UC Berkeley

This dissertation analyzes the prose of José Manuel Caballero Bonald and Fernando Quiñones, and the cinema from Late-Francoism to Post-Transition, paying especial attention to the flamenco films by Carlos Saura. Their shared historical Andalusian background provides an opportunity to examine the shift from Francoist centralism to the quasi-federalism of Spain's "Autonomous Communities" (la España de las Autonomías), as well as their notion of Andalusian identity within the framework of Andalusia as a newly minted Autonomous Community since 1981. Drawing on anthropology, Colonial Studies, history, and social theory, the study adopts an interdisciplinary approach as it examines the issue of Andalusian identity from the above-mentioned perspectives using a diverse corpus of texts from literature, film and the performing arts. The first two chapters focus on the rise of Andalusia as an Autonomía, and Caballero Bonald and Quiñones' attempt to purge Andalusia's stereotypical image. They review the history of the colonization of the Iberian Peninsula by the Phoenicians and the Arabs, as well as the arrival of Gypsies during the Middle Ages -which contributed to the consolidation of flamenco- and the ensuing cultural mix that was the basis for Caballero Bonald and Quiñones' concept of Andalusian identity. The third chapter analyzes the symbols they chose to represent their identity: the bull, the horse, and wine. The last two chapters explore the role of Andalusians as colonizers of the New World, who are in turn "colonized" as certain components of Latin American cultural production make their way into Andalusian aesthetics with an emphasis in the (Neo)Baroque and the "marvelous real" (real maravilloso). I find that, in the given context, both Caballero Bonald and Quiñones reflect on their identity, concluding that its particular essence is based on both mestizaje -the intermixing of Oriental, European and American cultures-and the dual status of the Iberian Peninsula as both colonizer and colonized.