Inhabiting the In-Between

Examining films from several genres by key directors of the Transition, Inhabiting the In-Between explores how the child is represented as both subject and object, self and other, and consistently cast in a position between categories or binary poles.

Sarah Thomas is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies and the William A. Dyer, Jr. Assistant Professor of the Humanities at Brown University.

"Covering literature on the child in Spanish and Latin American cinema, childhood studies, Spanish cinema studies, and film studies, Sarah Thomas pushes at the boundaries of these fields with this nuanced, highly sophisticated work. In this thrilling study, the child is presented as liminal, ambiguous and elusive, in careful, meticulous scholarship underpinning readings which are exhilarating and profound. The child is seen as an amalgam of often illusory meditations on the relationship of the past to the present and the self to the other – the perfect icon for our shifting understandings of Spain’s long Transition to democracy."

Tom Whittaker, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick:

"In its development of thought-provoking concepts such as the ‘child other,’ Inhabiting the In-Between provides a lucid reappraisal of Spanish film during this period. Thorough, meticulous, and engaging, Sarah Thomas demonstrates a probing and broad-ranging understanding of scholarship on representations of childhood in film and childhood studies more generally, making a significant contribution to the field of Spanish cinema studies."