Fantasies of Race: A Transatlantic Approach to Class and Sexuality in Emilia Pardo Bazán’sLa Tribuna1

What is it about?

Why despite constant allusions to slavery doesn't La Tribuna engage in the question of slavery more explicitly? To answer this question I analyze the novel's and the author's position on race, which draws not only on Cuban slavery but also on the historical concept of pureza de sangre. My proposal, helps, in turn to explain some of the novel's ambiguities with respect to its main heroine and illuminate the author's conflicted positions on gender and sexuality.

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Why is it important?

This essay provides a unique transatlantic interpretation of the novel, one in which the question of race and slavery is addressed in connection with the historical question of pureza de sangre. In the larger context of 19th-century Hispanic peninsular studies devoted to gender, it shows the need to understand Spanish discourses of class, gender and sexuality within a transatlantic and racial perspective.