UC Riverside

The current study provides a critical and analytical examination of different marginalized representations in contemporary 21st century Spanish film, theater and narrative. This research offers an unconventional approach to the study of marginalization by incorporating multiple works from different disciplines and combining notions of identity with distinctive deconstructive concepts such as Russell Ferguson's "phantom center," bell hook's "marginality as a site of resistance," and Anna Triandafyllidou's process of "Othering."

This dissertation exposes the connections, layers and multiple levels of complexity within marginalization as an attempt to determine and examine the development and process of this subject matter from a literary, cultural and social perspective. Chapter one explores

two different examples of subjugation with regards to the themes of prostitution and immigration in Fernando León Aranoa's film Princesas (2005) and Malco Arija Martínez's play Akua, perdida en el tiempo (2003). Chapter two examines how Antonio Muñoz Molina's narrative Sefarad: Una novela de novelas (2001) exposes the complexity and impact of an imposed identity through the topics of Judaism and physical disability. Chapter three focuses on the individual process of three representations of marginalization due to gender violence in Icíar Bollaín's film Te doy mis ojos (2003); Carmen Resino's play ¡Arriba la Paqui! (2006); and Lucía Etxebarria's novel De todo lo visible y lo invisible (2001).