Cross-Cultural Queer Encounters: Women, Nation and Queer Culture in Contemporary Spanish Narrative and Film

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on queer representations of female immigration and travel to and from Spain in contemporary Spanish literature and film from the late 1990s to the present. Through an intersectional analysis that considers race, class, gender and sexuality, I build on the work of scholars who explore the representation of lesbian identity and experiences in contemporary Spanish cultural production. It is my goal to demonstrate the various ways migration and sexuality transverse in more recent works and are intrinsically connected to constructions of Spanish national identity. To this end, I analyze the work of a diverse group of writers and directors, ranging from self-identified lesbian authors such as Mabel Galán, Libertad Morán and Illy Nes to critically acclaimed male directors such as Julio Medem and Fernando León de Aranoa. I examine how these works closely engage with the officially celebrated modernization process in Spain from the early 1990s onward as well as the country’s integration into Europe. As a whole, I argue that these cultural productions reveal the socio-economic and racial hierarchies still at play in Spain’s celebrated “rainbow society.” Additionally, I propose that these works provide a means for questioning globalizing discourses of sexuality and expressions of LGBT liberation across lines of race and ethnicity. Through my analysis, I aim to situate these works within the broader socio-political changes and developments in contemporary Spain as well as question the assumption that cultural, national and sexual identity are fixed entities.