By the Grace of God : : Francoist Spain and the Sacred Roots of Political Imagination / / William R. Viestenz.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UTP eBook-Package 2014-2016
• VerfasserIn: Viestenz, William R.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (240 p.)

Though neither king nor priest, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco nevertheless conceptualized his right to sovereignty around a political theology in which national identity resembled a sacred cult. Using Franco's Spain and la España sagrada as a counterpoint to European secularity's own development, By the Grace of God is the first sustained analysis within Spanish cultural studies of the sacred as a political category and a tool for political organization.William Viestenz shows how imagining national identity as a sacred absolute within a pluralistic, multicultural state leads to dictatorship, scapegoating, and exceptional violence. Using novels and poetry from the Catalan literary tradition and stalwarts of the Castilian canon, his analysis demonstrates that the sacred is a concept that spills over into key areas of secular political imagination.By the Grace of God offers an original theory of the sacred that challenges our understanding of twentieth-century political thought.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: La España Sagrada as a Political Category -- 2. "He aquí una plenitud española": Catholicism, Cultural Regeneration, and Spanish Essentialism -- 3. Politics by Other Means: The Sacred Core of Collective Imagining -- 4. Intimate Strife: Inside Juan Goytisolo's Sovereign Exception -- 5. The Eternal Present of Sacred Time -- 6. "De-sacralization" and "Sacro-genesis," or How to Step Outside of Sacred Time -- 7. Espriu's Sepharad and the Equitable Restoration of Sacred Sovereignty -- 8. Conclusion: The Aesthetic Disruption of Political Truth -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index