Quim Monzó

No abstract available

Quim Monzó

No abstract available

Mass tourism as cultural trauma: an analysis of the Majorcan comics Els darrers dies de l’Imperi Mallorquí (2014) and Un infern a Mallorca (La decadència de l’Imperi Mallorquí) (2018)

The Mediterranean island of Majorca has been a popular tourist resort since the late 1950s. While the model of mass tourism has been a subject of various unremitting sociopolitical controversies on the island, the swelling number of visiting tourists in recent years has increased anxieties about the sociocultural and environmental impact of touristification processes. Drawing upon studies of cultural trauma, this article argues that the comics Els darrers dies de l’Imperi Mallorquí (The Last Days of the Majorcan Empire) (2014) and its sequel, Un infern a Mallorca (La decadència de l’Imperi Mallorquí) (Hell in Majorca [The Decadence of the Majorcan Empire]) (2018), represent the advent of mass tourism on the island as the trigger of a sudden, comprehensive, unexpected and polarizing episode of social change that has profoundly transformed the sociocultural tissue of Majorcan society and the island’s landscape and territory. Both comics depict these socio-environmental crises as cultural crises and therefore suggest the possibility that the experience of cultural trauma has occurred in the island’s recent history. As the article shows, the comic form turns out to be highly qualified to portray the sense of cultural disorientation resulting from the traumatic experience, and to dialogue with the quasi-apocalyptic imagery circulated by emerging grassroots movements against mass tourism on the island. The article further suggests that such a highly critical portrayal of tourism-oriented dynamics should be read vis-à-vis the growing concerns about overtourism in Europe and beyond

Men in crisis: pornographic images in Quim Monzó’s fiction

Drawing on feminist theory and masculinity studies, this article analyses one novel and four short stories by Catalan author Quim Monzó – Benzina (1983), ‘El regne vegetal’ (1980), ‘Pigmalió’ (1993), ‘La mamà’ (2001) and ‘Dos rams de roses’ (2001) – to show how the presence of pornography in these works highlights the characteristic inadequacies of Monzó’s male characters against the values of hegemonic masculinity. Pornography in this body of texts also reflects the tensions between high and mass culture and the conflict between aesthetic and political interpretations of art in Monzó’s literary project. Although analyses of Monzó’s narrative from the perspective of gender and sexuality are still rare, this article claims that critical debates in these fields are essential to understand Monzonian fictional masculinities. My main aim is to demonstrate that the influence of pornography on Monzó’s fiction is intimately related to one of the central tensions of this author’s literary production, namely, the representation of hegemonic masculinity in crisis

Els marges dels mapes: una geografia desplaçada, by Àlex Matas Pons

No abstract available

Introduction

No abstract available

Repensar els estudis catalans des de la teoria queer

Catalan Studies are basically focused on national/linguistic identity, but recent debate on Catalan identity triggered by the current pro-independent process in Catalonia, may help reshape this academic field. A more diverse approach to Catalan culture should consider sexuality, which has traditionally been banished from literary analysis as a ‘private’ matter. Here, we discussed how queer theory can reframe Catalan Studies mainly by building a specific LGBT literary tradition, identifying queer episodes and characters in the canon, questioning received meanings, promoting interdisciplinary analysis of Catalan culture and exploring the role of queer subjectivity in history

Quim Monzó and Contemporary Catalan Culture (1975–2018): Cultural Normalization, Postmodernism and National Politics

Quim Monzó (born Barcelona, 1952) is considered Catalonia’s most influential contemporary author, his work studied as a catalyst for the modernization of Catalan culture after General Franco’s death in 1975. Analysing Quim Monzó’s trajectory from countercultural artist in 1970s Barcelona to celebrity intellectual in the present day, Colom-Montero argues that Monzó’s work encapsulates many of the cultural, aesthetic and political tensions in post-Francoist Catalonia. Offering first-time English-language analyses of Monzó’s multifaceted artistic trajectory (including political cartoons, translations, journalistic writing, media collaborations and social media persona) as well as new close readings of some of his better-known literary texts, Colom-Montero maps the paradigmatic cultural shifts that have characterized the transition from late Francoist to autonomous and post-referendum Catalonia. At a time of deepening divisions between Catalonia and Spain, in this book Monzó emerges as an author and public intellectual aiming to build a Catalan politico-cultural sphere different from and opposed to that of Spain

COVID summer of 2020: from overtourism to no-tourism in Southern Europe

No abstract available

In/dependents: Dones i projectes nacionals, edited by Montserrat Palau and Agnès Toda

No abstract available