| The dissertation examines the importance of radical notions of public space and the shifts between the public and private spheres to the culture and politics of Madrid from 1975 to the present. The aperture of the physical spaces of the city following the end of Francoism was accompanied by an opening up of the public sphere of politics, where marginalized groups that had been excluded or subsumed into a universal politics of class "came out" in demand of a political voice. Questioning many recent critical assessments of Madrid's post-dictatorship culture as apolitical, it is argued that these shifts in the relationship between the public and private are manifested in many cultural productions of the time period, thus opening up the political potential of the novels, films, and cultural movements that are analyzed. Madrid's culture during these years offers a unique space from which to observe the vicissitudes of the public-private divide and increasing difficulty in maintaining a clear distinction between the two spheres. This trend began in Madrid with counterpublics of gender and sexuality in the 1970s and followed into coming years with the urban protests of the Okupa movement, the intimate public lives of immigrants in the city, and the public intimacy of the internet. |
