The fraught tension between science and religion has loomed large in scholarship about the nineteenth century in Spain, especially given the prominence of the Catholic Church and the discoveries made by Wallace and Darwin. The struggle for epistemological superiority between these two discourses (science and religion) has served to overshadow certain corners of the cultural landscape that, though prominent sites of intellectual exploration in their day, have received comparatively less scholarly attention until recently. Fringe Discourses brings together a group of essays that seeks to restore a sense of the epistemological richness of nineteenth-century Spain. By exploring the relationship between epistemology, modernity, and subjectivity, these essays recover significant efforts by Spanish authors and intellectuals to explain human nature and their world, which seemed to be changing so radically before their eyes. In doing so the essays also reveal just how elastic the relationship was between science and pseudoscience, genius and quackery. Offering a veritable Wunderkammer, the authors collected here train their sights both on curious fields of study (from pogonolgy, the science of beards, to Spiritualism) and curiouser people (from a government spy on undercover assignment in Morocco dressed as a Moorish prince to a hypnotic huckster who dupes the queen regent). With other authors focusing on science fiction dystopias, mystical journeys, and anatomical symbology, Fringe Discourses reveals the Spanish nineteenth century for the intellectual Wild West it was.

In 1766, the Moroccan ambassador Ahmad ibn al-Mahdi al-Ghazzal embarked on an unprecedented visit to Spain during a time of eased tensions between the two countries. The sultan Sidi Muhammad ibn 'Abdallah wanted the return of Muslim prisoners and sacred Islamic texts, while the Spanish king hoped to improve trade and security across the Strait of Gibraltar. With royal welcome and escort, al-Ghazzal traveled for several months in order to meet with Carlos III at his summer palace north of Madrid. There they negotiated a historic treaty, and then the Moroccan ambassador made his way back to Marrakesh, where the treaty was ratified in the presence of the Spanish ambassador Jorge Juan and hundreds of freed Muslim captives. In total, the trip lasted a year and covered more than fifty Spanish cities and towns. Most remarkable, however, is the fact that al-Ghazzal's travelogue, in which he recorded the experience in great detail and moving prose, has been lost to history. This first full translation with critical introduction recovers his voice. It offers insight into the dawn of modern diplomacy and its overlap with literature; it looks at eighteenth-century Europe through Arab eyes; and, it explores the deep nostalgia that the Islamic past of Andalusia provoked for a Moroccan traveler who traced his family ties to exiles of the region. Finally, al-Ghazzal's visit has further significance as the neglected backdrop to one of Spain's most canonical eighteenth-century works, the Moroccan Letters of Jose Cadalso. Thus, the world literature approach of the present introduction also reimagines the pluralism of Cadalso's "foreign gaze" through the encounters of the actual ambassador in his own words.

Male-male rivalry and female passive choice, the two principal tenets of Darwinian sexual selection, raise important ethical questions in The Descent of Man--and in the decades since--about the subjugation of women. If female choice is a key component of evolutionary success, what impact does the constraint of women's choices have on society? The elaborate courtship plots of 19th century Spanish novels, with their fixation on suitors and selectors, rivalry, and seduction, were attempts to grapple with the question of female agency in a patriarchal society. By reading Darwin through the lens of the Spanish realist novel and vice versa, Travis Landry brings new insights to our understanding of both: while Darwin's theories have often been seen as biologically deterministic, Landry asserts that Darwin's theory of sexual selection was characterized by an open ended dynamic whose oxymoronic emphasis on "passive" female choice carries the potential for revolutionary change in the status of women.

Male-male rivalry and female passive choice, the two principal tenets of Darwinian sexual selection, raise important ethical questions in The Descent of Man--and in the decades since--about the subjugation of women. If female choice is a key component of evolutionary success, what impact does the constraint of women's choices have on society? The elaborate courtship plots of 19th century Spanish novels, with their fixation on suitors and selectors, rivalry, and seduction, were attempts to grapple with the question of female agency in a patriarchal society. By reading Darwin through the lens of the Spanish realist novel and vice versa, Travis Landry brings new insights to our understanding of both: while Darwin's theories have often been seen as biologically deterministic, Landry asserts that Darwin's theory of sexual selection was characterized by an open ended dynamic whose oxymoronic emphasis on "passive" female choice carries the potential for revolutionary change in the status of women.

Travis Landry is assistant professor of Spanish at Kenyon College.

"Travis Landry has an enviable gift for selecting the best quote to support an argument and it is truly a pleasure to read a book about canonical novels that has something new to say on every page." -Lou Charnon-Deutsch, State University of New York at Stony Brook

"A fascinating book. Landry's work is groundbreaking because he never leaves Darwin behind to explore Spanish literature outfitted merely with a couple of Darwinian catchphrases. Rather, he has read and reread The Descent, and, much like Darwin working in nature, comes to see the workings of Darwinian principles infusing ideas and practices in Spanish culture, far more deeply than has previously been shown." -Dale Pratt, Brigham Young University