Crossing Sex and Gender in Latin America

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction: The persistence of vision(s)

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 1-16

3. Thinking Figurations Otherwise

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 17-44

4. Grotesque Spectacles

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 45-71

5. Life Is (More than) a Cabaret

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 73-105

6. Authorizing Subjectivity

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 107-142

7. Trans Bodies, Popular Culture, and (National) Identity in Crisis

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 143-180

8. Scandalous Embodiments, Shameful Citizenships

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 181-220

9. Epilogue

   • Vek Lewis

   Pages 221-226

10. Back Matter

    Pages 227-271

    PDF

Signifying "others" or signs of life? This book critically examines the ways in which crossing sex and gender is imagined in key cultural texts from contemporary Latin America. Unlike previous studies, Crossing Sex and Gender in Latin America does not hold that sexually diverse figures are always and only performative or allegorical and instead places the accent on questions of the presence or absence of an account of subjectivity in contemporary representation. Via analysis of selected films and literary works of Reinaldo Arenas, Mayra Santos-Febres, Pedro Lemebel, among others, the author reflects on the political implications of recent visions (1985-2005).

• culture
• Figuration
• gender
• identity
• Nation
• Sex
• area studies

"This book adds to extant literature with deep readings of works from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Chile, and Brazil . . . The book s key contribution arguably is its nuanced discussion of Latin American trans vocabulary." - Choice"There has been a growing body of literature, both literary and critical, on gender diverse people from Latin America, and Vek Lewis s book will be in dialogue with works by people like Ben Sifuentes-Jaúregui, Robert Irwin, Sylvia Molloy, Dan Balderston and other distinguished scholars in the Latin American literary field, as well as Lumsden, Murray, Carrier, Prieur, Lancaster, Gutmann, Kulick, and González Pérez who have provided leadership in groundbreaking social studies research on gay and trans lives. Along with the greater visibility of gender diverse people in popular culture (TV, film, novels, etc), Lewis asks us to think about the question of whether or not new and more complex portrayals of these individuals accompany their greater acknowledgment in culture. This will be an important book in the growing field of Latin American LGBT theory, and will be useful to scholars who are teaching advanced courses on contemporary Spanish American fiction, especially gender-conscious scholars." - Debra Ann Castillo, Director, Latin American Studies Program, Cornell University

"This book enacts an important critical intervention against the orthodox treatment of gender diverse people in cultural and national discourses in Latin America,and in the field of queer theory as well. The result is an important addition to queer and gender debates in Hispanophone and Anglophone worlds and their intersections." - Paul Allatson, Head of International Studies Program, University of Technology, Sydney, and author of Latino Dreams: Transcultural Traffic and the U.S. National Imaginary andKey Terms in Latino/a Cultural and Literary Studies

"Crossing Sex and Gender in Latin America makes an important and original contribution to existing criticism on gender and sexuality in Latin American literature and film.Lewis s focus on representations of transgendered subjects, with an emphasis on critiquing their reduction to national allegories or other similar figurative deployments, presents a lucid and convincing intervention into queer studies." - Robert McKee Irwin, UC Davis, author of Mexican Masculinities and co-editor of Diccionario de estudios culturales latinoamericanos

VEK LEWIS is Lecturer in Latin American Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sydney, Australia.

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