Despite centuries of Catholic conservatism, Spain stands among the Western countries that have recently embraced non-traditional families. A decline in the dominance of extended families, the upswing in single-parent households, and an increase in the number of working mothers have all transformed what it means to be a "Spanish family." Many factors have prompted this change, including the end of Franco's dictatorship, the liberalization of society, economic reforms, Spanish feminism, and recent Socialist constitutional reforms recognizing the rights of same-sex partners. This collection of essays examines how authors, filmmakers and playwrights are engaging with changes to Spanish culture, exploring the very redefining of Spanish society.

This book investigates the perceptions of motherhood in Spanish author Lucía Etxebarria’s fiction and offers views of the importance of motherhood in society. Traditional expectations for women as mothers persist despite the fact that they no longer match Spain’s cultural and economic reality. These issues of gender equality and societal perceptions stand out in the novels and screenplays of Etxebarria. Her work at times resists and at times affirms patriarchal constructs associated with traditional Spanish motherhood, and ultimately, I argue, enacts the very complexity of contemporary Spanish motherhood ideals. By showing the tension between the past constructs of the mother and the possible future outcomes of gender equality, Etxebarria’s works navigate the complexity between past and future, illuminating the current and future uncertainties and the ambivalent nature of change. Each chapter views motherhood from a different perspective and focuses on particular works of Etxebarria. Through the depiction of a variety of mother characters, these different perspectives, as showcased in Etxebarria’s narratives, together compose an understanding of Spanish maternal identity.

Thousands of books have examined the effects of parents on their children. In All Joy and No Fun, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior now asks: what are the effects of children on their parents? In All Joy and No Fun, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior tries to tackle this question, isolating and analyzing the many ways in which children reshape their parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits, their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self. She argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the roles of today's mothers and fathers, making their mandates at once more complex and far less clear. Recruiting from a wide variety of sources—in history, sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology—she dissects both the timeless strains of parenting and the ones that are brand new, and then brings her research to life in the homes of ordinary parents around the country. The result is an unforgettable series of family portraits, starting with parents of young children and progressing to parents of teens. Through lively and accessible storytelling, Senior follows these mothers and fathers as they wrestle with some of parenthood's deepest vexations—and luxuriate in some of its finest rewards. Meticulously researched yet imbued with emotional intelligence, All Joy and No Fun makes us reconsider some of our culture's most basic beliefs about parenthood, all while illuminating the profound ways children deepen and add purpose to our lives. By focusing on parenthood, rather than parenting, the book is original and essential reading for mothers and fathers of today—and tomorrow.

Discusses the obstacles women have had to overcome in order to become writers, and identifies the sexist rationalizations used to trivialize their contributions

What if the goddess Athena, who sprang fully-grown from Zeus's head and denied she had a mother, became aware of the compelling existence of her other parent? What if she discovered that her mother, Metis,—first wife of Zeus and 'wiser than all gods and mortal men,' according to Hesiod—was swallowed by her father and continued to impart her wisdom to him from inside his belly? Recent Spanish novels by women parallel this hypothetical situation based on Greek myth by featuring female protagonists who obsessively re-examine the lives of their mothers, seeking to know and understand them. In Mother & Myth in Spanish Novels, Schumm examines six narratives by Spanish authors published since 2000 that focus on a daughter's search to know more about her matriarchal heritage: Carme Riera's La mitad del alma, Luc'a Etxebarria's Un milagro en equilibrio, Rosa Montero's El coraz-n del tOrtaro, Cristina Cerezales's De oca a oca, Mar'a de la Pau Janer's Las mujeres que hay en m', and Soledad Puertolas's Historia de un abrigo. In each of these novels, the protagonist realizes that failure to integrate the loss of her mother into her life results in the inability to define herself. Without valorization of the maternal subject, the legacy of the daughter is at risk—she is also objectified and swallowed— and the whole society suffers. The daughters' attention to their mothers in these novels is as if Athena had finally recognized that her mother, Metis, had been ingested by Zeus. The myth of Metis and Athena becomes a metaphor of the daughter's quest toward wholeness and individuation in these works; she begins to understand that her maternal legacy is a source of wisdom that has been obscured. These novels by Spanish women strengthen the mother's voice, rescue her from anonymity, and rewrite the matriarchal archetype.

This book represents the first concordance of Juan Ruiz's Book of Good Love (Libro de Buen Amor), written in the fourteenth century. The volume's editors, dealing with three slightly different manuscripts, have chosen to meticulously integrate the language from all three editions into one thorough concordance. The result is a significant work that serves as a companion to Ruiz's work that would be vital to any study of medieval Spanish linguistics. In addition to the usual material to be found in a concordance, this book has the following features: the text appears in diplomatic transcription from the manuscripts, for fidelity, while the entry list of words has been partly normalized as for spelling, for convenience; an extensive list of homographs; no omission of high frequency words; frequency list at the end; no reproduction of bulky and difficult computer printout. The book has been photocomposed from the tape.