Professor of Spanish | Leland and Dorothy Olson Professor | Spanish Section Head Modern Languages & Literatures

CV

Iker González-Allende (Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Leland J. and Dorothy H. Olson Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures, Professor of Hispanic Studies and program faculty of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. He specializes in 20th-21st C. Spain, masculinities, gender and queer studies, exile and migration, Basque studies, the Spanish Civil War, and autobiographical writing. He has published seven books: the monographs Hombres en movimiento: Masculinidades españolas en los exilios y emigraciones, 1939-1999 (Purdue University Press, 2018) and Líneas de fuego: Género y nación en la narrativa española durante la Guerra Civil (1936-1939) (Biblioteca Nueva, 2011); a critical edition of the novel Euzkadi en llamas, by Ramón Belaustegigoitia (Txalaparta, 2020); the edited volumes El mundo está en todas partes: La creación literaria de Bernardo Atxaga (coedited with José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta, Anthropos, 2018) and El exilio vasco: Estudios en homenaje al profesor José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta (Universidad de Deusto, 2016); and the editions of Pilar de Zubiaurre’s works, titled Evocaciones: Artículos y diario (1909-1958) (Saturrarán, 2009) and Epistolario de Pilar de Zubiaurre (1906-1970) (Tamesis, 2014). He has also published more than 60 articles in books and academic journals such as Hispania, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea, Ínsula, Hispanic Research Journal, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, and Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. His articles have appeared in 37 different academic journals worldwide, in countries such as Spain, United States, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, and Brazil.

Committee Involvement in DMLL

  • Executive Committee for the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures
  • Spanish Section Head
  • Graduate Committee
  • Graduate Advisor for Spanish

Fields of Specialization

  • 20th and 21st C. Spanish literatures and cultures
  • Masculinities
  • Gender and Queer Studies
  • Exile and Migration
  • National Identities
  • The Spanish Civil War
  • Basque Studies
  • Francoism and Falange
  • Memoirs and Letters

Books

Ramón Belaustegigoitia. Euzkadi en llamas. 1938.

Ed. Iker González-Allende. Tafalla, Spain: Txalaparta, 2020. 609 pages. ISBN 978-84-18252-17-4

This is the first edition of the novel since its original publication date in 1938 in Mexico, where Ramón Belaustegigoitia went into exile after living several episodes of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). It includes González-Allende’s introduction, which presents the author’s works and ideology and analyzes the novel. The novel offers the perspective of the Basque nationalism during the Spanish Civil War through the main character, a young man who joins the Basque army to fight against the Francoist forces that started the war with a coup d’état against the democratic Second Spanish Republic. In addition to the main character’s romantic relationships, the novel narrates the main battles of the war in the Basque Country, focusing on the experiences of both civilians and soldiers, such as the 1937 aerial bombing of Gernika by the Nazis in support of Franco. Although the work conveys the need to fight for the freedom of the Basque Country until death, it also delivers a humanitarian message for people with different ideologies to understand each other. With more than 600 pages, it is the longest and most panoramic novel about the Spanish Civil War in the Basque Country published during the years of conflict.

Reviewed in:

Euzkadi en llamas, la novela.” Hamaika Bide Elkartea website, November 1, 2020. José Ramón Zabala Aguirre.

Bulletin of Spanish Studies, vol. 98, no. 5, 2021, pp. 828-29. Jon Kortazar Billelabeitia



Book Cover

Hombres en movimiento: Masculinidades españolas en los exilios y emigraciones, 1939-1999

West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2018. 309 pages. Vol. 74 of Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures Series. ISBN 978-1-55753-835-2

Table of Contents

This book delivers the first sustained study of how the Spanish masculine identity, of both homosexual and heterosexual men, is impacted when men are com­pelled to leave their country. In the book, González-Allende examines the literary output of Spanish male authors over three periods of emigration and exile: the long Republican exile from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the emigration to Europe during the Spanish economic crisis of the 1960s, and the recent period of emigration of intellectuals to the United States through the end of the twentieth century. Revealing and unpacking recurring patterns of isolation, insecurity, discrimina­tion, and feminization in the host country, González-Allende argues that exile and emigration cause a crisis of powerlessness that can have a destabilizing effect on one’s masculinity. González-Allende also examines a countervailing trend among Spanish exiles and émigrés of these periods, that from the same crisis some achieve a greater sense of freedom and improve their socioeco­nomic standing. Each of the seven chapters analyzes a different Spanish male exile or émigré: the adolescent, the man at a crossroad, the idle man, the returning man, the working man, the onanist, and the academician. Works studied are likewise from a range of authors: Luis de Castresana, Juan José Domenchina, Juan Gil-Albert, Max Aub, Francisco Ayala, Patricio Chamizo, Víctor Canicio, Terenci Moix, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Javier Cercas.



