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Introduction: Spanish Crossroads—Affect and Belonging in the Democratic Era

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Affect and Belonging in Contemporary Spanish Fiction and Film

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Abstract

The self is a persistent problem in Western philosophy and, more generally, in our daily lives. I discuss this problem with relation to post-Franco Spanish culture, literature, and film. I argue that Spain’s quick entry into postmodernity and recent economic and ecological crises have brought the problem of the self to the forefront. I also present my thesis that recent Spanish films and fictions focus on affective belonging—based on movement, sensation, emotion—rather than identity belonging. These texts adopt a crossroads perspective, exploring where contextualized social and historical identities meet universal being and imminent embodied consciousness. I define affective belonging through a number of perspectives on intersubjectivity:  affect theory, psychoanalysis compared to John Bowlby’s attachment theory, recent neuroscience, gender frameworks, and Buddhist Mindfulness.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hispanic Studies Department, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

    Jesse Barker

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  1. Jesse Barker
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Correspondence to Jesse Barker .

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Barker, J. (2017). Introduction: Spanish Crossroads—Affect and Belonging in the Democratic Era. In: Affect and Belonging in Contemporary Spanish Fiction and Film. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58969-5_1

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