HISTORY : 410/510
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Course
Description |
HIST
410/510 Mexico's Women Icons CRN: 35602/35603 Credits: 04 Instructor: Wood S Time/Location: 15:00-17:50 H / 360 CON |
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In this course we will seek a greater understanding of the gendered construction of Mexico's ethnonational self-identity (mexicanidad), through an exploration of some of its more salient women icons. We will see how symbols and rhetoric can be powerful tools for building or reinforcing social relations of authority. We will explore the supposedly more "objective" historical record and the more "subjective" popular lore surrounding these figures. In the process, we will seek windows into the negotiation of history and myth by those manipulating gendered images for political ends, whether to strengthen traditional patriarchal ideology or, more recently, to contest it. |
| Students will prepare the required readings for each
week, as outlined below, for discussion and for written analysis. Borderline
course grades will rise for those students who are in their seats at the
start of class and actively participating throughout the period in a way
that shows they have carefully prepared the week's required readings. |
| Besides preparing each week's required material, students
will select sources from the supplementary bibliographies for a five-minute oral
presentation (for a possible 5 points), contributing something
additional or comparing and contrasting the supplementary material with the
other course materials everyone has seen. Oral presentations can be done
individually or with a partner. Each student will sign up the first week to
give an oral presentation during the unit of her/his choice. Oral
presentations will take place during class time, during the second week of
each of the five units. The grade for the oral will be written on the back
of the first written essay (see below). |
| Written work for undergraduate students taking the course
will consist of writing: 1) a 5-page essay (for a possible 35
points), on the same icon selected for the oral presentation and due
in-class the week after the oral, exploring the required course materials on
that icon and incorporating the extra, recommended materials of your choice
plus any ideas garnered during the Q&A period after the oral; and, 2) an
8-page take-home final essay (for a possible 60 points) exploring the
required materials on principally the other four icons. In this final essay,
you may make some comparisons that bring in all five icons if you desire,
but this is your chance to show that you have also learned something about
the four figures who were not the focus of your oral presentation and
five-page essay. This eight-page essay will be due on Tuesday of finals week
(by 5pm, slide under the door at 309 Grayson). |
| Graduate students (signed up for credit in HIST 583) will
write a 7-page (instead of five-page) first essay and their take-home
final essay should be 10-12 pages. Graduate students' final essays
should also incorporate more of the recommended as well as required
materials. Graduate students will be expected to be especially active
participants in class discussions, too.
There will be no midterm or final exam. |
Grading
The course grade will break down as follows:
Totals of 100-93 points = A; 92-90 = A-; 89-87 = B+; 86-83 = B; 82-80 = B-; 79-77 = C+; 76-73 = C; 72-70 = C-; 69-67 = D+; 66-63 = D; 62-60 = D-; 59 and lower = F.
Essay Guidelines
| As you prepare your essays, think about how the material
for each particular unit (and overall) addresses these general questions:
How has this unit's figure served, if at all, to symbolize or define in some
way Mexican nationhood and culture (mexicanidad)? Has this figure
come to have a clear, gendered symbolism, perhaps one that has evolved, and
perhaps with different meanings in competing discourses? Has this figure
been used to bolster patriarchal social organization? Has it been
reformulated to contest such organization or to represent an alternative
one? By whom and why? Are there multiple portraits of this figure (and why)?