Book Cover

El mundo está en todas partes: La creación literaria de Bernardo Atxaga

Eds. Iker González-Allende and José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta. Barcelona: Anthropos, 2018. 318 pages. Vol. 53 of Autores, Textos y Temas. Literatura. ISBN 978-84-17556-02-0

Table of Contents

This book offers a panoramic view of the literary creation of Bernardo Atxaga since his first works in the 1970s to the present time. The book covers the different periods of the Basque author: his avant-garde beginnings, the Obaba cycle, the realist period about the political circumstances of the Basque Country and his latest works, located in other geographical contexts. The volume includes one extensive interview of González-Allende with him, as well as 14 contributions from renowned scholars on Basque studies that analyze Atxaga’s whole literary career, including his novels, collections of poems, essays, and children’s books. The essays analyze multiple topics such as memory, terrorism, violence, animalism, autofiction, humor, rural and urban spaces, and hybrid identity. This book reveals how Atxaga's works entail thematic and stylistic intricacies, exposing at the same time the specificity and universality of Basque culture.



Book Cover

El exilio vasco: Estudios en homenaje al Profesor José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta

Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2016. 420 pages. ISBN 978-84-15759-92-8.

Table of Contents

This book offers a panoramic view of the exile that the Basque Country suffered during and after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The volume, written in homage to Professor José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta, includes an interview with him and fifteen contributions by renowned scholars from Europe, Latin America and the USA. The book is divided into two main parts: “General studies” and “Authors and works of the Basque exile.” The essays reveal the plurality of the Basque exile by studying both Basque nationalist authors (Aguirre, Onaindía, Oñatibia, Zaitegui, Azpiazu, the Antzerki group, Monzón, Ametzaga, Martín de Ugalde) and Republican authors (Ugarte, López Miarnau, Mansilla, Álvarez Arregui, Guilarte, Champourcin, Elío, Blanco Aguinaga, Martín Elizondo, Imaz, Larrea and Olarte). The chapters also cover all the literary genres and fields such as philosophy, periodicals, painting, film, and higher education. The topics analyzed include the traumatic memory of the war and the bombing of Gernika, homesickness and maintenance of the Basque language and national traditions, settlement and adaptation to the host country, and humanist and universal thought.

Reviews of El exilio vasco

  • Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature 41.2, 2017, article 12. Iker Arranz
  • Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea 39, 2017, pp. 425-27. David Mota Zurdo
  • Sancho el Sabio: Revista de cultura e investigación vasca 40, 2017, pp. 306-7. Goretti Ramírez
  • RILCE: Revista de Filología Hispánica 34. 1, 2018, pp. 409-11. Ibon Izurieta
  • Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea 43.1, 2018, pp. 237-41. Isabel Álvarez-Sancho
  • Cuadernos para Investigación de la Literatura Hispánica 44, 2018, pp. 488-95. Julio Escribano Hernández
  • Hispanófila 182, 2018, pp. 194-95. Cristina Ortiz Ceberio
  • Olivar: Revista de literatura y cultura españolas 18.27, 2018, e031. Guadalupe Barrios Rivero
  • Monteagudo: Revista de literatura española, hispanoamericana y teoría de la literatura 23, 2018, pp. 269-70. María Pilar Rodríguez
  • Hispania 101.4, 2018, pp. 643-44. Ada Ortúzar-Young



Book Cover

Epistolario de Pilar de Zubiaurre (1906-1970)

Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2014. Edition, transcription, introduction and notes. xxvi + 414 pages; 10 illustrations. ISBN 978-1-85566-276-6.

