Ideologies of Hispanism

Chapter 11: Hispanism in an Imperfect Past and an Uncertain Present

284  11 Hispanism in an Imperfect Past and an Uncertain Present Nicolas Shumway The notion of “Hispanism” will never be an easy sell in the United States academy. Nor should it be. It is a term fraught with intellectual weaknesses and marked historically by ideological agendas that do it little credit. In the AngloAmerican world, no broad movement exists in support of an analogous term for the culture of England and its former colonies. Anglicanism has been claimed by religion; Englishism, Commonwealthism, or Britishism sound as weird as the concept they invoke; and “Americanism” calls to mind a kind of right-wing zealotry that few of us would support. Yet, despite such reservations regarding Hispanism, I consider myself a Hispanist and remain extremely enthusiastic about Hispanic Studies, i.e., the study of all things pertinent to Spain, Spanish American nations and peoples, and Spanish-Latino populations in the United States. Indeed, studying and teaching about the Spanish-speaking world have occupied most of my professional life. I came to this world in my late teens when I first studied Spanish in earnest. This was the beginning of a life-long fascination that continues to shape my research, teaching, and travel. My career as a Hispanist has also blessed me with numerous Hispanic friends who enrich my life in countless ways. I therefore rejoice at skyrocketing enrollments in courses dedicated to Spain and Spanish America, and am delighted to participate in the opportunity *MoranaFinalPages.indd฀฀฀284 12/1/04฀฀฀7:13:54฀PM HISPANISM IN AN IMPERFECT PAST AND AN UNCERTAIN PRESENT 285 the present moment affords for Hispanists to renegotiate for ourselves and for our students a more prominent place in the U.S. academy. So why does the term “Hispanism” make me so nervous? For starters, Hispanism is not a field. Like most terms ending in -ism, Hispanism suggests an ideological, political, or even religious agenda. My initial contact with this sense of the term put me on guard very early in my career. It occurred in one of my first teaching positions where a senior faculty member specializing in Spanish Medieval literature insisted on reviewing all readings used in first- and second year-Spanish language classes to assure that junior-faculty course supervisors like myself included sufficient material from Spain. As I grew more familiar with the workings of the department, it became apparent that his worries in this regard extended all the way through masters and doctoral reading lists. In his view, titles on such lists should be approximately 60 percent from Spain and 40 percent from Spanish America. Sensing my disagreement, he explained that we should never lose sight of Hispanism, which in his view meant the spiritual centrality and dominance of Spain. Of course, a curriculum designed around this notion of Hispanism also meant a majority of faculty appointments in Peninsular literature and guaranteed enrollments in this particular individual’s courses. It also meant a subservient departmental role for anything involving Spanish America. This article looks at Hispanism from six vantage points. First, I consider how Hispanism developed in the nineteenth century as a strategy for replacing a political empire with a spiritual one. Second, I look at how the newly independent Spanish-American nations throughout most of the nineteenth century wanted nothing to do with any kind of Spanish empire, spiritual or otherwise. Third, I give brief overview of the pronounced anti-Hispanic bias one finds in Anglo-American thinking and historiography, from Elizabethan times to well into the twentieth century. Fourth, I analyze how in the early twentieth century the idea of Hispanism became more respectable throughout the Spanish-speaking world as a counterweight to U.S. hegemony. Fifth, I consider some of reasons why Hispanism is now an important agenda item for U.S. universities.And finally, I conclude where I began: explaining why Hispanism continues to strike me as a bad idea. Consolation Imperialism As it turns out, I had good reason to be wary of my senior colleague’s view of Hispanism, for Hispanism—as an ideology and not an area of study—was *MoranaFinalPages.indd฀฀฀285 12/1/04฀฀฀7:13:54฀PM 286 NICOLAS SHUMWAY in some sense a strategy created to save a dying empire, to affirm a spiritual empire in place of the political empire that had just collapsed. Consider for example the critical note on José Joaquín de Olmedo’s...