTER, Maisha. 2012. African American Gothic. Screams from Shadowed Places. Palgrave
Macmillan. <https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137315281>.
Received: 22/01/2024
Accepted: 06/11/2024
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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237
SCIENCE FICTION AND NARRATIVE FORM
Edited by David Roberts, Andrew Milner and Peter Murphy
Bloomsbury, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26754/nf6w6x26
MIASOL EGUÍBAR HOLGADO
Universidad de Oviedo
eguibarmiasol@uniovi.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7110-4873>
Academic engagement with science fiction remained steady from the 1970s until
the turn of the millennium, a period that saw the publication of remarkable
studies such as Darko Suvin’s Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979), Kathleen
Spencer’s essay on the stylistic description of science fiction (1983) and Carl
Freedman’s Critical Theory and Science Fiction (2000). In the twenty-first
century, there has been a veritable explosion of texts, both from scholars and
authors of science fiction. Whereas earlier critical works were more concerned
with genre definitions, new contributions seek to explore the multiple possibilities
of science fiction, and thus the panorama of science fiction studies is changing
drastically and rapidly (see, for instance, Langer 2011; Ginway and Brown 2012;
Lavender III 2014; Lothian 2018; Schalk 2018; Brown Spiers 2021). Science
Fiction and Narrative Form is one more example of how science fiction seems to
be receiving more attention from academic institutions now than any other
moment in its history. In its opening paragraphs, co-author David Roberts
declares that “like the epic and the novel, science fiction is a literary form” (1).
Yet, it is hard to say whether placing science fiction “among the great narrative
forms” (1) succeeds in pushing science fiction studies in new directions. At times
it even feels as though it does the opposite, as the formalist approach seems to
neglect some of the most outstanding literary tendencies within science fiction
over the past two decades.
Reviews
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238
The book relies heavily on notions of literary form derived from Georg Lukács’s
The Theory of the Novel, originally published in book form in 1920. Despite not
being one of his most widely cited works, the work contains ideas on literary forms
that are not entirely without value, and the three authors of Science Fiction and
Narrative Form make their case for approaching science fiction as narrative form
in a very refined and comprehensive manner. According to Lukács, the epic is a
pre-modern literary form and it transforms into the novel with the advent of
modernity. The difference between the two is that the epic belongs in a world that
is whole, self-contained, where meaning is integrated in that wholeness. The
modern individual, in contrast, is alienated from the world, and so the novel
constantly seeks, but fails, to retrieve wholeness and unity. As society develops,
Lukács predicted, there will emerge “a new form of artistic creation” (1988: 152)
to best suit the needs and ethos of that society. The premise of the authors in
Science Fiction and Narrative Form is that science fiction fulfills that role
prophesized by Lukács, of a narrative form capable of representing a complete
world once again. Although they are not the first to make such a claim —Timothy
Bewes argued something similar for the postmodern novel— the three authors do
provide cogent arguments and close analyses to illustrate their point.
In Part 1, David Roberts traces the transition from the epic to the novel, and then
from the novel to science fiction, the latter combining aspects of the former two.
Science fiction resembles the epic in that the imagined worlds of science fiction
(unlike in the novel) are self-contained totalities. But, like in the novel (and unlike
in the epic), the meaning of that world is not immanent to reality— it seeks
transcendence. In creating possible worlds, science fiction “poses at the same time
the question of the meaning of its hypothetical experiment” (58). The technology-
oriented, post-human societies that science fiction projects thus have predictive,
allegorical and didactic value. In the second part, Andrew Milner taps into the
potential of science fiction to construct future histories, following another of
Lukács’s incursions into literary theory, The Historical Novel (1937). In an
innovative move, Milner severs the now commonplace association between science
fiction and utopia in order to bring historical fiction to the equation: “the typical
subject matter of SF is future history, uchronia and dyschronia rather than utopia
and dystopia, its precursors therefore Scott and Dumas, rather than More and
Francis Bacon” (97). To illustrate this claim, the author conducts close analyses of
climate fiction texts set at progressively more distant points in the historical future.
