Joyce Tolliver PhD

“Outsiders on the Inside: Mestizaje and the Economics of Colonial Desire in Sinibaldo de Mas and Francisco de Paula Entrala.” Kritika Kultura 37 (2021), pp. 321-340.

Throughout the last twenty-five years of  the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, Spaniards published essays and fiction that echoed  the view that the colonial project was doomed to failure, clearly expressed in Sinibaldo de Mas's 1843 "Informe secreto" ("Secret Report").  Less attention is paid to  nineteenth-century works by peninsulares that mirrored Mas's alternative plan preparing for Philippine "emancipation" and economically incentivizing mestizaje. Among these were the fiction and essays of the self-described "aplatanado" Francisco de Paula Entrala, which suggested that any failure of mestizaje as a normalizing colonial project was due to the shortcomings of the peninsular Spaniards themselves. In Olvidos de Filipinas (Philippines Forgotten) (1881), Entrala's rhetorical shifts simultaneously grant him the authority of an insider to Manila culture and acknowledge his position as colonial outsider; while in "El rostro y el alma" (The Face and the Soul) (1875), he plays with the conventions of Romantic narrative and of costumbrismo to portray mestizaje as the economic salvation of the would-be colonizers and  a "happy ending" to failed Spanish imperialism.

"Mario/Elisa and Marcela: Scandal and Surprise in the 1901 Spanish Press." Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies. 45.1 (2020), pp. 46-73.  

This paper analyzes the coverage found in the local and national press of the now-famous marriage of Mario/Elisa Sánchez Loriga and Elisa Gracia Ibeas in 1901 Galicia. We show that the coverage that appeared in the weeks following the event reflected the public’s willingness to question the stability and validity of gender as a category that structured social rights and privileges. We contextualize that questioning within the post-1898 Spanish fin de siglo sense of social instability and reassessment of traditional Spanish cultural institutions. We conclude that today’s framing of the event as a story of two exceptional lesbian women elides both Mario/Elisa’s self-identified transgenderism and the 1901 public’s recognition of the profound social significance of the successful passing act that the marriage represented.

    Episode 39 of Historias: The Spanish History Podcast, recorded in October 2021, features our conversation with Foster Chamberlin about the so-called "Matrimonio sin hombre" case.