59. Carolyn Wolfenzon Niego, A discourse repeated: Latin American novels
entangled in history, Ph.D., Cornell University, 2009, 254 pages; AAT 3362606
58. Julianna Laufenberg Gallardo, Particulas revoltosas: La infancia en la literatura
fantastica mexicana del siglo xx, Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2009, 228 pages; AAT
3364870
57. Diana Sofía Sánchez Hernández, Cielos de la Tierra: El desencanto de la
Historia y las posibilidades de la escritura, Tesis para obtener el grado de Maestro en
Letras Mexicanas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, (2008). El estudio
presentado en este trabajo parte de dos premisas importantes: Primero, considerar
la inclusión de la mujer, no sólo como sujeto activo de la historia sino también como
intérprete, crítico y reconstructor de la misma, lo que permite la posibilidad de
encontrar en la propuesta narrativa de Boullosa tanto una nueva forma de escribir
el pasado como una nueva visión de lo que es la otredad en el caso particular del
indígena y a su vez, del sujeto femenino. Segundo, tomar como un hecho que la
revisión histórica presentada en Cielos de la Tierra no parte solamente de la
nostalgia, sino que implica un proceso de autoconocimiento y a la vez, de
comprensión del otro. Ambos puntos son vistos a partir de un cuestionamiento de
las relaciones de poder entre los géneros, las diferentes razas y clases sociales del
México contemporáneo. De esta forma, en el estudio minucioso de Cielos de la Tierra
se subraya la escritura como un medio no sólo de conservación, sino de
recuperación de la memoria y construcción de la identidad individual y colectiva; se
puntualiza en cómo la historia personal de los grupos marginados crean una
“contramemoria”, con lo que se evidencia el desencanto de la historia oficial cuyos
recuentos del pasado eliminan la memoria del sujeto subalterno. Por lo anterior, la
novela es abordada a partir de los estudios de la posmodernidad, la poscolonialidad
y los estudios de género. Con esta amplitud teórica, se pretende agotar los sentidos
posibles de interpretación y análisis; sin embargo, ésta es sólo una propuesta de
lectura y no rechaza ni excluye la existencia de otras que se han generado a partir de
la publicación de Cielos de la Tierra hasta la actualidad. 56. Charles D. Hatfield, Rethinking difference in the Americas: Race, culture, history,
memory, Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University, 2007, 143 pages; AAT 3240722
55. Eduardo Abud Martinez, La re-visión de la historia en la ficción de mujeres
Latinoamericanas: Isabel Allende, Gioconda Belli, Carmen Boullosa y Ana Miranda.
Ph.D., The University of Arizona, 2008, 247 pages; AAT 3306715
La re-visión de la Historia en la ficción de mujeres latinoamericanas:. sabel Allende,
Gioconda Belli, Carmen Boullosa y Ana Miranda analiza cuatro obras representativas
del corpus de nuevas novelas históricas latinoamericanas, de acuerdo a las
características formuladas por Seymour Menton, escritas por mujeres,
contrastándolas con dos novelas escritas por hombres; La campaña , de Carlos
Fuentes, y Maluco , de Napoleón Barcino Ponce de León, para determinar si existen
suficientes elementos comunes diferenciadores que justifiquen una clasificación
independiente dentro de la nueva novela histórica.
El apoyo teórico que se utilizó para el análisis de las obras aquí mencionadas
fue los postulados desarrollados por la critica feminista latinoamericana,
principalmente los de Lucía Guerra-Cunningham, Sara Castro-Klarén y Elodia
Xavier. Se recurrió también como auxiliares en el análisis a la narratología, los
conceptos de Jacques Derrida para la descontrucción de los mitos culturales de la
feminidad, así como, los conceptos literarios elaborados por Mijail Bajtin de
heteroglosia, polifonía, parodia, y lo carnavalesco.
En el análisis de las obras se encontraron suficientes características
diferenciadoras que justificarían su clasificación en una categoría diferente dentro
de la nueva novela histórica, comprobando la hipótesis planteada. Entre las
principales se encuentran: (1) La transgresión del discurso tradicional patriarcal
que rompe con la dependencia y subordinación al hombre, utilizando un discurso
propio diferente al patriarcal, y exponiendo libremente lo que fue silenciado u
olvidado en la historiografía oficial. (2) La trasmisión, a través de los relatos, de
la Weltanschauung de la mujer, confrontándola a la visión masculina del mundo, la
cual se equipara, aun hoy en día, a la conciencia humana como verdad absoluta.
(3) La inscripción del cuerpo en el texto, con lo que la mujer trasciende los antiguos
tabúes, haciendo mención directa de su sexualidad, mostrando explícitamente una
carga libidinal específica donde los tabúes concernientes a las funciones biológicas y
psíquicas del cuerpo femenino son tratados abiertamente. (4) El uso preponderante
de la primera persona y el tono confesional intimista donde la protagonista busca a
través del autoconocimiento la condición de sujeto que le ha sido tan
frecuentemente negada en la sociedad falocrática en la que se encuentra inserta.
54. Inés Ferrero Candenas, Gendering the Marvelous: Strategies of Response in
Remedios Varo, Elena Garro and Carmen Boullosa, PhD, Edimburg University, 2007
53. Glenda L Bermúdez Rivera, La presencia del narrador en la novela Duerme de
Carmen Boullosa: Una propuesta pedagógica, Ph.D., Universidad de Puerto Rico,
Recinto de Río Piedras.
