Dystopias of Infamy: Insult and Collective Identity in Early Modern Spain

Insults, scorn, and verbal abuse used to assert social identity can backfire when the targeted group adopts and internalizes them, leading to the empowerment and reinforcement of their collective identity. This study by Irigoyen-Garcia explores how the discourse and practices of insult and infamy shaped the cultural imagination, anxieties, and fantasies of early modern Spain, highlighting Cervantes' parody of regulatory fantasies about infamy.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 15 July 2022
Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Insults, scorn, and verbal abuse, often used to assert the social identity of the insulter, are destined to fail when that language is appropriated and embraced by the maligned group. In such circumstances, slander may instead empower and reinforce the collective identity of those perceived to be a threat to an idealized society. In this innovative study, Irigoyen-Garcia examines how the discourse and practices of insult and infamy shaped the cultural imagination, anxieties, and fantasies of early modern Spain. Drawing on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary works, archival research, religious and political literature, and iconographic documents, Dystopias of Infamy traces how the production of insults haunts the imaginary of power, provoking latent anxieties about individual and collective resistance to subjectification. Of particular note is Cervantes' tendency to parody regulatory fantasies about infamy throughout his work, lampooning repressive law for its paradoxical potential to instigate the very defiance it fears.

Insults, scorn, and verbal abuse, often used to assert the social identity of the insulter, are destined to fail when that language is appropriated and embraced by the maligned group. In such circumstances, slander may instead empower and reinforce the collective identity of those perceived to be a threat to an idealized society. In this innovative study, Irigoyen-Garcia examines how the discourse and practices of insult and infamy shaped the cultural imagination, anxieties, and fantasies of early modern Spain. Drawing on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary works, archival research, religious and political literature, and iconographic documents, Dystopias of Infamy traces how the production of insults haunts the imaginary of power, provoking latent anxieties about individual and collective resistance to subjectification. Of particular note is Cervantes' tendency to parody regulatory fantasies about infamy throughout his work, lampooning repressive law for its paradoxical potential to instigate the very defiance it fears.

Weight: 300g
Dimension: 152 x 228 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781684484003