(RE)MEMBERING THE SUBJECT: NOMADIC BECOMING IN CONTEMPORARY CHICANO/A LITERATURE

This study explores representations of subjectivity in three seminal texts within the genre of Chicana/o Literature. It considers Tomás Rivera’s …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1971), Sandra Cisneros’s Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), and Helena María Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came with Them (2007). While each text proposes a unique perspective on subjectivity, this study examines the dynamics of these differences as well as the broader similarities found in each text, in order to identify the particular theory of subjectivity that these works of literature produce. To articulate this theory of the subject, this study utilizes the notion of nomadic subjectivity, influenced by poststructuralist thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The study also incorporates contemporary Chicano/a criticism surrounding this topic as well as the specific texts, in order to contextualize the proposed theory of subjectivity within a broader conversation concerning Chicano/a literature and criticism. It is through this framework that this study will map notions of the subject found in the selected texts, in order to illuminate a new way of reading not just these works, but perhaps other literatures. The central question motivating this study relates to how the characterizations within these texts handle the notion of possibility, and how one’s sense of subjectivity can relate to the radical possibility of tomorrow. Further, this study interrogates how these Chicana/o authors create a space within their literature to carry this sense of possibility into the real, material worlds of their readers.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Voelkner, Krysten

• Becoming

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/90704

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/90704