This dissertation explores the ways in which contemporary Latin American narratives address the issue of marginal bodies and subjectivities by producing intricate aesthetic and ethical projects that, from a non-representational perspective, challenge the idea of one-dimensional meanings and clear-cut social and discursive identities. The argument arises from the hypothesis that these narratives articulate themselves to a contemporary historical moment marked by a social and epistemological crisis, a crisis that has to do with both current uncertainties about the future and what seems to be an historical impossibility of solving the social problems and deep economic inequalities that neoliberalism has brought to outrageous extremes. Establishing textual connections and thematic encounters between voices that emerge from different standpoints and enunciation sites, the narratives under discussion pay special attention to those impoverished and marginal bodies that dwell at the margins of our contemporary urban societies. These bodies are generally considered useless and disposable, when not contaminated and corrupted, from the point of view of the ideological prevailing system. They constitute spaces where unfixed identities are constantly being displayed and performed and where historical failure has inscribed painful scars and produced social and physical ruins.
At the same time, these narratives are concerned with the problem of language and its capacity to depict a reality that cannot be completely contained by human knowledge and symbolizing devices. These narratives do not pretend simply to reflect an ongoing crisis and to represent the marginal bodies it has produced: they experiment with language in generating complex textual 'rhizomes' that impugn linear stories and contradict the normative space of fixed semantic oppositions. Language itself becomes a malleable dimension that establishes intriguing connections between textual compositions and marginal realities that, censored and usually silenced by the hegemonic and normative discourses, demand to be recognized, named and exposed by linguistic and literary forms that can interrupt 'normal' discourses and affect the comfortable stance of uncritical readers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04192010-152011 |
| Date | 18 June 2010 |
| Creators | Herrera Montero, Lucia |
| Contributors | Richard Scaglion, Juan Duchesne-Winter, John Beverley, Hermann Herlignhaus |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04192010-152011/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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