Description
Book SynopsisThe first anthology to focus exclusively on queer readings of Spanish, Latin American, and US Latina lesbian literature and culture, Tortilleras interrogates issues of gender, national identity, race, ethnicity, and class to show the impossibility of projecting a singular Hispanic or Latina Lesbian. Examining carefully the works of a range of lesbian writers and performance artists, including Carmelita Tropicana and Christina Peri Rossi, among others, the contributors create a picture of the complicated and multi-textured contributions of Latina and Hispanic lesbians to literature and culture. More than simply describing this sphere of creativity, the contributors also recover from history the long, veiled existence of this world, exposing its roots, its impact on lesbian culture, and, making the power of lesbian performance and literature visible. Author note: Lourdes Torres is Associate Professor of Latin American/Latino studies at De Paul University. Inmaculada Perpetusa-Seva is Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Kentucky.
Trade Review"Finalmente, the hole in the canon has been filled by Tortilleras, a book as fierce as the women it chronicles from the 17th century Catalina Erauso who passes as a man in Peru to the 21st century writer extraordinaire and political activist in the U.S. Cherrie Moraga. Exelente!"-Carmelita Tropicana is an Obie award winning Performance Artist and writer of I, Carmelita Tropicana - Performing Between Cultures "Tortilleras is a landmark collection. It fosters a necessary and meaningful dialogue between feminist scholars in U.S. Latina and Latin American studies grappling with questions of lesbian representation in literary and visual culture. Torres and Pertusa have compiled a timely volume that richly complicates previous debates and energetically maps new directions for the future. This most vital book shows how studies in gender and sexuality must lie at the heart of our work."-Tiffany Ana Lopez, University of California, Riverside "This anthology pushes us to think beyond the margins of repression in fiction and nonfiction queer literature and culture and art and film. Once you look through Tortilleras, you'll be compelled to look for the work these scholars are reviewing and see if your examination compares...[it] is the first anthology of its kind to open a vein and say, 'Here,' to our LGBT community, scholars, and students."-Lambda Book Report "...groundbreaking...pioneering in many ways...challenges patterns of marginalization, offering a fascinating, critical approach to the obscured and vital reality of Latina lesbian identity, agency, difference and otherness."-Multicultural Review "The most striking feature of this anthology is the vast terrain it traverses; ... Tortilleras establishes valuable new frames for study in this field."-symploke "[The book] is an important and innovative addition to this corpus... [it] will no doubt provoke new conversations and new research in a number of fields."-The Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction - Lourdes TorresPart I: coming Out/Covering Up1. From the Margins to the Mainstream: Lesbian Characters in Spanish Fiction (1964-79) - Wilfredo Hernandez2. Carme Riera: (Un)Covering the Lesbian Subject or Simulation of Coming Out? - Inmaculada Pertusa3. Tomboy Tantrums and Queer Infatuations: Reading Lesbianism in Magali Garcia Ramis's Felices Dias, Tio Sergio - Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes4. Coming-Out Stories and the Politics of Identity in the Narrative of Terri de la Pena - Salvador C. FernandezPart II: (Re)presenting Lesbian Desire5. Silent Pleasures and Pleasures of Silence: Ana Maria Moix's "Las Virtudes Peligrosas" - Nancy Vosburg6. Reading, Writing, and the Love that Dares Not Seak Its Name: Eloquent Silences in Ana Maria Moix's Julia - Gema Perez-Sanchez7. Outside the Castle Walls: Beyond Lesbian Counterplotting in Cristina Peri Rossi's Desastres Intimos - Janis Breckenridge8. "He Made Me a Hole!" Gender Bending, Sexual Desire, and the Representation of Sexual Violence - Regina M. BuccolaPart III: Sites of Resistance9. Bomberas on Stage: Carmelita Tropicana Speaking in Tongues Against History, Madness, Fate, and the State - Karina Lissette Cespedes10. Empowering the Feminine/Feminist/Lesbian Subject Through the Lens: The Representation of Women in Maria Luisa Bemberg's Yo, la Peor de Todas - Maria Claudia Andre11. The Lesbian Family in Christina Peri Rossi's "The Witness": A Study in Utopia and Infiltrations - Sara E. Cooper12. Chicana Lesbianism and the Multigenre Text - Elisa A. GarzaPart IV: Racialized Lesbianisms13. Interracial Lesbian Erotics in Early Modern Spain: Catalina de Erauso and Elana/o de Cespedes - Sherry Velasco14. Violence, Desire, and Transformative Remembering in Emma Perez's Gulf Dreams - Lourdes Torres15. Learning to Live Without Black Familia: Cherrie Moraga's Nationalist Articulations - Christina Sharpe16. Shameless Histories: Chicana Lesbian Fictions Talking Race/Talking Sex - Catriona Rueda EsquibelAbout the Contributors
