The Female Vampire in Hispanic Short Fiction at the Turn of the 20th Century: A Critical Anthology

FAIN: HB-273443-21

Megan DeVirgilis
Morgan State University (Baltimore, MD 21251-0001)

Writing and translation activities culminating in a critical anthology of Latin American short stories exhibiting Gothic aesthetics.

My project will be a critical anthology on the female vampire in 19th- and early 20th-century Hispanic short fiction. Through transatlantic, historical, and feminist interpretive frameworks, my critical introduction will contextualize Latin American and Spanish Gothic-inspired, female-vampire stories in relation to the greater European Gothic tradition. In particular, it will synthesize and expound upon existing scholarship on the lesser or unknown works of established authors, such as Leopoldo Lugones and Carmen de Burgos. It will thus be a revision of my dissertation, “Blood Disorders: A Transatlantic Study of the Vampire as an Expression of Ideological, Political, and Economic Tensions in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Hispanic Short Fiction,” which focused on both male and female vampires. The majority of the project will be dedicated to translating their stories to English, a task that would introduce these texts into the Eurocentric field of Gothic Studies for the first time.

Associated Products

The Female Vampire in Hispanic Literature: A Critical Anthology of Turn of the 20th Century Gothic-Inspired Tales (Book)
Title: The Female Vampire in Hispanic Literature: A Critical Anthology of Turn of the 20th Century Gothic-Inspired Tales
Editor: Megan DeVirgilis
Abstract: This book exposes how Hispanic authors at the turn of the twentieth century broke from European and American Gothic models to contend with their anxieties over modernity and rising first-wave feminisms. The result was a trend of sympathetic female vampire characters, predating comparable Anglo and European representations by several decades. In its analysis of the female vampire in Hispanic literature, this critical introduction also traces the Gothic’s origins and developments in Latin America and Spain, presenting a working theory of Gothic traditions in the form of a transhispanic literary phenomenon. The tales compiled in this collection include Leopoldo Lugones’s “The Female Vampire” (1899), Clemente Palma’s “The White Farmhouse” (1904), Antonio de Hoyos y Vinent’s “Mr. Cadaver and Miss Vampire” (1910), Carmen de Burgos’s “The Cold Woman” (1922), and Horacio Quiroga’s “The Vampire” (1927). All but two of these tales are translated into English for the first time, and all appear alongside scholarly annotations and accompanying analysis.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://www.uwp.co.uk/book/the-female-vampire-in-hispanic-literature/
Primary URL Description: Publisher's link.
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Type: Other
ISBN: 9781837721689
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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