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Gendered Self-Consciousness in Mexican and Chicana Women Writers: The Female Body as an Instrument of Political Resistance

Author: 
Year:
Pages:212
ISBN:0-7734-5235-4
978-0-7734-5235-0
Price:$179.95
This book examines the various representations of the female body in four contemporary Mexican and Chicana novels written by women: Los recuerdos del porvenir (1963) by Elena Garro, Nadie me verá llorar (1999) by Cristina Rivera Garza, La piel del cielo (2001) by Elena Poniatowska, and Caramelo (2002) by Sandra Cisneros. This work also analyzes the depictions of the female body in these novels from the perspectives of space and violence, abjection and national progress, sexuality and sensuality, and visibility and invisibility.

Reviews

“Traci Roberts-Camps’ new book contributes to one of the most important discussions in modern literary studies. For the last twenty years, no issue has been the subject of more hotly charged debates than the complexities of understanding the role of the sexed, raced, gendered body in philosophical, legal, literary, social, and scientific terms. . . .Roberts-Camps, and the authors under analysis in this work, offer a re-education of the reader through attention to these gendered collisions and positions.” - Dr. Debra A. Castillo, Emerson Hinchliff Professor, Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, Cornell University

"The author demonstrates how in each novel, the female body is first seen from a patriarchical standpoint but is subsequently transformed into a site of resistance against conventional views of women and their bodies. This title includes small sections of Spanish publications, and is clearly written and concise in its form and arguments." - Book Reviews

Table of Contents

Foreword by Debra A. Castillo, Ph. D.
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 Elena Garro, Los recuerdos del porvenir (1963): Violence, Space, and the Female Body
3 Cristina Rivera Garza, Nadie me verá llorar (1999): Abjection, National Progress, and the Female Body
4 Elena Poniatowska, La piel del cielo (2001): Sensuality and the Female Body.
5 Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo (2002) (In)visibility and the Female Body
6 Conclusions
Bibliography
Index