In Part 3, Peter Murphy focuses on epic form through an extensive discussion on
epic science fiction, most notably exemplified by Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series.
Epic science fiction is capable of encompassing vast spaces and expanses of time, as
big in scale as the imagination allows. Thanks to these formal possibilities, it reveals
the full effects of historical/natural cyclic forces that transcend limited human
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239
actions and motivations. The epic scale of science fiction thus offers a different
perspective on social relations and the meaning (or lack thereof) of human life.
Finally, Part 4, written by Milner again, follows up on the premise that science
fiction relates closely to historical fiction. Current quasi-apocalyptic events such as
wars, pandemics, climate change and AI raise the question of whether history will
continue to advance at all, or if the end is indeed near. Science fiction, Milner
argues, reflects on the questions posed by these present-day threats and provides
possible answers.
While these arguments are intellectually compelling, they present severe limitations.
The theoretical underpinnings of the book, as developed mostly in the introduction
and Part 1, are not always easy to grasp, not least because the language used is
often obscure. One wonders how relevant Lukács’s theory of literary forms can be
in current times. Despite its high level of abstraction, the book seems to take a very
reductive approach to literature: the organic totality of the ancient Greeks vs the
godless, sinful modern world; the epic vs the novel. In its simplicity, it sounds
suspiciously like a grand narrative, with its concomitant problematic: a series of
theories articulated at a specific historical moment from a Eurocentric perspective
which are nevertheless taken as a universal explanation of what literature was and
is supposed to be about. And it is not only that the notion of science fiction as
literary form rests on these premises, but the theories about science fiction put
forward in this book are themselves constructed following the same totalizing
logic. That is, Lukács’s arguably dated ideas are not merely a point of departure,
but regulate and impinge on how science fiction theories are formulated
throughout the book. An example of this impulse of generalized abstraction is the
way the post-human is addressed. Roberts seems to take a transhuman stance
when he says that “The transcendence of man reverses into the armoured body,
the soldier into the killing machine […] the worker into slave” (75). In the face of
this predicament, it is science fiction’s role to find (or not) humanity in the post-
human. There is no mention of Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory (1985), nor is
there anything close to the post-anthropocentrism that Rosi Braidotti poses as the
basis of post-human thought (2013). Roberts’s analyses hinge on the
anthropocentric fear of lost humanity, a humanity that recoils in self-doubt when
confronted with the technological Other. Moreover, the works under study offer
a disproportionately Euro-Western and male-centered version of the human and of
science fiction. Aside from Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood and very few other
exceptions, all the writers given any significant space of discussion are men. The
book thus follows the human-as-man in his teleological journey from epic to novel
to science fiction. Murphy’s exploration of Asimov’s Foundation, for all its
insistence that human volition and purpose are transcended in the epic, is largely
underpinned by colonization, imperialism and a preoccupation with the “rise, fall
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240
and rise of civilizations” (187). Finally, Milner’s contention that science fiction is
about future history and/or apocalypse ignores how science fiction is, for many
writers of color, much more about the past and the present than it is about the
future, not least because postcolonial/decolonial societies have already experienced
apocalypse in their histories, thus irremediably undoing Milner’s dichotomy (i.e.
the either/or of history and apocalypse).
All in all, the authors set off on their quest to canonize science fiction as a serious
literary form without taking into account any significant developments in the
theories and practices of science fiction from the last four decades: the rise of
gender and sexuality issues; the rapidly advancing area of co-futurisms, to which
Afrofuturism, Indigenous futurism and Latinx science fiction (among others)
belong; the emergence of post-genre fantasy and new forms such as the New
Weird; non-anthropocentric accounts of posthumanism; the historical-materialist
approach to the genre spearheaded by John Rieder (2017); among others. In its
exploration of literary forms restricted to Lukács’s theories, the book is perhaps
overly specific and targets a very narrow corpus, yet it presents its interpretations
as universal tenets of science fiction. As far as argumentation and analysis goes,
however, the book is very consistent with the aims it purports to fulfill and it does
contain thought-provoking remarks, such as that in science fiction “the question
transcends the answer” (44), or that, today, science fiction “has supplanted religion
and prophecy” (194). Inasmuch as one can find a universalist notion of literary
forms appealing and relevant, this book certainly makes some interesting points
about the intersection between science fiction and narrative form.
