Synopses & Reviews
Encarnaci¢n takes a new look at identity. Following the contemporary movement away from the fixed categories of identity politics toward a more fluid conception of the intersections between identities and communities, this book analyzes the ways in which literature and philosophy draw boundaries around identity.The works of Gloria Anzald£a, Cherr¡e Moraga, and Ana Castillo, in particular, enable us to examine how identities shift and intersect with others through processes of incarnation.Since the 1980s, critics have come to equate these writers with Chicana feminist identity politics. This critical trend, however, has been unable to account for these writers' increasing emphasis on bodies that are sick, disabled, permeable, and, oftentimes, mystical.Encarnaci¢n thus turns our attention to aspects of these writers' work that are usually ignored-Anzald£a's autobiographical writings about diabetes, Moraga's narrative about her premature baby's medical treatments, and Castillo's figure of a polio-afflicted flamenco dancer-to explore the political and cultural dimensions of illness.Concerned equally with the medical-surgical interventions available in our postmodern age and with the ways of understanding bodies in the Native American and Catholic traditions these writers invoke, Encarnaci¢n develops a model for identity that expands beyond the boundaries of individual bodies. The book argues that this model has greater utility for feminism than identity politics because it values human variability, sensation, and openness to others. The methodology of the study is as permeable as the bodies and identities it analyzes. The book brings together discourses as disparate as Mesoamerican anthropology, art history, feminist spirituality, feminist biology, phenomenology, postmodern theory, disability studies, and autobiographical narrative in order to expand our thinking beyond what disciplinary boundaries allow.
Review
"Deeply expressive, intellectually profound, and very moving. It offers new paths into, beside, and through identity politics."--Katie King, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
Review
"Innovative, engaging, and eloquent. Bost's readings of Gloria Anzalda, Cherre Moraga, and Ana Castillo are groundbreaking."--AnaLouise Keating, Texas Woman's University
Review
"An original contribution to Chicana Studies."—Daniel T. Contreras, Fordham University
Review
Deeply expressive, intellectually profound, and very moving. It offers new paths into, beside, and through identity politics.-Katie King
Innovative, engaging, and eloquent. Bost's readings of Gloria Anzald£a,Cherr¡e Moraga, and Ana Castillo are groundbreaking.-AnaLouise Keating
"This interdisciplinary, multilayered approach suits this insightful study, which offers a new methodology for understanding Chicana feminism."-Choice
". . . Bost explains the vital ways the intersections of bodies and environments can inform the constitution of individual identities."-Susan C. Mendez, MELUS
Synopsis
Encarnaci¢n takes a new look at identity. Following the contemporary movement away from the fixed categories of identity politics toward a more fluid conception of the intersections between identities and communities, this book analyzes the ways in which literature and philosophy draw boundaries around identity.The works of Gloria Anzald£a, Cherr¡e Moraga, and Ana Castillo, in particular, enable us to examine how identities shift and intersect with others through processes of incarnation.Since the 1980s, critics have come to equate these writers with Chicana feminist identity politics. This critical trend, however, has been unable to account for these writers' increasing emphasis on bodies that are sick, disabled, permeable, and, oftentimes, mystical.Encarnaci¢n thus turns our attention to aspects of these writers' work that are usually ignored-Anzald£a's autobiographical writings about diabetes, Moraga's narrative about her premature baby's medical treatments, and Castillo's figure of a polio-afflicted flamenco dancer-to explore the political and cultural dimensions of illness.Concerned equally with the medical-surgical interventions available in our postmodern age and with the ways of understanding bodies in the Native American and Catholic traditions these writers invoke, Encarnaci¢n develops a model for identity that expands beyond the boundaries of individual bodies. The book argues that this model has greater utility for feminism than identity politics because it values human variability, sensation, and openness to others. The methodology of the study is as permeable as the bodies and identities it analyzes. The book brings together discourses as disparate as Mesoamerican anthropology, art history, feminist spirituality, feminist biology, phenomenology, postmodern theory, disability studies, and autobiographical narrative in order to expand our thinking beyond what disciplinary boundaries allow.
About the Author
SUZANNE BOST is Associate Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago. She is the author of Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in the Americas, 1850-2000.