Table of Contents

This book compiles 188 unpublished letters which, from 1906 until 1970, Pilar de Zubiaurre wrote to and mostly received from numerous Hispanic intellectuals and artists, ranging from José Ortega y Gasset to Zenobia Camprubí and María Martos de Baeza. The volume is divided into three main sections, organized chronologically: letters of her youth, letters during the Spanish Civil War, and letters during exile. In the first section, which includes numerous letters from painters (e.g. Aurelio Arteta, José de Togores, Manuel Fontanals) and writers (e.g. Gabriel Miró, Azorín, Concha Méndez), we witness the active Spanish cultural life during the 20s and 30s. The second section shows the propaganda efforts of the Republican intellectuals during the Civil War, as well as the difficulties of daily life. The third section, the longest in the volume, comprises letters from fellow exiles such as Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora and Ángel Ossorio, letters sent from Spain by relatives and friends, and letters from American intellectuals such as Susana Huntington. The letters from female friends such as Camprubí and Martos de Baeza are especially relevant because they illustrate how women in exile kept alive the Republican memory and built communicative bridges between Spain and the exile communities in America.

Reviews of Epistolario de Pilar de Zubiaurre

  • Laberintos: Revista de estudios sobre los exilios culturales españoles 17 (2015): 436-39. José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta
  • Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea 41.1 (2016): 251-55. María Luisa Guardiola Tey
  • Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 19 (2015): 293-96. Enric Bou
  • Migraciones & Exilios 16 (2016): 225-29. Ana Fernández Asperilla
  • RILCE: Revista de Filología Hispánica 33.2 (2017): 820-24. Elena Cueto Asín
  • Hispanófila 179 (2017): 208-9. Aurélie Vialette
  • Bulletin of Spanish Studies 94.7 (2017): 1243-44. Margaret Tejerizo
  • Letras Femeninas 43.1 (2017): 168-71. Carmen de Urioste


Book Cover

Líneas de fuego: Género y nación en la narrativa española durante la Guerra Civil (1936-1939).

Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2011. 265 pages. ISBN 978-84-9940-174-4

This book investigates the associations between gender and national identity in narratives written by Spanish authors from 1936 until 1939. Relying on scholars such as Nira Yuval-Davis and George L. Mosse, this book analyzes and compares works and illustrations from the two major sides of the Spanish Civil War, Republican and Francoist. The main argument is that both groups, despite their distinct political views, in fact exhibit a marked similarity in terms of perspectives on gender. Specifically, I argue that Republican and Francoist authors create characters that conform to traditional ideas about the roles that men and women play in the construction of the nation. I also study how the texts sometimes contradict the gender division promoted in their official ideologies. Each chapter focuses on the construction of the nation in relation to a figure of war: the mother, the fiancée, the nurse, the soldier, and the enemy. In total, I analyze fourteen works, written by authors as diverse as Ernestina de Champourcin, Rafael García Serrano, Concha Espina, and Benjamín Jarnés.

Reviews of Líneas de fuego

  • Romance Quarterly 59.4 (2012): 269-70. Diana Arbaiza
  • Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 36.2 (2012): 423-25. Jordan Tronsgard
  • Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 46.3 (2012): 586-88. Daniel Arroyo-Rodríguez
  • Letras de Deusto 42.135 (2012): 271-74. Mercedes Acillona
  • Hispania 95.4 (2012): 752-54. Sally Perret
  • Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90.1 (2013): 111-12. Rachel Ann Linville
  • Iberoamericana 12.48 (2012): 230-32. Ana Luengo
  • Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 60.2 (2012): 650-53. Enrique Álvarez
  • Letras Femeninas 39.1 (2013): 204-06. Salvador Oropesa
  • Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 17 (2013): 265-67. Judith Caballero
  • Hispanófila 170 (2014): 164-68. Juan Carlos Martín
  • Hispanic Research Journal 15.3 (2014): 279-80. Rose Mary Abrão Nascif
  • Bulletin of Spanish Studies 91.6 (2014): 947. Jean Andrews
  • Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 17.4 (2016): 413-15. Aintzane Rincón



Book Cover

Pilar de Zubiaurre, Evocaciones: Artículos y diario (1909-1958).