Works Cited
BEwES, Timothy. 2003. “The Novel as an Absence: Lukács and the Event of Postmodern Fiction”.
NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 38(1): 5-20.
BRAIDOTTI, Rosi. 2013. The Posthuman. Polity Press.
BROwN SPIERS, Miriam. 2021. Encountering the Sovereign Other: Indigenous Science Fiction.
Michigan State U.P.
FREEDMAN, Carl. 2000. Critical Theory and Science Fiction. Wesleyan U.P.
GINwAY, Elizabeth and Andrew BROwN. (eds.) 2012. Latin American Science Fiction: Theory and
Practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
HARAwAY, Donna. 1985. “A manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism
in the 1980s”. Socialist Review 5(2): 65-107.
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241
LANGER, Jessica. 2011. Postcolonial Theory and Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan.
LAVENDER III, Isiah. (ed.) 2014. Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction.
University Press of Mississippi.
LOTHIAN, Alexis. 2018. Old Futures: Speculative Fiction and Queer Possibilities. New York U.P.
LUKÁCS, Georg. (1920). 1988. The Theory of the Novel. The Merlin Press.
RIEDER, John. 2017. Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System. Wesleyan U.P.
SCHALK, Sami. 2018. Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s
Speculative Fiction. Duke U.P.
SPENCER, Kathleen. 1983. “‘The Red Sun Is High, the Blue Low’: Towards a Stylistic Description of
Science Fiction (‘Le soleil rouge est au zénith, le soleil bleu se couche’: vers une description
stylistique de la SF)”. Science Fiction Studies 10(1): 35-49.
SUVIN, Darko. 1979. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary
Genre. Yale U.P.
Received: 14/09/2023
Accepted: 12/11/2024
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TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR THE
INTEGRATION OF CONTENT AND LANGUAGE IN HIGHER
EDUCATION
Edited by Mª Noelia Ruiz-Madrid & Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez
Routledge, 2024
DOI: https://doi.10.26754/ojs_misc/mj.202511136
FLOR DE LIS GONZÁLEZ-MUJICO
Universidade da Coruña
flor.gonzalez.mujico@udc.es
<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9027-3798>
The rise of content subjects taught in English as an additional language is one of
the most significant linguistic phenomena in contemporary higher education
(Macaro et al. 2018). The implementation and teaching of integrated content and
language in higher education (ICLHE) or English as a medium of instruction
(EMI) entails myriad interrelated factors that pivot on student-centred learning,
from learners’ language and subject-matter needs to the design of context- and
language-specific materials. For this reason, training lecturers to teach learners in
an additional language in higher education remains a challenge for the profession.
Specifically, there is a need to focus on language and pedagogy in a much more
integrated manner in these teacher-training programmes (Dimova et al. 2023;
Lasagabaster 2022).
María Noelia Ruiz-Madrid and Inmaculada Fortanet-Gómez’s book addresses
this contemporary challenge and need by compiling innovative work by different
researchers in Europe (Austria, Finland, Italy and Spain) on how universities,
researchers and practitioners are engaging with the issue and developing ICLHE
teacher training from a linguistic and pedagogical perspective. These contributions
shed new light on a range of issues that play a fundamental role when designing
effective ICLHE professional development. Every chapter furnishes novel data,
reflections and implications that serve to inform future ICLHE teacher-training
programmes. The main objective of the volume is to elucidate the key factors that
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afford a learner-centred, interactive approach to the design of effective ICLHE
teacher-training proposals. Chapters included in the volume, along with teaching
resources and/or research instruments used in the studies presented in the
chapters, will be of interest to academics, researchers and advanced students of
education and teacher-training research and practice.
