Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
2-2026
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
English
Advisor
Kandice Chuh
Committee Members
Amber Musser
Eric Lott
Subject Categories
Arts and Humanities | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
Keywords
Arts and Humanities; Postcolonial; Decolonial; Early Modern; Flamenco; Cultural Studies; Prosper Merimee; Bizet; Andalusia; Spain; Carmen
Abstract
My research, grounded in decolonial historiography and performance studies, examines how Spain has historically relied on the exoticized Other for the construction of its national identity. At the center of my analyses is Carmen, the eponymous protagonist of French writer Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella Carmen. Through this dissertation, I attend to the process through which this fictional character turned into the enduring myth of Carmen—the Orientalized, quintessential Spanish woman—and the consequences that upholding this myth has on the real lives of women, historically and contemporarily. I depart from the assumption that this myth-making process emerged in response to Spain’s inability to integrate its colonial and postcolonial reality into its self-image; while official historiography emphasizes “the myth of a pure ‘Gothic’ [ethnonational] origin” (Fuchs 20), Andalusia and flamenco—deeply tied to Spain’s Islamic heritage and Roma culture—have periodically been elevated as symbols of Spanish identity, creating a paradox of association that remains unresolved. My project interrogates this paradox, investigating how state-sponsored cultural investments have shaped the consolidation of flamenco and Andalusia as markers of both “authentic” Spain, the quintessential “European exotic,” while also remaining marginal and agonistic to conflicting versions of Spanishness. Employing a Foucauldian archaeological approach, I trace moments where flamenco and Andalusian culture are centered in an attempt to define Spanishness via the bodies of women who are directly or tangentially associated with Carmen.
Simultaneously, my work is attentive to the knowledge transmission that occurs at the margins of nation-statehood as a possible counter-force to these hegemonic discourses. In this exploration I look at flamenco, specifically flamenco dancing, as a repertory of counter-hegemonic knowledge and epistemology, sustained and passed on through the female dancing body. In this process, the fragilities of Spain’s self-fashioning betray themselves, revealing the fact of Spain’s heterogeneity—of which flamenco is distinctively infused—is not peripheral but foundational to what constitutes Spanishness, both locally and internationally. Thus, this study adds to scholarship on Spain’s national identity by focusing on its use of flamenco and Andalusian cultural output to define and cohere around, which allows me to explore the contradictions at the heart of Spanish nationalism while also shedding light on broader processes of racialization, gendering, and marginalization in the formation of modern nation-states.
Recommended Citation
Zanoguera Garcias, Inmaculada, "At the Margins of History, the Body Moves and Knows: Carmen as Myth, Flamenco as a Fugitive Form of Knowledge Transmission" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6601