What is its relevance for Chicanas/os and how does the symbolism in Mexico
compare with that in the United States? What is its relevance (if any) for
those who do not see themselves as members of the Mexican nation or
ethnicity, or the U.S. Chicano/Latino/Hispanic ethnicities? How or why are
they (or we) finding meaning in this image? What are the larger humanist
issues that arise? Feminist issues? In pulling together your comments, be
sure to refer to the required readings, citing them by author, date of
publication, and page numbers in parenthesis; footnotes or endnotes are not
required. If you respond to a film or other non-standard texts, be sure to
also integrate a consideration of some of the readings. |
| If you prefer to take less of a substantive approach and
more of a historiographical/methodological approach, consider these
questions in your essays: What are we learning about the uses and meaning of
history? How do different genres compare (films, paintings, songs, dances,
poems, scholarly texts, web sites, novels, plays, etc.) in the way they
attempt to convey their message or the way those messages are received? How
and why are some expressive forms given legitimacy and some denigrated (and
by whom, why?)? Is there a valid distinction to be made between popular
culture and scholarship? How do we identify subjectivity, bias, or agendas
(open or hidden) in our sources? When there are competing interpretations or
perspectives in our sources, how do we identify a personal truth that speaks
to us individually? Is there an objective truth? To illustrate your
arguments or points, draw examples for the required readings and other
course materials, such as films, imagery, music, etc. |
| The final essay should have sufficient length to discuss
both substantive and methodological issues, if you so choose. Let's have all
the papers typed with double-spacing, one-inch margins all around, and a
normal-sized font. If you analyze a web site, you must include the URL
(address) and the date you were able to consult it. Since web sites change
and disappear, it might also be helpful if you could print out at least part
of the web site and attach it to your paper. Student-authored web sites can
be included in the material you critique, but do not try to download another
student's material to present as your own. Full bibliographies are not
required, but do please give a full citation for any book or article you
address that is not already on the syllabus. |
| Late work is strongly discouraged, but it will be accepted. Without a doctor's note, late papers will be docked five percentage points (about half a grade) per day late, weekends included. Late papers should be slipped under Professor Wood's office door (309 Grayson), but be sure to keep a copy. Loss is not the responsibility of the professor. |
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There are no books to buy and there is no packet. To save you money, in lieu of a packet, I have attached the required readings as electronic texts to the e-syllabus, attached to the professor's home page: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~swood. Access to these readings are limited to the UO community (you will receive the passwords in class), in order to avoid copyright violations and uphold "fair use" considerations. You will be on your own when trying to locate the recommended readings. Some of them may be available by searching for journal articles from JANUS. There may also be a few items here that you will have to track down using other means (going to the regular stacks, interlibrary loan, Orbis loan, etc.). If you need help, try the Reference Librarians in the Knight Library or come see me during my office hours. Obviously, there are additional relevant materials not included in these lists; please consult with me about using such materials. The final essay is not intended to be a research paper but a guided response to carefully selected materials (you have greater freedom, however, in selecting web sites to analyze). |
| Unit I: La
Malinche (ca. 1500-1527) Steve J. Stern, in The
Secret History of Gender (342), remarks that La Malinche [a.k.a.
Malintzin, Doña Marina, La Chingada, La Llorona] "has served as a
powerful symbol conjoining the themes of woman's violation and woman's
treachery into the image of woman's deserved violation." It would be
difficult to overestimate the weight of the baggage this indigenous woman
has had attached to her memory over the past five centuries. Let's trace the
construction of the many personas attributed to her: if we can detect it,
who was she in her own eyes, in the eyes of her family, the various
communities where she lived, the Spaniards who received her as part of a
"gift" of twenty women, Cortés (for whom she served as
interpreter and mediator, mistress and bearer of his mestizo child),
her Spanish husband, nationalists who later gave her a disparaging place in
the construction of an anti-imperialist narrative, and modern biographers
and their audiences? Can we separate the person from the myth? How does her
life compare to that of other women of New Spain? Is doña Marina being
redeemed? If so, how and why?