52. Margarita López López, Las voces subversivas en la novelística de Carmen
Boullosa. Ph.D., University of California, Irvine, 2007, 163 pages; AAT 3282802
La novelística de Carmen Boullosa es muestra de la literatura postmoderna y el
pensamiento mexicanos que desde la década de 1980 llegan a representar un nuevo
realismo. Boullosa traza su concepción del mundo, apuntalando problemas
profundos que le preocupan (la conservación de México y del universo) y desliando
la dualidad del lenguaje para exponer discursos de autoridad como instrumentos de
represión y opresión, con el fin de abordar una conciencia de igualdad psicológica y
sociopolítica de los sexos. Esta disertación analiza las novelas de la infancia, Mejor
desaparece, ¡Que viva! y Antes, como textos cuyo carácter fantástico devela espacios
intersticiales como lugares (1) de marginación del "Otro" silenciado, y (2) de
potencialidad dialógica para la subversión. El análisis de las novelas
históricas, Llanto. Novelas imposibles, San vacas, somos puercos y Duerme, atiende a
la historicidad (1) para instaurar la función social de la historiografía como un
discurso para explorar problemas y preocupaciones profundas sobre el individuo y
(2) para crear un espacio discursivo para el "Otro". Se postula un valor político de
las voces heteróclitas en este discurso boullosiano, manifestado como VIII
(1) cuestionamiento y subversión de la ideología colonialista; (2) socavamiento de
la historia oficial; y (3) (re)escritura y (re)invención del discurso historiográfico
oficial. Advirtiendo la trascendencia del lenguaje y partiendo de una visión utópica
hacia el futuro, se hace una exploración de la identidad mexicana en las novelas
utópicas La Milagrosa y Cielos de la Tierra. Los protagonistas representativos del
"Otro" se inscriben en el proceso mismo de la representación, sustrayéndose del
confinamiento a causa de su género y de la polarización sexual. A través de una
diversidad de voces subversivas femeninas y masculinas, se produce un discurso
andrógino inclusivo en que el individuo opta libremente por modos de
comportamiento antes asignados sólo a uno u otro sexo. Las novelas de Boullosa se
estudian como textos postmodernos que subvierten los géneros narrativas
tradicionales y recuperan el lenguaje dándole un génesis discursivo, historiográfico
y literario transtemporal que explora la descolonización del "Otro" y produce un
discurso andrógino o concepto de totalidad del Sujeto, con sus múltiples
manifestaciones masculinas y femeninas.
51. Terry Ellen Seymour , Sacrificial rituals: Eroticism, literature, and the conquest
of Mexico. Ph.D., Columbia University, 2007, 249 pages; AAT 3266676
This thesis examines how Gustavo Sainz's Fantasmas aztecas , Carmen
Boullosa's Llanto , and Carlos Fuentes's El naranjo rework the history of the
conquest of Mexico. Their abundant allusions to sacrificial rituals, combined with
the use of transgressive eroticism and grotesque images of mutilation, point to the
influence of Georges Bataille.
The Introduction deals with the traditional link between eroticism and the
Mexican conquest as embodied by la Malinche and argues that Bataille's ideas on
eroticism and sacrificial ritual helped the Mexican writers rework the myth of
national origins.
The second chapter examines the presentation of the conquest in Fantasmas
aztecas as a conflict between Catholicism and Aztec human sacrifice, as well as
between reason and eroticism. Through the metaphor of sacrificial dismemberment,
the goddess Coyolxauhqui comes to represent a parodic and critical attitude that is
presented as fundamentally Mexican. Llanto uses Aztec mythology and the history
of the conquest to create a tale that is also a healing ritual. Chapter three shows that
in the novel, Boullosa presents literature as a destructive ritual, but rejects Bataille's
association of eroticism with violence.
In chapter four, I study two novellas from El naranjo that present the
transmission of the Spanish language to Mexico as the foundation of Mexican
culture: Las dos orillas and Apolo y las putas . Las dos orillas deals with the birth of
Mexican Spanish through a violent, erotic encounter, while Apolo y las
putassuggests that in the modern world this eroticized form of Spanish can function
as a form of resistance to outside forces.
In the conclusion, I argue that although Bataille's ideas on eroticism are not
the only surrealist or dissident surrealist influences on these authors, they play an
important role in the reworking of conquest history.
50. James M., Griesse, Utopia and postmodernism in recent Latin American fiction.
Ph.D., The Catholic University of America, 2007, 187 pages; AAT 3257627
The concept of utopia has been a dominant force in the collective Latin American
psyche since the era of colonization. Utopian desires have manifested themselves
not only in the political and social realms in Latin America but also in its literature.
This dissertation continues the discussion of utopia through a focus on Latin
American literature written during the postmodern era. According to Jean-François
Lyotard's famous definition of postmodernism--"incredulity toward
metanarratives"--we can no longer trust grand narratives such as Marxism that
promise to create utopian societies. The failure of socialist and revolutionary
movements in Latin America and other regions of the world would seem to confirm
this general pessimism.
The question I consider in this dissertation is how recent Latin American
fiction has responded to this crisis. The following four novels written during the
1990's address this issue: La nada cotidiana by Zoé Valdés, Cielos de la tierra by
Carmen Boullosa, Babel, el paraíso by Miguel Gutiérrez, and Waslala by Gioconda
Belli. Each of these novels echoes, to varying degrees, the pessimism of
postmodernism with respect to the viability of utopian projects. The theoretical
framework of my analysis is grounded in Lyotard's explanation of the "postmodern
condition," derived from Ludwig Wittgenstein's notion of language games, and
postmodern/poststructuralist theories of language, all of which suggest how
language itself is often implicated in the crisis of utopia. The postmodern theories
that inform my discussion indicate how language use in society is not always the
simple affair that many modern structuralists assumed it was. In fact, conversation
and communication often lead to conflict or misunderstanding, which can threaten
the construction or maintenance of a utopian society. However, despite the current
crisis in utopian thought, I show that the idea of utopia is still useful and necessary
as a tool to promote progressive social change and as a "directional reference" that
can help orient future political projects toward the goal of constructing a more just
society. I also demonstrate that language is not necessarily an insuperable
hindrance to the creation of such a society.
49. Margarita Lopez Lopez. Las voces subversivas en la novelistica de Carmen
Boullosa. Ph.D. 2007. pp. 163. University of California, Irvine; 0030
La novelística de Carmen Boullosa es muestra de la literatura postmoderna y el
pensamiento mexicanos que desde la década de 1980 llegan a representar un nuevo
realismo. Boullosa traza su concepción del mundo, apuntalando problemas
profundos que le preocupan (la conservación de México y del universo) y desliando
la dualidad del lenguaje para exponer discursos de autoridad como instrumentos de
represión y opresión, con el fin de abordar una conciencia de igualdad psicológica y
sociopolítica de los sexos.
Esta disertación analiza las novelas de la infancia, Mejor desaparece, ¡Que
viva! y Antes, como textos cuyo carácter fantástico devela espacios intersticiales
como lugares (1) de marginación del "Otro" silenciado, y (2) de potencialidad
dialógica para la subversión. El análisis de las novelas históricas, Llanto. Novelas
imposibles, San vacas, somos puercos y Duerme, atiende a la historicidad (1) para
instaurar la función social de la historiografía como un discurso para explorar
problemas y preocupaciones profundas sobre el individuo y (2) para crear un
espacio discursivo para el "Otro". Se postula un valor político de las voces
heteróclitas en este discurso boullosiano, manifestado como VIII 1) cuestionamiento y subversión de la ideología colonialista; (2) socavamiento de la
historia oficial; y (3) (re)escritura y (re)invención del discurso historiográfico
oficial.
