"¿Entiendes?" is literally translated as "Do you understand? Do you get it?" But those who do "get it" will also hear within this question a subtler meaning: "Are you queer? Are you one of us?" The issues of gay and lesbian identity represented by this question are explored for the first time in the context of Spanish and Hispanic literature in this groundbreaking anthology.
Combining intimate knowledge of Spanish-speaking cultures with contemporary queer theory, these essays address texts that share both a common language and a concern with lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities. Using a variety of approaches, the contributors tease the homoerotic messages out of a wide range of works, from chronicles of colonization in the Caribbean to recent Puerto Rican writing, from the work of Cervantes to that of the most outrageous contemporary Latina performance artists. This volume offers a methodology for examining work by authors and artists whose sexuality is not so much open as "an open secret," respecting, for example, the biographical privacy of writers like Gabriela Mistral while responding to the voices that speak in their writing. Contributing to an archeology of queer discourses, ¿Entiendes? also includes important studies of terminology and encoded homosexuality in Argentine literature and Caribbean journalism of the late nineteenth century.
Whether considering homosexual panic in the stories of Borges, performances by Latino AIDS activists in Los Angeles, queer lives in turn-of-the-century Havana and Buenos Aires, or the mapping of homosexual geographies of 1930s New York in Lorca’s "Ode to Walt Whitman," ¿Entiendes? is certain to stir interest at the crossroads of sexual and national identities while proving to be an invaluable resource.
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction // Paul Julian Smith and Emilie L. Bergmann
- Part One: Re-Loading the Canon
- Aldonza as Butch: Narrative and the Play of Gender in Don Quijote // Mary S. Gossy
- The "Fecal Dialectice": Homosexual Panic and the Origin of Writing in Borges // Daniel Balderston
- Part Two: (Neo)historical Retrievals
- The Argentine Dissemination of Homosexuality, 1890-1914 // Jorge Salessi
- Julian del Casal and the Queers of Havana // Oscar Montero
- Part Three: Nationalisms, Ethnicities, and (Homo)sexualities
- Community at Its Limits: Orality, Law, Silence, and the Homosexual Body in Luis Rafarl Sanchez's 'Jum!' // Agnes I. Lugo-Ortiz
- Toward an Art of Transvestism: Colonialism and Homosexuality in Puerto Rican Literature // Arnaldo Cruz-Malave
- Fleshing Out Virgilio Pinera from the Cuban Closet // Jose Quiroga
- The Lesbian Body in Latina Cultural Production // Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano
- Part Four: Biographical Constructions, Textual Encodings
- The "Schoolteacher of America": Gender, Sexuality, and Nation in Gabriela Mistral // Licia Fiol-Matta
- Disappearing Acts: Reading Lesbian in Teresa de la Parra // Sylvia Molloy
- A Logic in Lorca's Ode to Walt Whitman // John K. Walsh
- Part Five: Queer Readers/Queer Texts
- The Look that Kills: The "Unacceptable Beauty" of Alejandra Pizarnik's La condesa sangrienta // Suzanne Chavez Silverman
- Lesbian Tantalizing in Carmen Lugo Filippi's "Milagros, Calle Mercurio" // Luz Maria Umpierre
- Part Six: Call to Theory/Call to Action
- Virtual Sexuality: Lesbianism, Loss, and Deliverance in Carme Riera's "Te deix, amor, la mar com a penyora" // Brad Epps
- Teatro Viva!: Latino Performance and the Politics of AIDS in Los Angeles // David Roman
- Nationalizing Sissies // Jose Piedra
- Index
- Contributors
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