A Country Between Two Times: Spain’s Decade of Political Experimentation: A Conversation with Author Vicente Rubio-Pueyo

Join Vicente Rubio-Pueyo, lecturer, languages and cultures, and author of the book Un País Entre Dos Tiempos: La Década en que España Experimentó Políticamente (2025 Lengua de Trapo/Círculo de Bellas Artes, Spain) in conversation with Carey Kasten, Ph.D., professor of Spanish, and Carl Fischer, Ph.D., professor of Spanish.

The 2008 crash opened in Spain a profound, multifaceted crisis that was not only economic, but social, political, and institutional. And underlying all of them, a deeply cultural one: the eroding of the hegemonic narratives that had structured Spanish democracy since the Post-Francoist transition. That crisis was followed by a tumultuous decade of intense social mobilizations, innovative political experimentations and also hard reactionary responses. Spain became a laboratory on what post-neoliberal politics, both in its progressive and reactionary forms, could look like. Un País Entre Dos Tiempos invites readers to take part in a collective conversation on how these years have reshaped Spanish Democracy, and which of their learnings will still be helpful in the years ahead.