Advirtiendo la trascendencia del lenguaje y partiendo de una visión utópica
hacia el futuro, se hace una exploración de la identidad mexicana en las novelas
utópicas La Milagrosa y Cielos de la Tierra. Los protagonistas representativos del
"Otro" se inscriben en el proceso mismo de la representación, sustrayéndose del
confinamiento a causa de su género y de la polarización sexual. A través de una
diversidad de voces subversivas femeninas y masculinas, se produce un discurso
andrógino inclusivo en que el individuo opta libremente por modos de
comportamiento antes asignados sólo a uno u otro sexo.
Las novelas de Boullosa se estudian como textos postmodernos que
subvierten los géneros narrativas tradicionales y recuperan el lenguaje dándole un
génesis discursivo, historiográfico y literario transtemporal que explora la
descolonización del "Otro" y produce un discurso andrógino o concepto de totalidad
del Sujeto, con sus múltiples manifestaciones masculinas y femeninas.
48. James W., Jr. Gustafson, Hidden identity in the contemporary Latin American
historical novel: The Conquest seen through the eyes of double agent characters. PhD.
2007. The University of Nebraska - Lincoln; 0138, pp. 225. Adviser Catherine Nickel.
Many contemporary Latin American authors explore identity and re-write the past
through narrative fiction, often looking to the violent beginnings of the Conquest
and Colonization as a logical point of departure. This dissertation examines identity
formation through fictional characters living with two identities in the following
historical novels: El naranjo by Carlos Fuentes, Gonzalo Guerrero by Eugenio
Aguirre, Duerme by Carmen Boullosa, Invasores del paraíso by Herminio Martínez,
Memorias del Nuevo Mundo by Homero Aridjis, and Los perros del paraíso by Abel
Posse.
Chapter One situates this study among the substantial critical corpus
dedicated to Latin American novels of the Conquest and introduces a theoretical
framework for analyzing double agent characters and identity formation in Latin
American literature. Chapter Two contrasts the characterizations of Gonzalo
Guerrero and Jerónimo de Aguilar in novels by Carlos Fuentes and Eugenio Aguirre
with previous representations and analzyes the significance of the more complex,
dual identity view of these two historical personages. Chapter Three examines dual
identity as it relates to gender and sexuality. In Duerme a French woman cross-
dresses as a Spanish soldier while in Invasores del paraíso, a young man with
repressed homoerotic desires negotiates an identity between the typical machismo
found among most members of his expedition and a group of openly practicing
homosexuals. Chapter Four explores the complex identity of the Crypto-Jews, or
secret Jews, and their persecution by the Inquistion in fifteenth century Spain and in
the New World. Two characterizations of Christopher Columbus as a converso and
possible Crypto-Jew in Los perros del paraíso and Memorias del Nuevo Mundo inform
the examination of this phenomenon. Chapter Five looks at the broader issues
related to identity formation in contemporary Latin America such as globalization
and the creation of new types of readers.
47. Iliana Alcantar, En busca de la quimera mexicana: Nuevas nociones de identidad
en la literature y performance contemporaneous. Ph.D., University of California, Los
Angeles, 2006, 173 pages; AAT 3247461. Adviser A. John Skirius
This dissertation proposes that the search for a subjective identity emerges as a
response and to contest the concept of a national identity, created in the beginning
as part of intellectual and nationalistic discourses, as well as a political agenda. I
argue that the construction of the Mexican identity, as seen in previous works of
literature and the social sciences throughout the twentieth century, is merely an
intellectual discourse, and call attention to the problems that arise due to this elitist
production and reception. Instead, I propose a novel by Carmen Boullosa and the
performance art of Astrid Hadad as an alternative to this type of hegemonic view.
This study---interdisciplinary by nature---explores how the concept of identity is
reinvented as a need of personal expression, as well as a result of cultural,
sociopolitical, and economical changes that have taken place within the last decades
in Mexico.In chapters one and two, the performance art of Astrid Hadad is examined
in order to demonstrate how through her body, Hadad deconstructs and
reconstructs the concepts of nationhood and Woman. In chapters three and four,
Carmen Boullosa's novel, Cielos de la Tierra highlights the opposition of the personal
and the feminine versus the intellectual and historical discourses. At the same time,
the book offers the possibility of a third, alternative space from which individuals
can inscribe themselves in those same discourses that tend to ignore them or
homogenize them. The characters depicted in the novel, and those embodied by
Hadad through her performance art, represent new notions of identity because they
do not conform to the mold. On the contrary, they have been excluded from the
hegemonic and patriarchal discourses of history and nation building. The concept of
identity, as concluded in this study, and based on the works explored, is a perennial
pursuit, a reevaluation of preexisting categories, and the continuous struggle for the
recognition and inclusion of the difference.
46. Catalina Avina, The demythification of traditional female roles in Carmen
Boullosa, PhD
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA - LINCOLN, 2006. 3209278
45. Rosana Blanco-Cano, Dissident Mexican women: Textual and performative
reconfigurations of national models of gender since 1970. 2006. Ph.D. pp. 318. Tulane
University; 0235. Adviser Maureen Shea. his dissertation focuses on the work of
contemporary Mexican women writers and performance artists who, from 1970 up
to today, have created dissident cultural expressions that challenge the underlying
logics of gender and nationality in the post-revolutionary cultural discourse. My
analyses of the complex reality of Mexican women's cultural production require the
use of theoretical frameworks that allow me to analyze the intersections among
gender, social class, ethnicity, trans-nationalism, and globalization. From the 1970s,
Mexican women writers and artists have challenged the monolithic discourse of
mexicanidad by means of creating a radical body of works and styles. Polvo de
Gallina Negra (Maris Bustamante and Mónica Mayer), Carmen Boullosa, Astrid
Hadad, Sandra Cisneros and Petrona de la Cruz have created a dissident body of
works that deal with the representation of plurality both in the experience of being
Mexican and of being women. I argue that Mexican, Mayan and Chicana women
culture producers contest the hegemonic and "national" conceptions of gender and
nationality through three basic thematic and formal strategies: rewriting official
history to recover marginalized feminine and indigenous identities; dislocating
heterosexuality by daring to denaturalize "sacred motherhood"; and reconceptualizing the cultural and territorial Mexican map by demonstrating how
national discourses proclaim an artificial homogeneity and an imagined community.
As I argue, the innovative stylistics in women's performance and art and literary
production reconfigure the mythical and historical narrations about gender and
nationality in Mexico, and propose within their works alternative models of women
that overcome the reduced and binary gallery on feminine models in national life.
