La sexualidad y el género como instrumentos de transgresión y subversión social en los textos: Rútilo nada, o beijo no asfalto, un hombre muerto a puntapiés, y medusa

Ronald Gobbi Simoes, Purdue University

Abstract

This thesis reexamines the notions of gender and sexuality in texts produced in Latin America in the XX century. The fictional and testimonial narratives serve as the main source of studies in order to understand, and at the same time question the traditional gender/sexual archetypes categories within the discursive matrix. Our historical heritage supposedly argues about universals gender categories by using three main institutions as proposed by Foucault: the religious (theological), the state (law) and the scientist (science). Especially in the late XIX century, the historically established gender notions started to be problematized by the appearance of unseen subjects who do not conform to the heteronormative standards. These social subjects become fictional voices presenting a real threat to the whole rigid power system relations. These fluctuating othernesses disarm the concepts that are intended to be universal by the redefinition of the "bodily categories" (Butler 1990). In this context, the power system as a means of submission uses the body as an object of punishment. In summary, these stories present various 'plastic' characters who question the traditional gender categories through their own changing and fluid fictional lives.

Degree

M.A.

Advisors

Dixon, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Latin American literature|LGBTQ studies

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