ABSTRACT
In the Spanish fin de siècle, “race” was an indeterminate term that drew on conservative pasts but also projected utopian futures. As José Álvarez Junco elucidates, by the mid-nineteenth century, Spain’s early modern obsession with the cleanliness of blood was merging with a new racism anchored in European imperialism and nationalist concerns (247). Throughout that same century, however, the gradual gaining of independence by Spain’s American colonies, abolitionism, and the emergence of movements such as anarchism, socialism, and early feminism fostered more inclusive concepts of nation and “race.” The proliferation of racial theories, then, coincided with the rise of nationalisms, workers’ movements, and feminist aspirations.