In-class Viewing: Overhead images and slides of doña Marina as portrayed in codices; and, possibly clips from The Buried Mirror: Conflict of the Gods, The Captain from Castile, The Conquest of Mexico (MEDIA SVC VT1431), and/or Hernan Cortez: Dateline Yesterday (MEDIA SVC VT1434). Web Site on Malinche (click here): Be sure to visit this web site with images and texts on Malinche for your analysis. You are encouraged to also do your own browsing on the internet to see what you can find that might be relevant. Required Readings for Entire Group, Week 1: Jerome R. Adams, "Dona Marina (La Malinche), c. 1505-1530," 13-25, Notable Latin American Women: Twenty-Nine Leaders, Rebels, Poets, Battlers and Spies, 1500-1900; "Bernal Diaz del Castillo on Dona Marina or La Malinche," (excerpts from The Conquest of New Spain); excerpt from Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (1984), 100-102; "Octavio Paz on Hijos de la Chingada or Sons of Malinche," (excerpts from The Labyrinth of Solitude). Required Readings for Entire Group, Week 2: Carla Trujillo, "Introduction," ix, and Emma Perez, "El Chingon: Octavio Paz and the Oedipal-Conquest-Complex," 16-169, in Carla Trujillo, ed., Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (Berkeley, 1991); Mary Louise Pratt, "‘Yo Soy La Malinche:’" Chicana Writers and the Poetics of Ethnonationalism," Callaloo 16:4 (1993), 859-73; "‘Malinche’ Lyrics by El Vez;" "El Vez, Chicano Musician – Discography from the Internet;" "Discography on the Legend of La Llorona." Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations (Week 2) and Final Papers: Frances Karttunen, "Rethinking Malinche," in Indian Women of Early Mexico, Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett, eds., 290-312 and 420-424 (1997); Monica Palacios, "La Llorona Loca: The Other Side," 49-51, in Carla Trujillo, ed., Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (1991); Jean Wyatt, "On Not Being La Malinche: Border Negotiations of Gender in Sandra Cisneros's 'Never Marry a Mexican' and 'Woman Hollering Creek," Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 14:2 (Fall 1995), 243-271; Sandra Messinger Cypess, "The Figure of La Malinche in the Texts of Elena Garro," 117-135, in Anita K. Stoll, ed., A Different Reality: Studies on the Work of Elena Garro (Lewisburg, 1990); Amanda Levinson, Mujeres Chingadas and Atravesidas: The Virgin of Guadalupe, La Malinche, and the Creation of an Alternate Chicana Aesthetic Tradition (Portland: Reed College, 1997); Norma Alarcón, "Chicana Feminist Literature: A Re-Vision through Malintzín/or Malintzín: Putting Flesh Back on the Object," in Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 2d. ed. (New York, 1983), 182-190; Sandra Messinger Cypess, La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth (1992); Steve J. Stern, The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico (1995), 342-344; Raúl Niño, "Hijo de la Malinche," poem in Barrio Streets, Carnival Dreams: Three Generations of Latino Artistry, Lorie Marie Carlson, ed., (1996), 51-53; Haniel Long, The Marvellous Adventure of Cabeza de Vaca; also, Malinche (a dramatic play), 39-76 (too long for copyright concerns; but I have a copy I could loan); William P. English and Graciela Dominguez de English, Malinche, Research on; Including "the other doña Marina" (1978); James Lockhart, ed., We People Here (1992; contains indigenous versions of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, with numerous images of doña Marina); Maruxa Vilalta, comp., Antología de obras en un acto (v. 2, Malinche y Carlota); Adelaida R. del Castillo, "Malintzin Tenépal: A Preliminary Look into a New Perspective," in Essays on La Mujer 124-149 (1977). |
| Unit II: The
Virgin of Guadalupe (apparition date,
12/8/1531) Historians Dirk Raat and Bill Beezley have said that "it
is nearly impossible to describe contemporary Mexico and its history"
without reference to this dark-skinned version of the Christian Virgin Mary.
Her powerful image is ubiquitous, appearing not only in churches, but also
in homes, marketplaces, and even in taxis. Anthropologist Hugo Nutini finds
that she is revered by some people more than "God the Father, God the
Son, or God the Holy Ghost." How can we account for her intense and
enduring popularity? What in her image appealed to the Spanish conquerors,
the American-born Spaniards, to people of mixed heritage, and to indigenous
peoples? How has the history of her apparition and elements of her worship
been modified over time and for what ends? What is the relationship between
Marian devotion and marianismo (the cult of motherly devotion and
self-sacrifice, of women's perceived spiritual superiority) in Mexico? In
the twentieth century, how did she become the symbol for the Mexican
revolution without leading the charge for a radical reconstruction of gender
roles? Has she been a symbol that leads to oppression or liberation? How do
Chicanas/os read or encode her image today? This unit will begin with an
examination of the Virgin Mary in Europe and then shift to Mexico.
