Making Modern Spain

“Taking a deep dive into nineteenth-century Spain’s anxieties about the sacred and the secular, Making Modern Spain rediscovers Spanish romanticism and realism through the lens of disentailment and its human cost. Azariah Alfante demonstrates conclusively that repurposing ecclesial buildings does not only displace those in religious life.”— Denise DuPont, author of Whole Faith: The Catholic Ideal of Emilia Pardo Bazán
“Alfante’s work shows us that the spirit, apart from inspiring literary masterpieces, can also be written on stone. A stimulating and insightful addition to our knowledge of religion and its critics in modern Spain.”— Gregorio Alonso, author of La nación en capilla: Ciudadanía católica y cuestión religiosa en España, 1793-1874
“Making Modern Spain is an illuminating exploration of the ramifications of disentailment through a cultural lens and on an affective level. Azariah Alfante reveals the conflicted feelings about secularization in authors of various political bents, exposing a more nuanced connection between religion, cultural identity, and politics than that found in previous studies.”— Jennifer Smith, author of Women, Mysticism, and Hysteria in Fin-de-Siècle Spain
“Making Modern Spain is a thoroughly researched piece of scholarship, which represents an original contribution to the study of the intersections among literature, politics, and religion in nineteenth-century Spain. Engaging with theoretical debates on religion and cultural memory, Alfante cogently elucidates the social, cultural, and individual human ramifications of disentailment and exclaustration in nineteenth-century Spanish literature.”— Akiko Tsuchiya, coeditor of Empire's End: Transnational Connections in the Hispanic World
“Making Modern Spain is a groundbreaking scholarly achievement and required reading for anybody interested in the intersections of literature, culture, and religion in Spain in the long nineteenth century.”— José Colmeiro, coeditor of Rethinking Iberian Studies from the Periphery