44. Jessica Noelle Burke, Bodies in transition: Identity and the writing process in the
narrative of Carmen Boullosa, Ph.D., Princeton University, 2005, 199 pages; AAT
3188613. Advisor: Arcadio Díaz Quiñones.
This dissertation studies the relationship between body, identity and the writing
process in the narrative work of the contemporary Mexican writer Carmen Boullosa.
Boullosa uses the physical body as a metaphor for social identity in much of her
work, and this study explores the relationship between representations of the
physical body and the narrative corpus of Boullosa's fiction. By deconstructing our
instituted notions of body, identity, and gender, Boullosa fragments both her
characters' bodies as well as the "body" of the text, questioning traditional methods
of presenting both. The particular and personal "histories" that she creates in her
novels dialogue with and question the official History that often has excluded or
silenced certain voices. Boullosa gives these marginalized groups a voice and a
space from which they can express themselves. Chapter 1, "Dreadful Bodies,"
considers the treatment of childhood sexuality in Boullosa's early narrative work.
Focusing on the author's first two novels, this chapter analyzes the function of the
body in the formation of a notion of "self" and sexual identity in childhood and
adolescence. Chapter 2, "Re-negotiating Colonial Bodies in Historiographic
Metafiction," explores the different meanings attributed to colonial bodies-including those of women, children, slaves, prostitutes, pirates, and the indigenous
people of the Americas--in fictitious plots that attempt to fill in the "gaps" in
historical narrative. Central to discussion is the writing process in the fields of
history and literature, and the problem of representation. The third and final
chapter, "Consuming the Other," confronts fascinating cases of cannibalism,
vampirism and other forms of consumption in Boullosa's fiction. The borders of the
body are threatened, violated, blurred, erased, and yet paradoxically reinforced
through incorporation of the "Other." Together these three chapters present a new
focus on Boullosa's narrative work--one that considers the body in transition. The
physical, metaphorical and textual bodies of Boullosa's narrative are works in
progress, requiring the active participation of the reader in the construction of their
meaning.
43. Kseniya A. Vinarov, La novela detectivesca posmoderna de metaficcion: Cuatro
ejemplos mexicanos (Spanish text, David Toscana, Luis Arturo Ramos, Carmen
Boullosa, Jorge Volpi), PhD, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE, 2005, 198
pages. 3179410
42. Ramon Trejo Tellez, Desestilizacion del sujeto en la narrativa mexicana
contemporanea: Un acercamiento centrifugo-centripeta (Spanish text, Carmen
Boullosa, Maria Luisa Puga, Barbara Jacobs), PhD, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT
AUSTIN, 2005, 161 pages. 3185981
41. David Buyze, The Aftertastes of Colonialism: Latin Americanism and Cultural
Meaning, Supervisor: Rosa Sarabia, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, 2005.
40. Ute Seydel, Narrar historia (s): la ficcionalización de temas históricos por las
escritoras mexicanas Elena Garro, Rosa Beltrán y Carmen Boullosa, PhD, UNIV.
POSTDAM, Germany, 2004.
39. Maria G. Akrabova, Sheherazada en el espejo: Una aproximacion a lo fantástico
femenino (Spanish text, Isabel Allende, Chile, Carmen Boullosa, Mexico, Almudena
Grandes, Cristina Fernandez Cubas, Spain), PhD, THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS,
2004, 248 pages. 3148862
38. Maria Victoria Albornoz, El canibalismo como metafora de incorporacion y
traduccion cultural: Perspectivas desde hispanoamerica (Spanish text, Jose Eustasio
Rivera, Colombia, Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru, Juan Jose Saer, Argentina, Carmen
Boullosa, Mexico, Ruth Behar), PhD, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 2004, 284 pages,
AAT 3139821
37. Julie Lynn Hempel, Faces, bodies, and spaces: Differential identity construction in
Mexicana and Chicana narrative, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 2004, pp. 238.
Examines the intersections and imbrication of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and
sexuality in the narrative of five Mexican women writers and two Chicana writers.
The aim of this border approach is to problematize manifestations of difference in
Mexican society through compilation and analysis of writers', characters', and
readers' voices. I have chosen works by five contemporary Mexican women writers
(Guadalupe Loaeza, Ethel Krauze, Rosamaría Roffiel, Carmen Boullosa, and Sylvia
Molina) and two Chicanas (Erlinda Gonzales-Berry and Sandra Cisneros) who
examine simultaneously class, ethnicity, gender, and, at times, sexual preference.
These narrative works offer a border reading that problematizes difference,
subjectivity, and social spaces. The analysis of these pluralistic subjectivities, and
the literary mechanisms used to create and frame them, form the core of this
dissertation, one from which I cast a more transformative critical tool to be used in
understanding the inherently multiple and heterogeneous identity of the
postmodern subject. The theoretical underpinnings of this study are those which
grapple with the interweaving of gender, class, and ethnicity in the creation of
identity. Such a notion is grounded in the concept of the “rizoma”; as conceived by
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and strives to reflect the complexity of the
connections and negotiations between multiple elements of subjectivity and
different subjects. Yet, beyond this general framework, the theories which inform
the textual analysis of this study further contribute to a transnational dialogue
between Latin America, the U.S., and Europe. Concepts of masking and face
developed by Rosario Castellanos and Octavio Paz are juxtaposed with those posited
by Mikhail Bakhtin and Gloria Anzaldúa. Severo Sarduy's writings on the body
dialogue with those by Judith Butler and José Esteban Muñoz. And finally, Jessica
Benjamin's and Setha Low's ideas of space converse with those of Gloria Anzalúa
and Pat Mora. By means of an integration of literary and audience analysis, this
study attempts to elicit a theoretical model uniquely capable of evoking a broader
and more complex view of subjectivity than has been attempted in studies to date,
thus contributing potentially groundbreaking research to a fecund yet relatively
unexamined literary corpus.
36. Maria Sol Colina Trujillo, Nation and narration: Feminine identity
reconstruction in Angeles Mastretta (Spanish text, Laura Esquivel and Carmen
Boullosa), PhD
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - COLUMBIA, 2003, 142 pages. 3099615.
Advisor: Marvin Louise.