In-class Viewing: Flowers for Guadalupe: The Virgin of Guadalupe Inspires Mexican Women (57 min. MEDIA SVC VT4165); and, possibly clips from Columbus and the Age of Discovery: The Sword and the Cross, The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas, The Buried Mirror: Conflict of the Gods, Women of Latin America: To Be a Mother in Latin America (MEDIA SVC VT4164); and, possibly, Processione (about the worship of the Virgin Mary in Italy). We may also listen to part of a radio interview titled "The Power of the Sacred Feminine." Website on Guadalupe (click here): Be sure to visit this web site with images and texts on Guadalupe for your further analysis. You are also encouraged to do some searching of the internet on your own to find other relevant materials. Week 3 lecture notes. Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 3: "Readings on the Virgin Mary in Western Tradition," [excerpted from two books, Hail Mary? The Struggle for Ultimate Womanhood in Catholicism, and Alone of All Her Sex]; Stafford Poole, C.M., "Virgin of Guadalupe," in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, Barbara A. Tenenbaum, ed., 3:104-105; Jeanette Favrot Peterson, "The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation?" Art Journal 51:4 (Winter 1992), 39-47. Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 4: Sandra Cisneros, "Guadalupe the Sex Goddess;" Rubén Martínez, "The Undocumented Virgin;" Margaret Randall, "Guadalupe, Subversive Virgin;" and Guillermo Gómez Peña, "The Two Guadalupes" (all these pieces are from Ana Castillo, ed., Goddess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe, 1996, which is already out of print); "'Viva la Raza' lyrics by El Vez." Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations (Week 4) and Final Papers: Matt Smith, "Guadalupe Icon Comes to U.S.," on the Virgin of Guadalupe as an anti-abortion symbol [try searching journals from JANUS]; June Nash, "Gendered Deities and the Survival of Culture," [try from JANUS]; "The Virgin of Guadalupe," in Robert M. Carmack, Janine Gasco, and Gary H. Gossen, eds., The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization (Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996), 191-192; Eric Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol," Journal of American Folklore 71 (198), 34-39; Enrique Florescano, Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico from the Aztecs to Independence (1994), 131-157 and 213-217; passages from Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico (1961); Jeanette Rodriguez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and Empowerment among Mexican-American Women (1994); Stafford Poole, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531-1797 (1995); Mary O'Connor, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Economics of Symbolic Behavior," The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28:2 (June 1989), 109-; Amanda Levinson, Mujeres Chingadas and Atravesidas: The Virgin of Guadalupe, La Malinche, and the Creation of an Alternate Chicana Aesthetic Tradition (Portland, 1997); William B. Taylor, "The Virgin of Guadalupe in New Spain: An Inquiry into the Social History of Marian Devotion," American Ethnologist 14:1 (1987), 9-33; Luis Leal, "Female Archetypes in Mexican Literature," in Women in Hispanic Literature: Icons and Fallen Idols, Beth Miller, ed. (1983); Mary O'Connor, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Economics of Symbolic Behavior," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28: 2 (1989), 105-119; Donald K. Kurtz, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Politics of Becoming Human," Journal of Anthropological Research 38 (1982), 194-210; Marjorie Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán Peasants, and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley, 1995); Xavier Noguez, Documentos guadalupanos: Un estudio sobre las fuentes de información tempranas en torno a las mariofanías en el Tepeyac (1993); Lisa Sousa, Stafford Poole, C.M., and James Lockhart, The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei tlamahuicoltica of 1649 (1998); Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican Consciousness, 1531-1813 (1974); Donald Demarest and Coley Taylor, The Dark Virgin: The Book of Our Lady of Guadalupe (1956); Helen Behrens, America's Treasure: The Virgin Mary of Guadalupe (1963); Francisco de la Maza, El guadalupismo mexicano (1981); Joaquín González Moreno, Iconografía guadalupana; Guadalupe: From the Aztec (1996) (from an Oregon monastery; available through ILL, or borrow from Professor Wood); Ena Campbell, "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Female Self-Image," in James J. Preston, ed., Mother Worship (1982), 5-24; Dana Salvo, Home Altars of Mexico (1997) provides for a study of personal worship of the Virgin of Guadalupe. |
| Unit III: Sor
Juana Inés de la Cruz
(11/12/1651?-4/17/1695) This seventeenth-century intellectual-nun once
wrote "I am not at all what you think...Borne on your feather-pens'
plumes my flight is no longer mine." Her words haunt us today as we
struggle to identify who she was in her own context and to establish what
her memory has contributed to the evolving Mexican national identity over
the years. Why was she censored and censured? How does Mexican writer
Octavio Paz's rendition of her life story compare to that of the Argentine
filmmaker María Luisa Bemberg's? What have others found out about Sor
Juana's past? How did her life compare to other women's lives in New Spain?
