Symbolic representations of ‘home’ in Afro-Latin American women's literature

Ivette Maria Wilson, Purdue University

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to add an additional level onto the palimpsest of reconstructing Afro-Latin American women's voices by interrogating how symbolic representations of Home are manifested in contemporary Afro-Latin American women's writing. This analysis focuses on fiction and poetry written by four women of Afro-Latin American ancestry who write from within their homeland. The texts here under consideration are the novels Ponciá Vicêncio (2003) by Conceição Evaristo, Reyita (1997) by Daisy Rubiera Castillo, selected poems are from Alzira Rufino's Eu, mulher negra, resisto! (1988) and Georgina Herrera's Gritos (2003). Within the literary texts under consideration, the concept of Home functions as a signifier for the space (from) where those women writers choose to locate their discourses. For these women writers, I will argue that race, class and gender issues foreground their construction of Home within their literary work. Additionally, questions of language(s), culture(s), geographical/social space(s), and representations of self/body are addressed in isolated contexts of literary theory and criticism aiming at the deconstruction of a hegemonic oppressive misconception of women’s subversive power within society as a gendered group. Issues of gender and race inequalities are historically contextualized and analyzed under the lens of Post-Colonial and Feminists theories.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Dixon, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Latin American literature|Womens studies|Latin American Studies

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