Each of the texts included in this study highlights a specific stage in what I argue is a
shared narrative project: claiming the power of interpretation by recuperating
silenced or marginalized subjects through the reconstruction of the discourse of
history and ultimately, the identity within a nation. I decided to limit my study to the
country of Mexico during the nineties and restrict it to four novels: Mal de amores
1996 ( Sick of Love ), La Milagrosa 1993 ( The Miracle Worker ), La ley del amor 1995
( Law of Love ) and Cielos de la tierra 1997 ( Heavens on Earth ). Rather than writing
female characters in metonymic relations to government or nations, the Mexican
women writers chose to develop alternate narratives and spaces that imagine new
roles for female citizens in the context of postcolonial politics. The women writers'
project is not to build their own foundational fictions, rather to question the lack of
recognition of political participation and the female experience as a paradigm for
history. Every novel represents different stages on the project. Mastretta and
Boullosa deconstruct paradigms of identity and nationhood through the careful
creation of education, in the case of Emilia in Mal de amores , and deconstruction of
images of both religion and nation in the case of the Miracle Worker . Against the
violence and injustice of the Mexico of the nineties, the female writers chose to
implement a historical discourse to safeguard the possibility of change, of
reconstructing the self beyond the official history. Esquivel as well as Boullosa try to
integrate to their narratives the silenced and marginalized voices. The discourses of
the novels studied here are concerned with the accurate register of historical events
by adding the individual experience. The act of writing is a claim to the power of
interpretation of marginalized groups such as women and Indians. Citizenship is
related to the act of writing and interpreting history. Mexican women writers, The
feminine becomes political in the narrative of Angeles Mastretta, Laura Esquivel and
Carmen Boullosa. Their discourses offer a more elaborate form of female
citizenship.
35. Juli Ann Kroll, 'Vampires without appetites': Monstrous embodiments of gender,
sexuality, and nation in the texts of Carmen Boullosa (Mexico), PhD, UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA, 2003, 373 pages. 3098606
34. Stephanie Leigh Vague, A life of one's own: Mexican fictions of female
development (Carmen Boullosa, Angeles Mastretta, Maria Luisa Puga), PhD, THE
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, 2003, 211 pages. 3114403 Advisor, Balderston, Daniel
A Life of One's Own is a critical study of the evolution of the bildungsroman genre in
contemporary Mexican women's fiction. The study considers the ways in which
three current authors challenge the boundaries of the novel of development as they
offer in-depth looks at the process of self realization in Mexican female protagonists.
Angeles Mastretta, Carmen Boullosa, and María Luisa Puga have drawn from trends
in Mexican and Latin American literature as well as from national history and more
recent social movements in Mexico to produce a body of literature that reflects the
unique experiences of female self-realization in late twentieth century Mexico. Using
a multidisciplinary approach that includes post-structuralist feminist theory,
current trends in psychoanalysis, and cultural studies, A Life of One's Own offers a
close and critical reading of six novels by these authors that offer distinct written
representations of female self-realization in Mexico: Arráncame la vida and Mal de
amores by Mastretta; Antes and Treinta años by Boullosa; and Pánico o peligro and
La viuda by Puga.
Until recently, the representation of female identity in Mexican narrative was
limited in scope, focusing primarily on superficial mythical images of the Virgin of
Guadalupe or La Malinche, violated mother of the Mexican nation. The increased
social awareness of the late 1960s and 1970s produced an atmosphere in which
women became more aware of social movements throughout the world that
challenged accepted norms concerning women's roles in society. Simultaneously
authors in Mexico, including Rosario Castellanos, Elena Poniatowska, and Julieta
Campos published collections of essays, poetry and novels that provided examples
of written representation of female protagonists that went beyond the pre-existing
norms of female identity in earlier Mexican literature to offer more fully developed
images of women in writing. Mastretta, Boullosa, and Puga appear to have continued
this trend expanding not only the concept of identity in the six novels of this study,
but also the boundaries of the bildungsroman genre.
33. Susanna Regazzoni, Carmen Boullosa: de la poesía al Bildungsroman,
UNIVERSITÁ CA'FOSCARI VENEZIA, Tesi di Laurea, 2002-2003.
32. Erika Mueller, Kueste und Text. Das 'Empire' schreibt zurueck: Die Antwort der
Calibane auf Kolonialismus und Moderne (Coast and Text: The 'Empire' writes
Regresar. Caliban´s response to colonialism and modernity), UNIVERSITAET WIEN,
Dr. phil., 2002 (deutsch). The purpose of this thesis is the analysis of the presence of
colonialism and modernity in 20 th century Latinamerican and Caribbean (French,
Spanish) island- literatures. I am applying the term colonialism not only in Edward
Saids sense as specific form of exploitation and as consequence of European
expansion, but also in a metaphorical way: as the occupation and colonisation of
body, mind, the woman, nature, the Other by means of different discourses of
European modernity such as science, technology and nation. The authors to be
analysed are Adolfo Bioy Casares (Argentina), Carmen Boullosa (Mexico), Aimé
Cesaire (Martinique), Laura Restrepo (Colombia), Abilio Estévez (Cuba), who choose
to locate their narration on geographically existent islands. Through the islands as
ideal space for colonisation, as not only a geographic reality but the symbol of
colonialism, as ideal-space for occidental, white male desire and projection, the
analysis shows the way colonialism is discussed in the "periphery". This
interdisciplinary work is mainly focused on colonial and postcolonial discourse
theory as well as on feminist theory and philosophy of science.
31. Irene Wenger, Die Darstellung der indigenen Thematik bei Carmen Boullosa
(Llanto, Duerme, Cielos de la Tierra). Magistra der Philosophie. UNIVERSITÄT GRAZ,
2002.
30. Valerie Zukin, El cuerpo, el traje y el liquido vital: el juego de la construccion de
genero en la narrativa femenina. BA, Haverford College, 2002. In analyzing the
works: Desenganos amorosos, by Maria de Zayas ; Cola de lagartija, by Luisa
Valenzuela ; and Duerme, by Carmen Boullosa, I demonstrate the gender narrative
game. The three authors use the body, disguises and blood to build an interpretation
of gender as social construction that challenges both postmodern interpretation and
radical feminism. The authors find an equilibrium between the total deconstruction
of gender and the importance of its construction for society.
29. Priska M.Ballmaier, Von der Möglichkeit, ICH zu sagen, Lebensentwürfe im Werk
mexikanischer Autorinnen, Wissenschaftsverlag Dr. Josef Kovac, Hamburg, 2001, 274
pqges. ISBN, 3-8300-0371-4
28. Sabine Coudassot-Ramírez, Carmen Boullosa: Itinéraries d'une graphographe
fantastique. Thèse pour obtenir le grade de Docteur de L'UNIVERSITÉ DE LA
SORBONNE (Paris III), 365 pp, 2001.
