Return of the Moor

Daniela Flesler, State University of New York, Stony Brook, specializes in contemporary Spanish literary and cultural studies, with a focus on transnationalism, immigration, and the construction of national identities. She has published essays in Revista de Estudios Hispanicos, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, Dieciocho, and Bulletin of Spanish Studies.

This is the best analysis I have read to date of Spain's paradoxical adoption of a 'first-world' and European identity with almost complete disregard for its historical past as a country of emigrants and, under Francoism, one that constructed its identity by stressing its difference from a modern and decadent Europe. Flesler does an excellent job of reviewing and rewriting the traditional historiographical narrative of the Muslims' arrival in AD 711 as the sudden and brutal interruption of a Christian continuum in Spain. In addition, she incorporates critical discourses from psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and post-colonial theory in order to present an incisive reading of a wide range of textual practices: from popular festivals and tourist brochures to press articles and popular debates, to novels and film."—Jaume Marti-Olivella, Associate Professor of Hispanic Cinema and Cultural Studies, University of New Hampshire