“Between the Useful and the Beautiful”: Reading, Power and Pleasure in the Residencia de Señoritas (1930-1936)

Abstract

In the early 20th century many spaces of female sociability in Spain were characterised by the creation of habits, dispositions and forms of knowledge in University women. One of those spaces was the so-called Residencia de Señoritas [the Young Women’ Hall of Residence], founded in 1915. This institution developed tutelary practices for the education of women that went to Madrid to undertake University studies. As part of the residents’ training in refined behaviour and politeness rules, the cultivation of certain reading practices were considered a legitimate and useful aim by the educators. Following historical, social and anthropological studies that depart from a consideration that universalizes these reading practices, this essay uses a gender perspective to analyse the shaping of female readership in the context of the Hall of Residence’s Library (1915–1936). The library is understood as a space that provides and sustains reading as a practice set in a network of processes of social and cultural differentiation.