"Postmodernity in Spanish Fiction and Culture" is a compelling study that combines elements of cultural studies and literary studies in order to present an integrated cultural representation of the emergence of a postmodern social constitution of contemporary Spain. Marking a sweeping reposition from earlier works about postmodernity and postmodernism in Spain, "Postmodernity in Spanish Fiction and Culture" makes a strong connection between postmodernity as social and economic conditions that are the result of unique features of a Spain of the 20th and 21st century, and postmodernism as life-style experiences that manifest new cultural and artistic practices of the 1980s and beyond. The study examines postmodernity by relating it to those exclusive social and cultural experiences that are patently Spanish (the movida, desencanto, immigration, globalization, and terrorism) and concludes that by virtue of Spain's unique socio-cultural, economic, and political history, not only does the country emerge as one of the most postmodern of all European nations but also that the conditions that define the country's evolution from the mid 1980s to the present constitute a distinctively authentic postmodernity.

Postmodern Spain examines the cultural transformation experienced by Spanish society during the late 1980s and 1990s. By looking at specific aspects of culture, the representation of the human subject, the past, and the transformation of the city this book critically re-assesses the validity of postmodernism in Spain. Focusing on the novels written by Juan Goytisolo during this period this book examines the representation and development of the human subject and its identification with the marginalized 'other(s)'. It further analyses various representations of the Spanish Civil War, challenging the prevalent view of post-Franco Spain as suffering from amnesia, and thereby vindicates postmodern historical representations as a valid dialogue with the past. The third chapter examines Barcelona's urban redevelopment, analysing the transformation effected in some of its popular sites as a postmodern re-formulation of the city as a fluid, flexible public space. Finally it brings its previous findings to bear on an analysis of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games. It argues that these celebrations constituted a performance of Spain's 'new' cultural identity designed for global, national and local consumption. Thus, these cultural celebrations corroborated the emergence of postmodernism as a cultural dominant which has exceeded modern and pre-modern cultural practices while, paradoxically, containing and enhancing both.

Foregrounding a strategy of experimental techniques which Neustadt call (con)fusing signs, the book explores critical and political dimensions of contemporary Spanish American artistic practices that are often explained away in the vague name of postmodern fragmentation. ( Con)Fusing Signs explores the techniques, consequences and purposes for this type of fragmentation. This study reassesses the much discussed crisis of representation through an analysis of the complexity of political critique in areas as diverse (and related) as postmodernity, military dictatorship and postcolonialism. This book explores the manner in which multimedia artists Diamela Eltit, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Guillermo G-mez-Pe-a articulate political critiques through textual (con)fusion while paradoxically underscoring their inability to get outside of discourse.

"This book addresses issues of identity, textual composition, discourse, and history in the later novels of Carlos Fuentes." "Readers familiar with other postmodern narratives will find a guide to reading Fuentes, a recognized innovator of Spanish American fiction. To readers familiar with the novels of the Boom and its considerable scholarship, this study provides a key to understanding Fuentes's interest in questions of an epistemological and ontological nature. This process draws on the various interpretive strategies of postmodernity, resulting in an analysis that contributes both to the body of criticism on Carlos Fuentes, and to the development of an accurate conceptualization of postmodern writing in Spanish America."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This book brings together recent Spanish fictions and films that point to individualism as the root problem driving diverse circumstances of social, economic, and psychological suffering in the present and recent past. The works privilege sensation, movement, and emotion—rather than identity—as the core elements of existential experience. However, the works also problematize notions of intersubjectivity, confronting ideals of affective immersion and cultural nomadism with the concrete contexts that shape particular lives and social formations. This confrontation underlies a series of ‘crossroads’, or productive engagements, that guide the book’s five main chapters: locally rooted identity and global cultural circuits; historical contexts and universal modes of being; personal authenticity and consumer culture; migration and cultural identity; Spain's historical underdevelopment and impending future crises. All of these issues make affective connection and attachment the greatest existential challenge facing individuals and collectives in the contemporary world, both in Spain and elsewhere.

The Spanish novel in a turbulent century.