Carnal Inscriptions Spanish American Narratives of Corporeal Difference and Disability

by Antebi, Susan

• ISBN13: 9780230613898
• ISBN10: 0230613896
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

While Latin American literary tradition frequently has been read with attention to monstrosity or the calibanesque, as overarching metaphors of collective identity or otherness, the specific roles and potential agency of disabled people as such rarely have been addressed in the context of this literature. Carnal Inscriptions explores manifestations of physical disability in Spanish American narrative fiction and performance, from José Martí's late nineteenth century crónicas , to Mario Bellatín's twenty-first century novels, from the performances of Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco to the testimonio and filmic depictions of Gabriela Brimmer. Readings combine critical approaches from the fields of Latin American cultural studies and disability studies, and emphasize intersections and disjunctures between metaphors of corporeal difference and monstrosity, and material histories of disabled or otherwise different bodies. The book calls for an ethics of interpretation, addressing the lived experiences of individual bodies and communities, through their entanglement with narrative and performative representation. This analysis points towards redefinitions of corporeality and disability in the contexts of Spanish American cultural production, and contributes to contemporary scholarly interest in disability and performance.

Author Biography

Susan Antebi is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Caliban and Coney Island: Corporeal Difference in the Crónicas of José Martí and José Juan Tablada	p. 13
"La doble y única mujer": The Doubled Bodies of Pablo Palacio and Jorge Velasco Mackenzie	p. 49
Corporeal Difference as Ethnicity	p. 79
Performance and Revenge	p. 107
Photographic Fictions and Corporeal Geographies	p. 141
Gabriela Brimmer: Enabling Testimonio	p. 171
Afterword	p. 199
Notes	p. 205
Works Cited	p. 217
Index	p. 227
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