27. Anna Forne, Textual piracy: A hypertext study of 'Son vacas, somos puercos' and
'El medico de los piratas' of Carmen Boullosa. Fildr, LUNDS UNIVERSITET
(SWEDEN), 2001. The aim of this study is to examine the rewriting of the memoirs
of the former pirate Alexander Olivier Exquemelin, Los Piratas de América, originally
published in Amsterdam in 1678, which the Mexican writer Carmen Boullosa carries
out in two recent novels, Son vacas, somos puercos and El médico de los piratas ... The
dissertation concludes with the suggestion that Son vacas, somos puercos presents a
hypertextual unfolding of the ideology of the pirate's brotherhood; that the greater
subjective presence of the narrator-protagonist in the rewriting highlights the
temporal discrepancy between the narration and the history, and consequently also
implies a greater emphasis on the disagreement between the experiences of the
protagonist in the past and the present knowledge of the narrator. Furthermore it is
suggested that the diegesis originally described in Exquemelin's memoirs is
nuanced by the inclusion or activation of women, African slaves and Indians. The
idea that in Son vacas, somos puercos, the image of the pirate is transvalorized in
constructive terms is also put forward…
26. Anna Reid, Historiographical and Political Discourses in the Work of Carmen
Boullosa, PhD, KINGS COLLEGE, LONDON, 2000.
25. Huijulan Heinlein, Conjugarse en infinitivo -voz narrativa, identidad y memoria
en las novelas de Carmen Boullosa, UNIVERSITÉ DE PARIS 3, SORBONNE NOUVELLE,
Dir. M. le Prof. Claude Fell, 2000.
24. Barbara Rebecca Fick, Narrative transgression and disembodied voices: The
reconstruction of identity in the novels of Carmen Boullosa (Mexico), PhD, THE
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, 2000, 184 pp.
This study presents a postmodern-feminist analysis of Boullosa's nine novels
published between 1987 and 1998. Boullosa's writing continues and adds to many
of the innovations initiated by earlier twentieth-century authors in Latin America
and, in this way, interrogates textual representation in the process of identity
construction through an ongoing dialogue with the past and its literature. The
present study examines the strategies employed by the author in order to engage a
more active reader, present plural perspectives, and challenge established social
and literary institutions. … Boullosa opens up textual space for the representation of
other perspectives and a plurality of voices formerly marginalized by hegemonic
discourses. Her writing presents a revision of the self and Mexican identity in the
twentieth century…
23. Shigeko Mato, Locating Female Creation In A Hybrid Space: Carmen Boullosa's
Trans-Liminal Narrative (Mexico); PhD, THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2000,
167 pp.
The purpose of this study is to analyze how contemporary Mexican writer Carmen
Boullosa challenges the traditional notion of women's writings in three of her
narratives, Mejor desaparece (1987), Papeles irresponsables (1989), and La
Milagrosa (1993). In these three narratives, Boullosa creates a hybrid space in
which the dichotomies of female/home/private/mass culture and male/public/and
culture are destabilized. … The final chapter concludes that Boullosa's trans-liminal
narrative can subvert the fixity of traditional definitions and boundaries. Algunos
aspectos de la metaficcion en dos novelas de Carmen Boullosa.
22. Lorena Monzon, Algunos aspectos de la metaficcion en dos novelas de Carmen
Boullosa. MA, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO, 2000 El análisis de la técnica
en Mejor desaparece y Duerme nos permitirá observar cómo algunas características
de la metaficción influyen en la representación de la historia misma.
21. Corinne Machoud Nivon, Rituel de l'ecriture et metamorphoses du miroir :
traductions au feminin (de et avec Carmen Boullosa). Thèse pour obtenir le grade de
Docteur de L'UNIVERSITÉ DE LA SORBONNE (Paris III), 422 pp.
20. Leonor Cristina Costa Santos, The Quest For An Authentic Feminine Identity:
Innovations In The Narrative by Clarice Lispector and Carmen Boullosa (Brazil,
Mexico), PhD, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (CANADA), 2001. This doctoral
dissertation is a study of the narrative techniques utilized by Clarice Lispector and
Carmen Boullosa to overcome the socio-cultural bonds of language imposed on
women in their respective cultures. In order to do so both authors approach the
problematic of writing within a markedly patriarchal environment by subverting
traditional narrative discourse. It is within this fluid narrative structure that
feminine identity is explored from the philosophical perspective of alterity: to know
one's self one must also know one's Other. Therefore, dialogue is the instrument
through which there is potential for the discovery of identity and it is through a
fragmented narrative structure that both Lispector and Boullosa provoke the reader
to surpass limitations of prejudgements, semantic or otherwise. … Although the
focus of this dissertation is on the process of conscientization of feminine identity it
should be clear that both Boullosa's and Lispector's work incorporates the
universality of the experience with the other and not the isolation of the self. Thus,
the overall perspective of this study is not strictly speaking one of feminist criticism
but a philosophical investigation of women's struggle for an authentic identity
within a male-dominated environment that rejects self-expression by women
outside the prescribed norms.
19. Maria Guadalupe Calatayud, (Con)fabulating facts: The politics of fantasy in the
work of twentieth century Mexican women artists. Maria Novaro, Elena Garro, Frida
Kahlo and Carmen Boullosa (Spanish text), PhD, THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY,
2000, 326 pages.
This dissertation shows that Fantasy is powerful, liberating and therefore
dangerous to those who fear change. In Mexico, romantic courtship and seduction
drive women into submission and then, paradoxically, attribute to them an
irrational inclination towards romance. Contemporary Mexican women artists
present us with images in which women seemingly play the game of romance and
seduction with the ulterior purpose of subverting it. … I follow the female
protagonists as they escape the romantic trap through fabulations and
(con)fabulations. …The Miraculous (Con)fabulation of Carmen Boullosa, examines
Boullosa's novel La Milagrosa, (The Miraculous One) and her play Cocinar hombres
(Cooking Men). For this writer, the obvious consequence of women's fabulatory and
(con)fabulatory powers is the total separation of men and women, and perhaps an
end to all heterosexual relationships, as they are the source of the romantic trap.
18. Demetrio Anzaldo-González, Género y ciudad en la novela mexicana (Spanish
text, Carlos Fuentes, José Emilio Pacheco, Carmen Boullosa, Luis Zapata, José Joaquín
Blanco). PhD, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE, 2001. … el segundo capítulo
pone en evidencia la subordinación de la mujer dentro de los centros urbanos
recreados en Duerme y Cielos de la Tierra de Carmen Boullosa. En su narrativa, a
través de Claire y Lear, se perciben los espacios vacíos que desestabilizan a la ciudad
de los hombres…
17. Ying Han, La Subjetividad Femenina En La Narrativa Femenina de Mexico y China
(1980--1995) (Spanish text), PhD, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT STONY
BROOK, 2001.
