Die leidende versklavte Frau: eine Untersuchung von Abolitionismus und Feminismus im sentimentalen abolitionistischen Theater Spaniens (1797–1891)

• Applicant: Dr. Ana Mateos
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 569967293

My project is the first comprehensive study of a largely forgotten tradition of Spanish sentimental abolitionist literature, which is distinguished by its predilection for the dramatic form, in contrast to the predominantly narrative and poetic output of several other abolitionist traditions, and most importantly by its sustained focus on the figure of the enslaved Afro-descendant woman. Moreover, unlike the much more studied Spanish political and economic abolitionist texts, this literary tradition reveals (so I argue) a prevalent humanitarian motivation at the heart of Spain’s anti-slavery movement which draws on eighteenth-century discourses of human rights and advocates in particular for bodily rights. How did Spanish dramatic authors, as inheritors and innovators of earlier sentimental traditions, adapt sentimental strategies to the unique historical and socio-political context of late imperial Spain? Central to my project is the further question of how these plays exhibit and recast the tension between creating emotional identification and the imperative to acknowledge, transcend, and subvert exclusionary discourses, especially those constructed on perceived bodily difference, as well as to portray the enslaved woman’s suffering. Given that these works’ focus on the suffering of enslaved women enabled them to participate in Spain’s budding feminist movement, addressing those tensions involves exploring how they negotiated the subsequent question of intersectionality and the unstable interplay between feminist and abolitionist agendas, within a continually evolving rhetoric of sentimentality. Alongside narrative analysis, it is especially important throughout to understand how the performance aspect of these works influenced and complicated their sentimental strategies, in particular, how they dealt with the representation of ethnic difference and often violent suffering on the stage. This corpus also demands a comparative approach, and so I will draw on scholarship concerning Anglo-American (United States and Great Britain), Cuban and German abolitionist literary traditions from the Americas and Northern Europe, in which some of the main thematic issues have been more fully developed.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Juliane Prade-Weiss