El Madrid Postmoderno
Resumen del Libro
This dissertation takes as its point of departure the profound transformations undergone by the city of Madrid in the period following the death of Franco and the inception of democracy in Spain through its consolidation in the nineties. Not only did Madrid reshape itself physically, but the national and global perception of the city and its role within Spain changed dramatically. The advent of democracy offered an opportunity to re-imagine and re-create collective identities within Spain. Leaving behind its tainted role as the centralized incarnation of Francoist ideology, Madrid came to represent the very image of the postmodern city. The citys supposed lack of a distinctive regional identity and resultant strong cultural diversity because of migration from all over the country made Madrid an important site to study both the newly emerging identities of Spain and the lingering tensions between center and periphery. The reinvention of Madrid was, all along, both an institutional and a spontaneous project. Chapter one considers this dual legacy in the policies of the first democratic mayor of the post-Franco era, Enrique Tierno Galván, who helped to create a Madrileñan consciousness and spurred on a cultural resurgence-the famous movida madrileña-generated in large part by young people. In order to analyze these phenomena, I examine in detail articles from Villa de Madrid, an official city hall publication and La Luna de Madrid, an independent cultural magazine. Chapters two through four focus on the cinematic and literary projections of a reimagined Madrid. Chapter one contrasts the comedia madrileña of Fernando Colomo and Fernando Trueba with two films by Pedro Almodovar, Laberinto de pasiones and Carne trémula and considers the critical role of cinema in promoting a revised image of Madrid both at home and abroad. Chapter three examines issues of space and gender in novels by Rosa Montero, Almudena Grandes, and Belén Gopegui. Chapter four turns to the…
