Gay Spanish Literature and the Place of Cultural Studies

Abstract

This paper scrutinises the relation between two cultural phenomena related to the institutional “discovery” of sexual and gender diversity in Spain. One is the boom of homosexually-themed fiction literature at the beginning of the new democratic regime. This boom, which has been subject to the academic literary criticism’s facile and swift dismissal, is yet to be properly comprehended. The other refers to the attitude change within Spanish cultural studies in relation to body representations, gender and sexuality —change which has been mediated by the sometimes shallow adoption of queer theory. A critical consideration of these two phenomena will lead to the following umbrella question: up to what point can it be asserted that current cultural transformations in Spain are determined by similar changes within the discipline of cultural studies?