The edited volume comprises nine chapters that report on the qualitative aspects
of ICLHE professional development. The interchangeable use of EMI and EME
(English-medium education) is supported by the authors throughout the book.
To begin with, Ruiz-Madrid and Fortanet-Gómez provide a brief overview of the
relevance of teacher training in ICLHE (Chapter 1). They outline how the volume
offers a comprehensive view on teacher training from a fine-grained perspective
based on three fundamental features. The first relates to language, considered the
most important aspect in ICLHE teachers’ pedagogical development. The second
concerns the spoken academic discourse of experienced ICLHE lecturers to
specific language-awareness training. The third examines the fundamental role of
identity and the stance of lecturers in effective teacher-development programmes.
The chapter ends with the caveat that more research is still needed, namely, to
identify how specific discourse and pedagogy can be combined to raise language
awareness among ICLHE professionals.
In Chapter 2, Elena Borsetto explores longitudinally the language needs and
difficulties of teachers and administrative staff at the Ca’ Foscari University of
Venice. Her findings expand upon the dichotomy between northern and southern
European countries concerning language proficiency, especially when teaching
and/or interacting with international students and teachers. Her observations
identify significant differences between the linguistic needs of administrative
staff and teachers. Borsetto’s final reflections underscore the pivotal role of
pronunciation and enunciation, forms and function of language, context-specific
vocabulary and register in ICLHE teacher training.
In Chapter 3, Miia Konttinen investigates curriculum and its implementation in
EME. From the outset, the chapter argues for a backward design that starts from
the desired learning outcomes, connecting EME to the student’s learning rather
than the teacher’s language skills. To understand how EME teachers actually
teach and why they have resorted to particular teaching methods, the chapter
offers insights from experienced EME teachers in Finnish master’s programmes.
The study’s findings accentuate the negative impact of individualism, teacher-
centredness and content-driven objectives. In response, the chapter proposes that
EME teacher training combine the use of backward design (i.e. teachers’
reflections on their teaching philosophy and practice with backward design) and
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the notion of community of practice (Wenger 1998, i.e. dialogue to question and
enhance each other’s understanding of EME and to share best practices in teacher
training).
In Chapter 4, Teresa Morell, Marian Aleson-Carbonell and Pilar Escabias-Lloret
provide evidence of the benefits of the longitudinal design and implementation of
the Prof-teaching EMI professional development programme at the University of
Alicante, Spain. The chapter begins by underscoring the lack of consensus among
universities on the content and structure of EMI teacher training in response to
pedagogical and linguistic needs. The demands expressed in surveys administered
in previous EMI workshops and university-wide polls on attitudes towards EMI
and teacher training are used as a springboard to develop the study’s three-
module comprehensive teacher-training programme. The data collected sheds
light on how Prof-teaching course participants feel about learning new
methodologies, applying innovative tools and developing speaking skills. Final
evaluations highlight the robustness of combining a digital, linguistic and
pedagogical approach in EMI teacher training. The benefits of putting into
practice what participants have learned, discipline-specific peer observation and
EMI lecturer accreditation are also brought to the fore.
In Chapter 5, Lynn Mastellotto and Renata Zanin outline how the Free University
of Bolzano has responded to the need for improved language competences
through teacher training for multilingual schools in South Tyrol. The chapter
provides a detailed picture of a linguistic landscape that does not support
multilingualism despite the co-existence of various official languages. The study
presents a customised instrument (i.e. Language Input Observation Scheme –
LIOS I) to measure the quality of teachers’ language input and interactions in
second-language instruction in English and German. Preliminary results are
presented on the ability of LIOS I to raise awareness in teaching practice through
language, self-reflection, peer observation and feedback strategies.