Since the eighties of last century, inspired by emerging world-wide feminist
ideologies, increasing numbers of women writers in both Mexico and China began to
write about their life experiences from their own perspectives. However, owing to
different social, political and cultural Regresargrounds, especially the particular
conditions for women in each country, these writers have shown different concerns
and strategies in representing feminine subjectivities. In Mexico, where the primary
concern is the domination of the system as much as the exploitation of their male
counterparts, women writers have created characters who struggle for social
identities, independence from family ties and traditional roles, and participation in
the public sphere… Chapters One and Two present respectively the feminist
movements of each country and the salient characteristics of women's writings.
Chapter Three, focusing on two adolescent characters form Antes of Carmen
Boullosa and La luz de los últimos días of Xu Xiaobin, illustrates women's
psychological journey through a patriarchal world.
16. Emily Ann Hind, After Ours: Six Mexican Women Writers On Borrowed Time
(Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos, Silvia Molina, Ana Clavel, Carmen Boullosa, Sabina
Berman), PhD, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 2001. This dissertation examines
innovative historical literature by Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos, Silvia Molina,
Carmen Boullosa, Sabina Berman, and Ana Clavel. Each author employs a unique
approach to incorporate historical references in texts that also explore women's
roles and twentieth-century Mexico. … Knowledge of the past proves more effective
in Boullosa's Cielos de la Tierra, as life in literature rescues historically conscious
characters from apocalypse. … these texts experiment with women protagonists
who attempt the roles of writer and historia…
15. Myriam Osorio, Agencia femenina, agencia narrativa, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF
WISCONSIN - MADISON, 2000, 280 pages. 9972791
14. Alicia Rico, Sociedades en transicion: La novela fantastica escrita por mexicanas y
españolas en la decada de los ochenta, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 2000 .
Muchos son los cambios ocurridos en las sociedades española y mexicana a partir
de la década de los ochenta. Entre ellos el afianzamiento de una voz que se oye cada
vez con más fuerza proveniente del sector femenino de la población. Las escritoras
de ambos países se hacen eco de las exigencias compartidas para denunciar la
perpetuación de sistemas obsoletos que no se adecúan a las necesidades de los
tiempos. Las autoras incluidas en este estudio incorporan elementos fantásticos
para crear una realidad distinta a la aceptada y plantear la diversidad.
Independientemente de la nacionalidad de las creadoras, todas las novelas
presentan la urgencia de redefinir la sociedad para abarcar a todos los individuos
que la conforman. … En el segundo capítulo se analiza la novela Antes (1989) de
Carmen Boullosa. Esta novela gira en torno a la infancia de la protagonista muerta y
cómo sus reflexiones desde el más allá modifican su concepción de su familia.
13. Jeanne Marie Vaughn, The Latin American Subject Of Feminism: Unraveling The
Threads Of Sexuality, Nationality, And Femaleness, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ, 1999. This dissertation traces the constructions of
traditional femininity in the context of contemporary Latin America and explores
the problematization, deconstruction, and eventual renegotiation of those
constructions by contemporary women writers in Mexico, Latin America, and the
Caribbean... I argue that contemporary Latin American women's writing has an
overarching concern with what it means to be a female subject, both in the
psychoanalytic and social sense of the term. The first chapter explores attempts to
formulate a Latin American female subject within three distinct moments in
contemporary women's writing, and it involves novels from three different literary
movements, La última niebla (1935), María Luisa Bombal; Los recuerdos del provenir
(1963), Elena Garro; Antes (1989), Carmen Boullosa. … Each of the texts that I
examine breaks ground or in some way advances feminist arguments.
12. Carrie Christine Chorba, Metaphors Of A Mestizo Mexico: New Narrative
Rewritings Of The Conquest, PhD, BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1998.
This dissertation is a thematic analysis of the literary works of three Mexican
authors which rewrite the sixteenth-century conquest in order to explore the
beginnings of Mexican mestizaje in all its metaphorical manifestations. … . The
textual analysis of Ignacio Solares's Nen, la inutil (1994), Carlos Fuentes's 'Las dos
orillas' from El naranjo, o los circulos del tiempo (1993) and Carmen Boullosa's
Llanto: novelas imposibles (1989) argues that the sixteenth-century conquest
continues to provoke thought and debate about some of Mexico's most problematic
constructions of its national identity… Each writer employs a markedly different
narrative strategy to represent the beginnings of modern mexicanidad. Solares
attempts a de-traumatization of the inception of mestizaje, Fuentes valorizes
Mexico's Hispanic cultural roots, and Boullosa questions Mexico's mestizo identity
through an epistemological analysis of conquest historiography.
11. Katharina Kayser, Historiografias y localizaciones subalternas en las novelas de
Carmen Boullosa, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, 1998.
...an analysis of historical novels published between 1991 and 1997, Son vacas,
somos puercos, Llantos: novelas imposibles, Duerme, and Cielos de la Tierra, "The
main questions I address are the following: how can literature re-examine the
positionality of the subaltern subject of the colonial past, in order to come to an
understanding of its present (lack of) agency? Can there be a writing free from the
colonizing enterprise and, if so, what are its premises? By what means is the
literature examined here countering official history? Whose interests invest this
literature, in contrast to the historical texts it fictionalizes? Can contemporary
literature propose another concept of historiography and serve as an alternative
model of representing history? I will discuss three major proposals towards a
rethinking of history and its relationship to situating the subject: first, the
intransparency of the writing subject, which calls for a problematization of the locus
of speech; second, the representation of lack of closure through multiple approaches
to 'history,' and third, a differentiation between event and discourse, proving that
discourse conditions the positionality of the subaltern subject".
10. Virginia Ellen Bell, Narratives Of Treason: Postnational Historiographic Tactics
And Late Twentieth-Century Fiction In The Americas, PhD, UNIVERSITY OF
MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK, 1997. This dissertation argues that many late
twentieth-century publications in the Americas constitute postnational
historiographic fiction. Postnational narratives challenge the authority of existing
nations and experiment with historiographic form; they are narratives of treason…
Chapter four compares Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Carmen
Boullosa's Duerme/ (Sleeping Beauty) to discourse that produces a critical
assessment of NAFTA. … My dissertation concludes with the suggestion that
'Literatures of the Americas' pay attention to works committed to cyclical narratives
of change and conceptions of agency that defy the active/passive opposition.
9. Laura Estelle Pirott-Quintero, Hybrid Identities: The Embodiment Of Difference
In Contemporary Latin American Narratives, PhD, BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1997.
