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BRADLEY J. NELSON. The Persistence of Presence: Emblem and Ritual in Baroque Spain Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010. 272 pp.
In The Persistence of Presence, Bradley Nelson approaches the production of emblems from a theoretical perspective informed by anthropological and politico-philosophical traditions. Following Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Nelson defines emblems as creators of presence. Emblematic structures are conceived as powerful tools for the production of religious, metaphysical and transcendental content. They manifest a need for social and political order in response to fissures in the early modern Spanish imaginary. Although it aims for a consistent structure of meaning, one finds imbedded in the form of the emblem the ingrethents of its differential constitution. Nelson argues quite convincingly that emblems express a desire for presence as a compensation for symbolic, historical, and social instability. They communicate a unified meaning but in a hybrid form (an image combined with language and, at times, performance) . The ideological purpose of the emblem is thus to block contradictions experienced in the material and symbolic world, presenting instead a transcendental image that can stand as an integrated whole. Through ritual studies and an anthropological approach, Nelson's purpose is to focus not necessarily on the meaning of emblems, but on the social and material processes in charge of creating and disseminating them, taking into account the institutions that manage and distribute them as well. What is important is the "activity" of the emblem rather than its reading. Catherine Bell's concept of "redemptive hegemony" is fundamental to Nelson's approach, as well as José Antonio Maravall's reading of the Baroque as "dynamic guidance through activity."
The book is divided into three major sections. In the first one, the author proposes a theory of emblematic reception by focusing on Juan de Borja's Empresas morales (1581) and Juan de Horozco y Covarrubias's Emblemas morales (1603). In the case of...