Languages of the self and nation in the Spanish 1960s

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that, during the 1960s when Spain was still under a dictatorial regime but immersed in deep changes, writers and filmmakers fabricated in their fictions innovative and indigenous ways of understanding subjectivity that exceeded expert knowledge and, to some extent, deviated from the restrictions imposed by the Franco regime. I choose the term “languages of the self” to refer to vernacular forms of self-deciphering which fabricate subjectivity, and to identify voices from the past that talk the self in relation to the nation. I use the lens of gender and queer theory to explore two different indigenous “languages of the self”: the fragmented, and the paralyzed, for which I develop the concept: “stagnated subjectivity.” Each case has different reparative implications for people’s intimate experience of the wounded nation after the Spanish Civil War.