After an introductory survey of the development of women's studies in the context of Spain, this volume presents twenty-one original essays by leading scholars from Britain, the United States, Spain and Mexico, which explore women's roles in the cultural production of their time, offering new insights into women's agency and representation in the cultural heritage of Spain. Their authors engage in literary criticism as well as historical analysis, sociological investigation and interdisciplinary exploration, describing, analyzing and documenting a range of women's experiences in Spain from medieval times to the twenty-first century. Given the historical span, as well as the range of approaches and disciplines in women's studies, the editors' decision has been to give the contributors a free hand to write on the topic of their choice within their area of expertise. The result is a collective work in accordance with an established feminist tradition. The essays are variously concerned with texts, discourses, everyday life and visual culture, and the approaches incorporate current developments in feminist research, theory and practice. Some contributors opted for a survey of an area which has already received critical attention, extending its scope or considering it from a different perspective, whilst others present altogether new material, testing methodological and theoretical boundaries. The reader will find in this collection of essays a good range of models for scholarship and a sound insight into the main issues and recent critical debates in the field of women's studies, showing its possibilities within the Spanish context and opening up avenues for further research. It will serve both as an introduction to the subject and as a vibrant record of the present state of research, as well as a stimulus to future debate within this field into the twenty-first century.

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Contents: ?Female Foundations in the Libro de Alexandre and Poema de Fernán González (Geraldine Coates, St Anne's College, University of Oxford) ?Desire and Transgression in the Feminine Voice of Early Popular Lyric (Mariana Masera, Universidad Autónoma de México) ?From Virgin Martyr to Holy Harlot: Female Saints in the Middle Ages and the Problem of Classification (Andrew M. Beresford, University of Durham) ?Choosing and Testing Spouses in Medieval Exemplary Literature (Louise M. Haywood, Trinity Hall, Cambridge) ?Through Women's Eyes:The Appropriation of Male Discourse by Three Medieval Women Authors (Nieves Baranda, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia UNED) ?Intellectual, Contemplative, Administrator:Isabel de Villena and the Vindication of Women (Rosanna Cantavella, Universitat de València) ?Anatomies of a Saint: The Unstable Body of Teresa de Avila (Georgina Dopico-Black, New York University NYU) ?Women's Artistic Production and their Visual Representation in Early Modern Spain (Carmen Fracchia, Birkbeck College London) ?The Baroque and the Undead: Carnal Knowledge in the Novellas of María de Zayas y Sotomayor (Margaret Greer, Duke University) ?Distinct Drama? Female Dramatists in Golden Age Spain (Alexander Samson, University College London UCL) ?Conversations from a Distance: Spanish and French Eighteenth-century Women Writers (Mónica Bolufer, Universitat de València) ?What They Saw: Reflections on Difference and the Visual in Nineteenth-Century Spain (Lou Charnon-Deutsch, State University of New York.) ?Luxurious Borders: Containment and Excess in Nineteenth-Century Spain. (Alison Sinclair, University of Cambridge). ?Politics and Feminist Writing in Spain (Joyce Tolliver, University of Illinois, Urbana) ?Women as Cultural Agents in Spanish Modernity (Susan Kirkpatrick, University of California, San Diego) ?The Theatricalized Self: Women Artists in Masquerade from the 1920s to the Present (Roberta Ann Quance, The Queen's University of Belfast) ?Gender and Change: Identity and Reform in the Second Spanish Republic (Frances Lannon, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford) ?Invisible Catalan(e)s: Catalan Women Writers and the Contested Space of Home (Helena Buffery, University of Cork, and Laura Lonsdale, The Queen's College University of Oxford) ?The Mother and the Nation:Reading Women's Autobiographies from the 1970s to the Present (Xon de Ros, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford) ?Tropes of Freedom: Spectacular Eroticism and the Spanish New Woman on-Screen (Jessamy Harvey, Birkbeck College London) ?Almódovar's Others: Spanish Women Film-makers Masquerade, and Maternity (Jo Evans, University College London)