Galicia, A Sentimental Nation

Galicia, a culturally distinct region in northwest Spain, has often been portrayed as a sentimental nation, a misty land of poets and legends. Here Helena Miguélez-Carballeira argues that this trope is a feminizing, colonial stereotype that has plagued Galician cultural history since the late nineteenth century. Miguélez-Carballeira combs the classic texts of Galician literary history to show how this trope has helped sustain the unequal power relation between Galicia and the Spanish state and how, as a consequence, questions of masculinity, morality, and respectability have played an essential role in Galicia’s national construction. By examining how national discourses in Galicia have been affected by questions of gender and sexuality, Miguélez-Carballeira seeks to construct a new paradigm from which to study Galician cultural history and production.