Encarnacion: Illness and Body Politics in Chicana Feminist Literature

Suzanne Bost

Published by Fordham University Press 2010

Encarnacion

Illness and Body Politics in Chicana Feminist Literature

Suzanne Bost

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823291441

Overview
Contents

About this book

Encarnación takes a new look at identity. Following the contemporary movement away from the fixed categories of identity politics toward a more fluid conception of the intersections between identities and communities, this book analyzes the ways in which literature and philosophy draw boundaries around identity. The works of Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Ana Castillo, in particular, enable us to examine how identities shift and intersect with others through processes of “incarnation.” Since the 1980s, critics have come to equate these writers with Chicana feminist identity politics. This critical trend, however, has been unable to account for these writers’ increasing emphasis on bodies that are sick, disabled, permeable, and, oftentimes, mystical. Encarnación thus turns our attention to aspects of these writers’ work that are usually ignored—Anzaldúa’s autobiographical writings about diabetes, Moraga’s narrative about her premature baby’s medical treatments, and Castillo’s figure of a polio-afflicted flamenco dancer—to explore the political and cultural dimensions of illness. Concerned equally with the medical-surgical interventions available in our postmodern age and with the ways of understanding bodies in the Native American and Catholic traditions these writers invoke, Encarnación develops a model for identity that expands beyond the boundaries of individual bodies. The book argues that this model has greater utility for feminism than identity politics because it values human variability, sensation, and openness to others. The methodology of the study is as permeable as the bodies and identities it analyzes. The book brings together discourses as disparate as Mesoamerican anthropology, art history, feminist spirituality, feminist biology, phenomenology, postmodern theory, disability studies, and autobiographical narrative in order to expand our thinking beyond what disciplinary boundaries allow.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Feeling Pre-Columbian: Chicana Feminists’ Imaginative Historiography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
2. Pain: Gloria Anzaldu´ a’s Challenge to ‘‘Women’s Health’’ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
3. Medicine: Cherríe Moraga’s Boundary Violations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
4. Movement: Ana Castillo’s Shape-Shifting Identities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
Conclusion Rethinking Body Politics: Maya González and Diane Gamboa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Other: 16 Illustrations, black and white

eBook

Published: March 24, 2022
ISBN: 9780823291441