Publication Date

2017-07-26

Availability

Embargoed

Embargo Period

2019-07-26

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)

Department

Modern Languages and Literatures (Arts and Sciences)

Date of Defense

2017-07-06

First Committee Member

George Yúdice

Second Committee Member

Otávio Bueno

Third Committee Member

Omar Vargas

Fourth Committee Member

Yvonne Gevela Ramos

Fifth Committee Member

Elena Grau-Lleveria

Abstract

In my dissertation, I trace the dramatic change that Spanish society experienced around scientific and technological developments from the final decades of Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975) until now. I analyze how the recent changes and the emerging fascination with science and technology are borne out by the works of three different clusters of writers: a) the formal innovators of the 1960s; b) the pop writers of the 1990s; and c) a group of fiction writers of the 2000s imbued by techno-science (the so-called mutantes). I combine these analyses with a study of the efforts to popularize science developed by the Francoist government; the style of popularization employed by Eduard Punset in the democratic period; and, finally, the innovative and participatory techniques of popularization developed in the Medialab Prado, and their relation to the construction of new collective cultural values in contemporary Spain. The final goal of my dissertation is to craft a map that helps to explain changes in Spain. My work indicates that there has been an epistemic change among dominant Spanish elites. My dissertation tries to answer whether this epistemic change has taken place in contemporary Spain and if so, why now and not in the past.

Keywords

science & technology; literature; media; popularization; episteme; styles of reasoning

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