Cátedra publishing house releases the book “El cuerpo erótico de la actriz bajo los fascismos” as a result of the research carried out within the framework of the project Eros/Censura from the team CINEMA. The volume, curated by Núria Bou and Xavier Pérez, collects the work of several authors who analyse the relationship between censorship coercion and the socio-political ideology of the woman, tackling on the issue from the images and the body of the actresses, based on the paradigmatic case of three totalitarian states (Spain, Italy and Germany). Albert Elduque, Carlos Losilla, Gonzalo de Lucas, Endika Rey, Alejandro Montiel, Jordi Balló, Núria Bou and Xavier Pérez were in charge of the career of Spanish actresses; Marga Carincé, Gino Frezza, Mario Tirino, Raffaele Pinto and Gonzalo de Lucas analyse Italian fascism, and Marta Muñoz, Manuel Garín, Marta Verheyen, Gonzalo de Lucas, Carlos Losilla y Chantal Poch focus on Nazi Germany. A common effort is recognized in the work of all of these authors for treating this questions without resorting to merely determinist models (to think of eroticism as a direct cause of repression) or to look for conclusions of universal character (limiting the national differences to a common patriarchal ideology). On the contrary, the book illustrates crucial differences in the way that each regime builds up the visual status of women and tries to give an account of the contradictions and metafictional, and very often subtle, reflections that imply some references to the personal professional trajectory of the actresses.

After all, as demonstrated by the chapters of the book, the body of the actresses receive imperative narratives of a number of kinds, loading political models and symbolic archetypes. In all of the cases though, the carnality of gestures seems to overflow these models so that, inevitably, ambiguity and sensuality lead to new questionings. It is from this premise that “El cuerpo erótico de la actriz” offers its own reading of the historical ideologies.

Profile of the book in Cátedra: https://www.catedra.com/libro.php?codigo_comercial=191179