In Chapter 6, Ada Bier examines the construct of the language-teaching
methodology interface (LTMI). The study delves into the inherent link between
language and teaching methodology in an Italian higher education EMI
context. Assuming the LTMI can be characterised by the co-existence of a
practical (observable) and a cognitive (hidden) element, the chapter includes an
in-depth analysis of observed lectures and interviews to examine the interplay
between the use of pragmatic strategies and deviations from standard at the
morphosyntax level in EMI lecturing. Findings report on the blurred boundaries
between language and teaching methodology. Positive and negative EMI
outcomes are linked to the presence or absence of three key aspects: pedagogical
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knowledge; language proficiency; and/or awareness of language and subject-
specific literacy.
In Chapter 7, Alexandra Vraciu and Hortènsia Curell reinforce the relevance of
research-informed EMI teacher-training programmes dealing with discipline-
specific language awareness. The study explores discourse characteristics and
strategies in native versus non-native EMI lecturer input that foster students’
comprehension and output production at a Catalan university in Spain. Findings
are categorised based on whether the discourse and strategies identified support
comprehensible input or output. Redundancy, explicitness, orality,
comprehension checks and pre-emptive focus on form are examined from the
viewpoint of comprehensible input, while promotion and reaction are analysed
in terms of output. While key findings emphasise the nuanced nature of
lecturing, the study finds widespread reticence in terms of participation and
interaction. In their final reflections, the authors recommend that teacher-
training programmes be tailored to increase content lecturers’ L2 awareness in
the planning and implementation of EMI.
In Chapter 8, Francesca Costa and Olivia Mair examine the effects of raising
teachers’ awareness during training offered on the multimodal affordances of
EMI lecture discourse in Italy. A panoramic view of English-taught programmes
in Italian universities is provided to stress the need for lecturers to engage in
professional development that benefits comprehensibility. The chapter extends
beyond the boundaries of English and tackles the dearth of multimodal discourse
analysis in EMI teacher training. The study analyses a professional development
course for lecturers in a Northern Italian university from a multimodal and
pronunciation lens. Findings underline the determining effects of phonological
inaccuracy, accentedness and multimodal competence in meaning-making
practices. The chapter illustrates how multimodal features (i.e. gestures, gaze,
posture, facial expression, paralanguage, slide content) and pronunciation play a
key role in EMI knowledge construction.
Lastly, in Chapter 9, Marta Aguilar-Pérez and Sarah Khan compare the
metadiscourse of a lecturer teaching in their L1 (i.e. Catalan) and EMI starting
with a brief review of the many definitions and taxonomies of metadiscourse.
After which, the chapter focusses on metadiscourse as an effective way to analyse
how L1 and EMI lecturers engage with the subject matter and their audience, in
addition to how effective use of metadiscourse can benefit EMI students. Findings
from a mixed-methods exploratory study yield distinct differences regarding
speech rate, metadiscourse and audience interaction based on language of
instruction and the complexity of the lecture. An elaborate discussion is offered
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on whether the complexity of the lecture’s content or the language of instruction
has more influence over the use of metadiscourse. The chapter ends with some
recommendations on the need for further examination with larger corpora that
extends to the impact of discipline, expertise, methodological approach and
student performance.
Indeed, the book addresses timely issues in ICLHE teacher training, such as
integrating content and language in a more student-centred manner, applying
effective multimodal, metadiscursive and multilingual strategies, as well as
supporting academic staff and lecturers in internationalised university settings,
with a specific emphasis on case studies that inform future ICLHE teacher-
training research and practice. A particularly welcome feature is the empirical
design and successful implementation of innovative instruments and interventions
such as the LTMI and the Prof-teaching EMI teacher-training programme,
which can be further tested and applied to a broad range of ICLHE contexts.
