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Introduction To The Special Issue, Adelaida López De Martínez
Introduction To The Special Issue, Adelaida López De Martínez
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
It is quite appropriate that Studies in Twentieth Century Literature should devote its 20th-anniversary special issue to the literature of Latin American women writers…
Female Divinities And Story-Telling In The Work Of Tamara Kamenszain, Naomi Lindstrom
Female Divinities And Story-Telling In The Work Of Tamara Kamenszain, Naomi Lindstrom
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
Tamara Kamenszain (b. Argentina, 1947), in her creative writing and her essays, brings together two concerns. One is her examination of concepts of woman and femininity. She specializes in mythical and archetypal representations of woman. Her texts present such figures as the great mother and forest nymphs. On many occasions, she evokes a past in which female divinities were respected, even in the Judaic tradition that is frequently Kamenszain's frame of reference. The other current that stands out in Kamenszain's writing is her interest in Jewish traditions of informal narrative. In her texts, folk narrative displaces learned and canonical narrative. …
Dynamics Of Change In Latin American Literature: Contemporary Women Writers, Adelaida López De Martínez
Dynamics Of Change In Latin American Literature: Contemporary Women Writers, Adelaida López De Martínez
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
Over the last twenty-five years Latin American societies have undergone profound changes. Where once the legalized abuses of dictatorships gave new meaning to the word "silence" for both men and women, now large segments of the population fight hard to sustain democratic regimes throughout the Continent. Repressive governments are being replaced, and shattered economies have begun to recover. Encouraged by the ever-increasing strength of international feminism, Latin American women (from Chiapas, Mexico, to Plaza de Mayo in Argentina) have risen to play key roles in this socio-political reformation. The writing of female authors has proliferated in this environment, and the …
The Subject, Feminist Theory And Latin American Texts, Sara Castro-Klaren
The Subject, Feminist Theory And Latin American Texts, Sara Castro-Klaren
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
From a feminist perspective, this essay reviews and analyzes the interaction between metropolitan feminist theories and their interphase with the academic criticism of texts written by Latin American women. Discussion focuses on the question of the subject, which the author believes to be paramount in feminist theory, in as much as the construction of gender and the historical subordination of women devolve on the play of difference and identity. This paper examines how the problematic assumption by feminist theorists in the North American academy of Freudian and Lacanian theories of the subject pose unresolved problems and unanticipated complications to subsequent …
Power, Gender, And Canon Formation In Mexico, Cynthia Steele
Power, Gender, And Canon Formation In Mexico, Cynthia Steele
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
I propose to analyze Castellanos's trajectory from marginalized ethnographer and critic of "latino" society, to presidential insider and ambassador, and the first modern Mexican woman writer to be accepted into the literary canon. I will explore the intersection of politics, gender, and the (self-) creation of a literary persona with regard to the following issues: 1) the tension between self-exposure and self-censorship in Castellanos's literary work; 2) Castellanos's intense and problematic relationship with her illegitimate, mestizo half-brother; 3) the coincidences and contradictions between Castellanos's journalistic account of her relationship with her servant Maria Escandon, and Maria's own oral history twenty …
Filling The Empty Space: Women And Latin American Theatre, Kirsten F. Nigro
Filling The Empty Space: Women And Latin American Theatre, Kirsten F. Nigro
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
In recent years, Latin American women have begun to appropriate and fill a space once empty of their presence. This essay looks at the work of four such women, (Diana Raznovich and Cristina Escofet of Argentina, Raquel Araujo of Mexico and the Peruvian Sara Joffre), to see how they give substance and voice to their particular concerns. In the process, this essay focusses on: 1) the notion of gender as performance; 2) the feminist deconstruction of narrative; 3) the female body in theatrical space; and 4) new, postmodern ways of doing feminist political theatre.