… explores three contemporary Latin American narratives whose central themes-the explorations of alterity, social heterogeneity and articulations of pluricultural
identities--revolve around the corporeal figure. In all three texts--Moacyr Scliar's O
centauro no jardim (Brazil 1980), Carmen Boullosa's Duerme (Mexico 1994) and
Diamela Eltit's El cuarto mundo (Chile 1988) --the protagonists, who are also the
narrators, are engaged in at least a two-fold narration. … The three narratives posit
an interpretive tool with which to consider central issues related to identityformation: the figure of the 'hybrid body.' … Duerme, O centauro no jardim and El
cuarto mundo address and participate in the Latin American 'postmodern' cultural
climate by underscoring the importance of difference and alterity. In this regard, the
texts are shaped by a democratizing impulse which deploys strategies of
contestation in order to destabilize discourses of exclusion, and to expose
homogenizing logics of power.
8. Origins In Latin American Literature, PHD, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA
CRUZ, 1996
Works by Jorge Isaacs, Gabriela Mistral, Alejo Carpentier, Luis Pales Matos, Carmen
Boullosa and others serve to demonstrate how the maternal is figurated
metonymically and its loss is displaced and reenacted as loss of country, loss of
other love objects, or castration. In order to examine the works and the workings of
metonymy in a metonymic fashion and in order to avoid falling into the metaphoric
fallacy that privileges singularity, this study allows for the play of heterogeneous
materials in its format: considerations of the art of translation, of non-Latin
American material, multiple columns, boxed citations, and examples that, while
linked through particular associations, fall outside of a strict understanding of its
purposes.
7. Sara La Setta Beyer, The Many Voices Of Carmen Boullosa, Ma, Miami University,
1996
… analyze several works of Mexican poet, playwright, short-story writer, and
novelist Carmen Boullosa. First, applying the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, I attempt to
prove that Boullosa's narrative voice is dialogic. Second, since a female text is not
only fathered but also mothered, I intend to examine Boullosa's texts to reveal the
innovative and multi-faceted ways in which are parented--whether through
traditions, official histories, training, family heritage, or other means. Finally, in the
texts I have noted examples of androgyny, a state of mind and of body that
incorporates the whole being, as June Singer describes. I intend to demonstrate that
through Boullosa's self conscious, deliberate use of feminine and masculine voices,
she achieves overall an androgynous voice.
6. Yolanda Flores, The drama of gender: feminist theater by women of the Americas
(Assuncao, Leilah, Brazil, Lopez, Josefina, Latina, Boullosa, Carmen, Mexico, Torres
Molina, Susana, Argentina,), PHD, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, 1995. … A historical
investigation of Latin American women's involvement with the public sphere and of
their access to interpretative power leads to a consideration of the nature of the
dramatic genre in relation to women. A survey of the field of dramatic criticism and
theories precedes a discussion of cultural politics. The plays examined--Lua nua by
Leilah Assuncao (Brazil, 1987), Simply Mariia or the American Dream, by Josefina
Lopez (U.S. Latina, 1988), ... Y a otra cosa mariposa, by Susana Torres Molina
(Argentina, 1981), and Cocinar hombres by Carmen Boullosa (Mexico, 1987)--all
exhibit a desire to deconstruct patriarchal notions of gendered roles and behavior,
of compulsory heterosexuality, and of dramatic forms.
5. Choucino Ana Gloria Fernández, Radicalizar e interrogar los limites: poesía
mexicana, 1970-1990. PHD, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 1994. Some important trends
in Mexican poetry of the 70's and 80's interrogate the romantic and modern
tradition. Chapter one explains how the new poets are subverting traditional
literary models. This causes intertextual play, allowing the reader to participate in
the creation of the new text. Elva Macias, Carmen Boullosa, Vicente Quirarte y
Gerardo Deniz use irony to subvert conventional texts.
4. Carrie Chorba, The Actualization of a Distant Past: Carmen Boullosa's
Historiographic Metafiction, Master of Arts, BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1993.
3. Teresa Chapa, Contemporary Mexican Poetry: 'La Generacion Del Desengaño'
(Bracho Coral, Boullosa Carmen, Castillo Ricardo, Blanco Alberto), PHD, UNIVERSITY
OF KANSAS, 1992
The Mexican poets born in the 1950s have added a new dimension to Mexico's rich
poetic tradition. Their innovative use of language and their creation of strong and
defiant speakers challenge both poetic and social conventions. Although each poet's
defiant stance is unique, they all share common characteristics. All of these poets
communicate social themes in an original manner by developing new ways of using
language and perspective, extending beyond earlier Mexican social poetry. The work
of the four poets included in this study, Coral Bracho, Carmen Boullosa, Ricardo
Castillo and Alberto Blanco, exemplifies the different tendencies found among 'la
generacion del desengaño.' Each of these poets, in his or her own way, has found a
unique and subversive form of poetic expression… Carmen Boullosa's rebellious and
forthright speakers intentionally undermine both social and poetic conventions as
they search for their identity as women in a male-dominated world…
2. Roselyn Constantino, Resistant Creativity: Interpretative Strategies And Gender
Representation In Contemporary Women's Writing In Mexico (Castellanos Rosario,
Berman Sabina, Boullosa Carmen), PHD, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, 1992.
This study focuses on the efforts of three contemporary Mexican women writers-Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974), Sabina Berman (1951-), and Carmen Boullosa
(1954-)--to create spaces of resistance to the hierarchichal, patriarchal structures of
Mexican society. ... Foregrounding the representation of gender, their literary
production forms part of a broader project of both male and female writers and
intellectuals in Mexico to open up the traditional social structures and the systems
of cultural production. In this process, a variety of discourses including politics,
economics, religion, 'official' history, consumerism, and mass media, are signaled as
directly or indirectly impinging upon the individual's self-identity and intimate
relationships. Alternative perspectives of the perception and positioning of
individual social subjects--especially women--within a Mexican society in transition
are formulated. … Boullosa's theater and fiction create worlds full of fantasy, mixing
'high' and popular cultural forms in a self-reflective parodic style, and a feminist
political aesthetization of traditionally nonliterary themes. These discursive
strategies have given this group of writers tools for a rewriting of Mexican
sociocultural context and history, and for a renewal of current Mexican cultural
production.
1. Susan Rita Wehling, Feminist discourse in Latin American women playwrights
(Rosario Castellanos, Carmen Boullosa, Beatriz Mosquera, Isidora Aguirre, Mexico,
Argentina, Chile), PhD, UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI, 1992, 290 pages. 9232394