The Culture of Cursileria: Bad Taste, Kitsch, and Class in Modern Spain [Hardcover]

Noël Valis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2002

Not easily translated, the Spanish terms cursi and cursilería refer to a cultural phenomenon widely prevalent in Spanish society since the nineteenth century. Like "kitsch," cursi evokes the idea of bad taste, but it also suggests one who has pretensions of refinement and elegance without possessing them. In The Culture of Cursilería, Noël Valis examines the social meanings of cursi, viewing it as a window into modern Spanish history and particularly into the development of middle-class culture.

Valis finds evidence in literature, cultural objects, and popular customs to
argue that cursilería has its roots in a sense of cultural inadequacy felt by the lower middle classes in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Spain. The Spain of this era, popularly viewed as the European power most resistant to economic and social modernization, is characterized by Valis as suffering from nostalgia for a bygone, romanticized society that structured itself on strict class delineations. With the development of an economic middle class during the latter half of the nineteenth century, these designations began to break down, and individuals across all levels of the middle class exaggerated their own social status in an attempt to protect their cultural capital. While the resulting manifestations of cursilería were often provincial, indeed backward, the concept was—and still is—closely associated with a sense of home. Ultimately, Valis shows how cursilería embodied the disparity between old ways and new, and how in its awkward manners, airs of pretension, and graceless anxieties it represents Spain's uneasy surrender to the forces of modernity.

The Culture of Cursilería will interest students and scholars of Latin America, cultural studies, Spanish literature, and modernity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Noël Valis offers brilliant, innovative insights into a cultural phenomenon that illuminates many aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spain. As perhaps one of the most distinguished cultural critics of Hispanic studies today, Valis takes an interdisciplinary approach to expose the links between text, economics, politics, and historical events.”—Harriet S. Turner, University of Nebraska

“Noël Valis's writing is powerful and insightful. Her arguments are brilliant, subtle, and carefully textured; they cleverly elucidate the duality of cursi. This is an important, imaginative, fully accomplished book that will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding more fully the cultural and literary realities of Spain a century ago.”—David T. Gies, University of Virginia

From the Publisher

"Valis's writing is powerful and insightful. Her arguments are brilliant, subtle, and carefully textured; they cleverly elucidate the duality of cursi. This is an important, imaginative, fully accomplished book that will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding more fully the cultural and literary realities of Spain a century ago."—David T. Gies, University of Virginia

"Valis offers brilliant, innovative insights into a cultural phenomenon that illuminates many aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spain. As perhaps one of the most distinguished cultural critics of Hispanic studies today, Valis takes an interdisciplinary approach to expose the links between text, economics, politics, and historical events."—Harriet S. Turner, University of Nebraska

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (December 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822330008
• ISBN-13: 978-0822330004
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,535,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Cursileria" a valuable guide to hispanic cultural production, January 1, 2007

By 

Elizabeth Rosa Horan (Tempe, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Culture of Cursileria: Bad Taste, Kitsch, and Class in Modern Spain (Paperback)

Valis's book presents "lo cursi" (pretentious bad taste) as a changing mode that over time involves a vast range of socio-economic groups. The text explores poetry and emotion, the experience of reading, the hidden political aspects of theater (and the theater of politics), the changes in Spain over the past 150 years. The idea of "cursileria" is a crucial one, too, for understanding modernity not just in Spain but in Latin America and, by extension, the Latino United States. The writing is clear, well-documented, with a wealth of examples and critical readings involving a really extensive range of cultural production.