Emotional Mismanagement: Academic Labor’s Neoliberal Values in Lourdes Ortiz’s Las manos de Velázquez

Abstract

Lourdes Ortiz’s 2006 campus novel, Las manos de Velázquez, depicts the deleterious emotional effects of neoliberalism’s encroachment into the Spanish university on the physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing of faculty. Through a study of narrative technique and the representation of emotion, I will demonstrate that the protagonist is depicted as a self-regulating market whose emotions must be managed for success, and that Ortiz never challenges the neoliberal belief in self-responsibility or questions the university’s role in provoking personal crises. Her protagonist’s failures are depicted as his own and the system that constrains his actions is never indicted.

Keywords:

• campus novel,
• neoliberalism,
• Lourdes Ortiz,
• twenty-first century Spanish literature

Resumen

En Las manos de Velázquez, la novela de campus de Lourdes Ortiz publicada en 2006, se representan los nefastos efectos emocionales de la incursión del neoliberalismo en la universidad española. Sin embargo, la representación de las emociones del protagonista, Teodoro, cosifica los valores neoliberales y los representa como parte natural de un modo de ser contemporáneo. Al representar al protagonista como un mercado autorregulado cuyas emociones deben manejarse para asegurar su éxito, Ortiz no cuestiona nunca la creencia neoliberal en la auto-responsabilización del individuo. Los fracasos del protagonista son suyos y no se encausa el sistema que limita sus acciones.

Palabras clave:

• novela de campus,
• neoliberalismo,
• Lourdes Ortiz,
• literatura española del S. XXI

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