Additionally, the implications for the future design of teacher-training
programmes are drawn on a chapter-by-chapter basis, with clearly detailed
recommendations. That said, the organisation of chapters in the volume could
have been divided into sections to more clearly convey the three main themes the
volume appears to tackle. In other words, the role of language in ICLHE teacher-
training programmes and the relevance of research-based curricula (chapters 2, 5,
6 and 7); the design and implementation of ICLHE professional development
programmes in specific contexts (chapters 3 and 4); and the characteristics of
teachers’ lecturing discourse (chapters 8 and 9). Ultimately, the ensemble of
chapters provides a set of pragmatic responses to real challenges faced by ICLHE
teacher-training professionals in a range of teaching contexts in Europe from a
grassroots perspective. Although our understanding of how discourse and
pedagogy can be integrated effectively to raise language awareness among ICLHE
professionals requires further analyses, the findings presented in the volume
provide fertile future lines of research that should be explored.
Works Cited
DIMOVA, Slobodanka, KLING, Joyce and MARGI
ć
, Branka Drlja
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a (eds.). 2023. EMI Classroom
Communication: A Corpus-based Approach. Taylor & Francis.
LASAGABASTER, David. 2022. Teacher Preparedness for English-medium Instruction. Journal of
English-Medium Instruction 1(1): 48-64. <https://doi.org/10.1075/jemi.21011.las>.
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MACARO, Ernesto, Samantha, CURLE, Jack, PUN, Jiangshan, AN and Julie DEARDEN. 2018. A
Systematic Review of English Medium Instruction in Higher Education. Language Teaching
51(1): 36-76. <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444817000350>.
wENGER, Etienne. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge
U . P.
Received: 17/10/2024
Accepted: 06/03/2025
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Notes for contributors
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NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
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Oana Maria Carciu (reviews)
Revista Miscelánea
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Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
C/ Pedro Cerbuna 12
Universidad de Zaragoza
50009 Zaragoza
SPAIN
miscelanea@unizar.es
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PUBLICATION GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
Citations
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Notes for contributors
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Hyland, Ken. 2017a.“Metadiscourse: Whatis it and Whereis it Going?”Journal
of Pragmatics 113: 16-29. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.03.007>.
Hyland, Ken. 2017b. “English in the Discipline: Arguments for Specificity”.
ESP Today 5 (1): 5-23.
Hyland, Ken and Feng Kevin Jiang. 2021.“‘Our Striking Results Demonstrate…’:
Persuasion and the Growth of Academic Hype”. Journal of Pragmatics 182: 189-
202. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.06.018>.
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leonard, Suzanne. 2014. “Escaping the Recession? The New Vitality of the
Woman Worker”. In Negra, Diane and Yvonne Tasker (eds.) Gendering the
Recession: Media and Culture in an Age of Austerity. Duke U.P.: 31-58. <h t t p s : //
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molina-guzmán, Isabel. 2014. “‘Latina Wisdom’ in ‘Postrace’ Recession
Media”. In Negra, Diane and Yvonne Tasker (eds.) Gendering the Recession:
Media and Culture in an Age of Austerity. Duke U.P.: 59-80. <h t t p s : //d o i .
org/10.2307/j.ctv1131fr9.6>.
negra, Diane and Yvonne tasker. 2014. Gendering the Recession: Media and
Cult ure in an A ge o f Auster it y. Du ke U.P. <https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822376538>.
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Wilde, Oscar. 2017. In Donohue, Joseph (ed.). The Complete Works of Oscar
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(fragment). Oxford U.P.
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oates, Joyce Carol. 2004.“Curly Red”. In I Am No One You Know: Stories.
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lu, Xiaofei. 2011. “A Corpus-Based Evaluation of Syntactic Complexity Measures
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Quarterly 45 (1): 36-62. <https://doi.org/10.5054/tq.2011.240859>.
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adami, Elisabetta. 2018. “Styling the Self Online: Semiotic Technologization in
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Semiotics 28 (5): 601-622. <https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2018.1504713>.
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morris, Regan. 2018. “Is #meToo Changing Hollywood?”. BBC News (March).
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43219531>. Accessed March
18, 2022.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank all the colleagues who, without belonging to our Board of
Referees, were willing to revise and assess some of the contributions.
miscelánea
vol. 71
2025
I S C E E AL Á N
literature, lm and
cultural studies
language
and linguistics
vol. 71
2025
a journal of english
and american studies
miscelánea
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