"Celestina and the Virtues of Pornography"

Dr. Emily Francomano (OC '92), Professor and Chair in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University, will deliver the lecture: "Celestina and the Virtues of Pornography, or, Grappling with the Canon"

Abstract: Engaging with pre-modern Iberian literature is often difficult and uncomfortable because it is filled with representations of violence, often of a gendered and racialized nature. Further, notions of mastery in the field of Iberian Studies have often symbolically reproduced the violence of its canon. This talk will address the troubling nature of the canon through a study of Celestina, whose protagonists are singularly canonical paragons of vice. Unlike many other works canonized by the “inventors of the Spanish Middle Ages,” Celestina was in fact incredibly popular in its own day. It also owes its stature today to its combination of verbal artistry and pornography, and, arguably, to its moral ambiguity. I will give a brief history of the reception of Celestina and its moral exemplarity, comparing these readings and counter readings with critical approaches to other contemporary exemplary texts that formed the horizon of expectation for Celestina’s early audiences. As I will argue, though these texts are difficult, there is value to reading them today; approaches to them that recognize their troublesome nature are useful for understanding the past and for reevaluating our own goals for studying literary history.

Sponsors: Department of Hispanic Studies, Mead-Swing Lectureship, Oberlin Center for Languages and Cultures, Office of Alumni Engagement.