Donostia: Saturrarán, 2009. Edition, introduction and notes. 331 pages. ISBN 978-84-934455-7-7

This volume compiles the articles and diaries that Basque author Pilar de Zubiaurre wrote at the beginning of the 20th century and during her exile in Mexico, where she lived for thirty years. Zubiaurre played a decisive role in the culture of Spain during the 1920s and 30s, organizing gatherings, befriending the chief Spanish artists and literary figures of her time, and participating actively in the founding and development of the Lyceum Club Femenino in Madrid, the first cultural association of Spanish women.

The articles of this book appeared originally in the newspaper Bizkaitarra (1909-10) and in Euzko Deya (1944-58), under two different pseudonyms, probably because of Zubiaurre's fear of being publicly acknowledged. In her articles, Zubiaurre shows her wish to improve the national culture and her nostalgia of the Basque country during exile. In her diaries, written from 1913 to 1943, Zubiaurre reveals the obstacles a bourgeois woman had to face at the beginning of the twentieth century in order to pursue an artistic career. The entries Zubiaurre wrote during the Spanish Civil War illustrate her political commitment to the democratic Second Republic and prove the multiple stances women can assume during war, because along with detailed descriptions of battles and attacks against the Francoist faction, she expresses sympathy towards the mothers of dead enemy soldiers.

Reviews of Pilar de Zubiaurre, Evocaciones

  • Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana 39.2 (2010): 238-39. Ariana Vigil
  • Transitions: Journal of Franco-Iberian Studies 6 (2010): 121-24. Yolanda Gamboa
  • Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea 36.1 (2011): 291-93. Irune del Río
  • Letras de Deusto 41.130 (2011): 245-47. Mercedes Acillona

Articles & Book Chapters

Book Reviews

Graduate Courses Taught

  • Feminist Theories; Feminist Perspectives (at the Womenʼs and Gender Studies Program)
  • The Spanish Civil War
  • Spanish Women Writers
  • Masculinities in Motion (at the Women’s and Gender Studies Program)
  • Contemporary Basque Narrative and Culture
  • 20th-21st C. Spanish Poetry
  • Introduction to Literary Criticism
  • Family and Nation in Contemporary Spanish Narrative
  • Gender Performance in 20th-century Spanish Drama
  • La España peregrina: Spanish Republican Exile Literature
  • Spanish Civil War Cultural Studies: Literature and Culture in 1936-1939
  • Peripheries and Center in 20th and 21st-century Spanish Narratives
  • Queer Spain: Gay Spanish Literature
  • Spanish Modernism, 1898-1936
  • Spanish Narrative under Franco’s Dictatorship
  • Memoirs, Diaries and Letters in 20th C. Spain

Advisor of Ph.D. students

  • Alfonso Bartolomé. Negacionismo migratorio: El contradiscurso en la producción cultural de la emigración española, 1960-2020, defended in April 2022. Tenure-track Assistant Professor at Virginia State University since Fall 2022.
  • Montserrat Fuente-Camacho. Representando la discapacidad en España y Latinoamérica: La producción cultural hispánica de autores/as con diversidad funcional en los siglos XX y XXI, defended in June 2021. Visiting Assistant Professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University, 2021-22. Tenure-track Assistant Professor at California State University, Fullerton since Fall 2022.
  • Heather Jerónimo. Forming Fam(other)hood: Queer Parenthood in 20th and 21st-Century Spanish Narrative and Film, defended in January 2014. Tenured Associate Professor at the University of Northern Iowa.
  • Garbiñe Vidal-Torreira. La mujer frente al espejo: Representación de la edad de la mujer en cuentos de escritorias españolas del siglo XXI, defended in April 2013. Tenured Associate Professor at Hendrix College.
  • Lara A. Garrido
  • Olatz Sánchez-Txabarri
  • Daniel Lino Plata

Professional Service

Manuscript reviewer for the following academic journals: Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Letras Hispanas, Hispanófila, Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea, Journal of Popular Romance Studies, Men and Masculinities; Politics, Religion and Ideology; Hispania, Letras Femeninas, Revista de Escritoras Ibéricas, RILCE: Revista de Filología Hispánica, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity.

Items on this Page:


Affiliated Programs & Activities: