Category Archives: Surrealism

Food, Art, and Eroticism? Gala’s Meals in Salvador Dalí’s Cookbook

Posted on December 16, 2016 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

Still looking for the perfect gift for someone who appreciates cooking and cookbooks, art and photography, or somewhat obscure Spanish cultural history? Good news! Just this October I learned that Taschen would publish a new edition of Salvador Dalí’s Rare, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Spain, Surrealism | Tagged 1940s, 1970s, books, Dalí, erotica, food, Salvador Dali, sexuality, Spain, surrealism | 2 Comments

Walking Around Scarecrows and Scarefishes: Surrealist Angst in Maruja Mallo and Pablo Neruda

Posted on September 29, 2016 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

One of the things I love about teaching and analyzing Spanish literature is that each time I (re)read a text for a new class or course, I end up interpreting it differently depending on what else I happen to be … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Literature, Spain, Spanish America, Surrealism, Women | Tagged 1930s, art, maruja mallo, Neruda, poetry, spanish art, surrealism | 1 Comment

Women and the Avant-garde: Maruja Mallo’s “Verbenas” (Carnivals)

Posted on August 9, 2016 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

Lately I’ve been returning to the art and literature of the Spanish Avant-garde – the time period that sparked my interest in studying Spanish literary, art, and cultural history more in depth (roughly 1917-1930s). Since I received my copy of … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Spain, Surrealism, Women | Tagged 1920s, art history, avant garde, gender, madrid, maruja mallo, modernity, Salvador Dali, spanish art, vanguardia, verbena | 7 Comments

The Morphing Body: Salvador Dalí’s Skulls and the Female Form

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

I’m currently working on an article that revolves around theories of corporeality and the body, so I’ve been reading a range of feminist interpretations of the subject: Elizabeth Grosz‘s challenge to mind/body dualism by way of the Moebius strip paradigm; … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Modernity, Spain, Surrealism, Women | Tagged 1950s, art, body, Dalí, femininity, gender, modernity, nudes, photography, Salvador Dali, sex, sexuality, STDs, surrealism, venereal disease, women, World War II | 22 Comments

Salvador Dalí’s Christmas Cards Are Better than Yours

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

Over the weekend, while attempting to get into the holiday spirit by setting up my table-top fiber-optic Christmas tree, baking cookies, and watching the snow fall in sub-zero temperatures, I discovered that one of my favorite Spanish artists, Salvador Dalí, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Spain, Surrealism | Tagged 1950s, art, Barcelona, Christmas, Navidad, Salvador Dali, Spain, spanish, spanish art, surrealism, teaching spanish | 35 Comments

Painting the Spanish Civil War

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Dr. Rebecca Bender

(For more information, see my more recent post with details on teaching Guernica in conjunction with Vicente Aleixandre’s poem “Oda a los niños de Madrid muertos por la metralla”, Dec. 2015). In my (Spanish) Introduction to Textual Analysis course, my … Continue reading →