ABSTRACT

This article has two aims: to argue for use of the Spanish term rareza as a critical concept, and to explore the relation between popular scientific discourse and gendered ways of being and feeling in the world. The first aim is premised on curiosity about where new critical and theoretical lenses might emerge from in Spanish cultural studies. In turning to the concept of rareza, I build on the figure of the chica rara, a term originally coined by Carmen Martín Gaite in the 1980s to refer to girls who did not fit the gender expectations of the early Franco dictatorship: I posit that this Spanish cultural term could be developed to think about the strangeness of gender outside of its original context. Here, I read Rosa Chacel's 1945 novel, Memorias de Leticia Valle, specifically analyzing the construction of its young protagonist's gendered strangeness. To do so, I turn to scientific discourse popularized in the early decades of the twentieth century in Spain – when the novel is set and when Chacel, born in 1898, was formed intellectually – to understand what it might mean to think about the gender of young women as materially, relationally, affectively and perceptually strange. My consideration of the molecular chica rara as one whose experience of gender can be understood as shaped by scientific ideas is one way to rethink rareza beyond the term's original context and to consider its relevance alongside today's theorization of queerness.

摘要

本文有两个目的：主张使用西班牙语术语“稀有”作为批判性概念，并探讨流行的科学话语与世界上存在和存在性别的方式之间的关系。第一个目的是基于对西班牙文化研究中新的批判和理论视角可能来自何处的好奇心。在谈到稀有概念时，我以奇卡罗拉（chica rara）的身影为基础，该词最初是由卡门·马丁·盖特（CarmenMartínGaite）在1980年代创造的，指的是那些不符合早期佛朗哥独裁时期的性别期望的女孩：西班牙文化术语可以发展为在其原始背景之外思考性别的陌生性。在这里，我读了罗莎·查塞尔（Rosa Chacel）1945年的小说《回忆录》（Memorias de Leticia Valle），具体分析了其年轻主人公性别异性的建构。为此，我转向在二十世纪初几十年在西班牙普及的科学话语-当小说被设定以及1898年出生的Chacel智识化时-理解思考性别的含义可能意味着什么。年轻女性在物质上，关系上，情感上和感性上都很陌生。我认为分子chira rara是一种其性别经验可以理解为受科学思想影响的方法，它是一种重新思考术语一词的原始上下文之外的稀有文本，并与当今的酷儿理论一起考虑其相关性的一种方法。