I would like to consider here the idea of subject-formation and gender that Judith Butler describes in the context of the poem “Persona” by Nancy Morejón.
Continue reading "Gender Performance in "Persona" (Morejón)" »
“Performances function as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity through reiterated.” (Taylor 2)
I would like to start off by pointing out that Diana Taylor’s call to a shift towards “performances [‘] function as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity through reiterated…”(2) serves as an alternative to these hegemonic histories that we have been discussing. Its emphasis on the ‘ephemeral’ forms of knowledge indeed includes those that have been excluded from these documented transmissions of history: women and the indigenous people (in nation building) as discussed by Gutierrez Chong. Without archival material, these two groups have almost been regarded ahistorical, therefore, with Taylor’s ‘additional sites’; their contribution in the making of histories of their nations can be reassessed and acknowledged – as the absences and gaps in the histories are filled.
Diana Taylor argues that "performances act as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity through reiterated behavior" (2). This point took me to the chapter "A Flat and Jaded Description of a New Year's Eve" in Steps Under Water.
In “Acts of Transfer”, Diana Taylor says: “Performances function as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity through reiterated, or what Richard Schechner has called ‘twice-behaved behavior’”. (2-3)
Continue reading "Performance in En breve cárcel/Certificate of Absence" »
“There is a tendency to stress, the passive and traditional role, of women as opposed to a more dynamic and enterprising project of masculine world (Chong 2).
”National identity can thus make people aware of themselves as a unique collectivity and a defender of its possessions or historic patrimony, such as territory and culture (Chong 12).”
Guiterrez Chong demonstrates how women are used as symbols of national identity.
Guiterrez Chong show how women’s bodies are manipulated as national symbols in the arts and are often idealized to create archetypal images of nationalism. While women have been used for nationalist purposes, Guiterez Chong also shows how women themselves imagine the nation.
Continue reading "Women and the Nation in Belli and Morejon" »
WOMEN AND NATION BUILDING
In the quest to reinsert Mexican women in ‘official’ masculine history of nationalism which excludes women, Gutiѐrrez Chong observes “a tendency to stress, the passive and traditional role of women as opposed to a more dynamic and enterprising project of the masculine world. for McClintock, men and women have different trajectories vis-à-vis the modern nation: ‘while women present the traditional face of nation (inert, backward-looking, and natural), men represents the progressive feature of national modernity (forward-thrusting, portent and historic)’….we do not find elements in these affirmations that undermine the importance of nationalist symbolism, which, were it not it not to exist, would make any nationalism unthinkable…[meaning that] the body or the heroic feat of women is neither a trivial nor minor affair. In short there are several roles which women assume in nationalisms, it is not only a question of seeing women as symbols or ‘garments’, but as social actors who are implicated in national processes in differing ways.” (2-3)
Continue reading "WOMEN AND NATION BUILDING - 'THE INHABITED WOMAN'" »
Similar to Kristin's question, "can we read the literary texts in this course as products of women reclaiming their (own) images for their own uses," I am interested in how building upon Gutierrez Chong's suggestion that "women have been used by and for nationalism," we can see how women writers use such manifestations of nationalisms to critique and respond to their objectification and/or exclusion (15).
“It is wide spread the assumption that nationalism, has ‘typically sprung from masculinized memory, masculinized humiliation and masculinized hope’ (Enloe, 1989, p.44 in McClintock, 1993, p. 62) or that it is a doctrine invented in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Kedourie in Leuossi, 2001, p. 230).” (Gutiérrez Chong 3)
Gutiérrez Chong, citing McClintock, writes “men and women have different trajectories vis-à-vis the modern nation: ‘while women present the traditional face of the nation […], men represents the progressive feature of national modernity’.” And then Gutiérrez-Chong adds: “Women are the repositories of authenticity and originality which all nations pursue, while their rights in the political terrain of legality are delayed. We do not find elements in these affirmations that undermine the importance of nationalist symbolism, which, were not to exist, would make any nationalism unthinkable. […] In fact, there is no nationalism lacking symbolism and, if such symbolism incarnates the exaltation and celebration of domestic space, then the body or the heroic feat of women is neither a trivial not minor affair. In short, there are several roles which women assume in nationalisms, it is not only a question of seeing women as symbols or ‘garments’, but as social actors who are implicates in national processes in differing ways” (p. 2).
Continue reading "Women and Nationalisms: Gutiérrez-Chong and Belli" »
While reading "Gender, Race, Raza," Antonio de Nebriya's line "Language has always been the companion of empire," (14) immediately brought me back to the Benegas poem, "She arises soaked in autumn":
About the date plums called "caquis," that she does not recall having seen on the branch. Perhaps someone showed her one, making it turn in her hand? She suspects that as was usual with her--she was a pianist--the word "caqui" entered through her ear, in a colonial uniform, beige color, excursions by jeep in the desert and concave hat with the hero looking through a spy glass." (83)
The first thing that strikes me is the wonderfull articulation of academic writing and “personal” writing. This personal writing is testimonial, also. Williams mixes both past memories and insights into new experiences and then compare them, relating them to the academic realm, to finally write an academic article.
In “Gender, Race, Raza”, Amy Kaminsky discusses the relationship between race and gender, and explores the ways in which gender, long accepted as a natural category, serves to legitimize and naturalize categories of race, “analyzing the instability of race itself and the part gender plays in naturalizing what gets called ‘race’ in and across cultures” (7).
Continue reading "Gender/race in "La esclava de su amante"" »