Description:

Lecture by Ana M. Fernandez-Cebrian, Assistant Professor, Columbia University.

Fables of Development: Capitalism and Social Imaginaries in Spain (1950-1967) focuses on a basic paradox: why is it that the so-called "Spanish economic miracle" - a purportedly secular, rational, and technocratic process - was fictionally portrayed through providential narratives in which supernatural and extraordinary elements were often involved? In order to answer this question, this talk examines cultural fictions and social life at the time when Spain turned from autarchy to the project of industrial and tourist development. Beyond the narratives about progress, modernity, and consumer satisfaction on a global and national level, the cultural archives of the period offer intellectual findings about the expectations of a social majority who lived in the precariousness and who did not have sufficient income to acquire the consumer goods that were advertised. Through the scrutiny of interdisciplinary archives (literary texts, cinema, newsreels, comics, and journalistic sources, among other cultural artifacts), this presentation offers an analysis of the social imaginaries about the circulation and distribution of capital and resources in the period from 1950, when General Franco's government began to integrate into international markets and institutions following its agreements with the United States, to 1967, when the implementation of the First Development Plan (1964-1967) was completed. (Talk in Spanish)