How do we account for her elevation to near sainthood among (post)modern
women who read her poetry today?
In-Class Viewing: Yo, la peor de todas/I, The Worst of All (Argentina; drama; MEDIA SVC VT2975 c. 2); and possibly clips from Voices of Latin America (Smithsonian World documentary) and/or The Buried Mirror: The Age of Gold. Website on Sor Juana (click here): Be sure to visit this web site with images and texts on Sor Juana for your further analysis. You are also encouraged to do some searching of the internet on your own to find other relevant materials. Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 5: "Excerpts from Poems, Protest, and a Dream;" Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell, eds. and transl., The Answer = La Respuesta (1994), introduction and poem 92 (only on traditional reserve); Dorothy Schons, "Some Obscure Points in the Life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz," in Stephanie Merrim, ed., Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1991) (only on traditional reserve); Rosario Castellanos, "Once Again Sor Juana," (originally written in 1963) 22-25, in Maureen Ahern, ed., A Rosario Castellanos Reader: An Anthology of Her Poetry, Short Fiction, Essays, and Drama (1988). Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 6: Emilie L. Bergmann, "Abjection and 'Ambiguity': Lesbian Desire in Bemberg's Yo, la peor de todas," unpublished ms. (only available on traditional reserve); E. J. Levy, "Introduction," 1-9, and Alicia Gaspar de Alba, "Excerpts from the Sapphic Diary of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz," (please note that this piece is fictional, it consists of IMAGINED excerpts from a diary that Sor Juana might have written, but it is definitely very twentieth-century!) 182-190, in E. J. Levy, ed., Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers (1995); Tamsin Wilton, "Invisible and Erased: Uses and Abuses of History," 51-59, in Lesbian Studies: Setting an Agenda (London, 1995). Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations (Week 6) and Final Papers: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Poems, Protest, and a Dream (1997); Stephanie Merrim, Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1991) (there are other contributions to this book worth reading); Georgina Sabat-Rivers, St Joseph's Day Lecture: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Sor Marcela de San Félix: Their Devotion to St. Joseph as the Antithesis of Patriarchal Authoritarianism (1997); Beatriz Melano Couch, "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: The First Woman Theologian in the Americas," 51-57, in John C. B. and Ellen Low Webster, eds., The Church and Women in the Third World (1985); Emilie L. Bergmann, "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Dreaming in a Double Voice," in Emilie L. Bergmann, ed., Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America: Seminar on Feminism and Culture in Latin America (1990), 151-172; Nina M. Scott, "Sor Juana and Her World," Latin American Research Review 29:1 (1994), 143-154; Jean Franco, "Sor Juana Explores Space," 23-29 (plus notes), in Jean Franco, Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico (1989); Octavio Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, or the Traps of Faith (1988); Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, A Sor Juana Anthology (1988); Electa Arenal and Stacey Schlau, Untold Sisters: Hispanic Nuns in their Own Words, translated by Amanda Powell (1989); Margaret Sayers Peden, transl., Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Poems (1985); Asunción Lavrin, "Female Religious," in Cities and Societies in Colonial Latin America (1986), 186-188; Asunción Lavrin, "In Search of the Colonial Woman in Mexico: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," in Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives (1978); "Gender and Sexuality," Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (1996); Josephina Muriel, Cultura femenina novohispana (1982); Susan E. Ramírez, "Yo, la peor de todas," (film review) American Historical Review 97:4 (October 1992); Stephen Holden, "A Free-Spirited Nun's Poetry Sows Seeds of Her Undoing," (film review) New York Times 9/22/95, pC10. |
| Unit IV: "Adelita"
Who is this Mexican revolutionary "everywoman" immortalized in
photographs, song, theater, and recent scholarship? How have the "Adelitas"--also
known as "Juanas," viejas (old ladies), galletas
(cookies), cucarachas (cockroaches), soldadas, capitanas,
coronelas, and, most commonly today, soldaderas--been codified
in popular lore? Can we separate the history from the myth of their actual
vs. perceived roles? Were they both reinforcing and challenging cultural
constructions of woman's "place"? Why does Adelita intrigue us so
much today? What does she represent for Chicanas? How does she compare to
"Ramona" of the Chiapas uprising of 1994- in Mexico and other late
twentieth-century revolutionary women in Latin America?
In-class Viewing: A clip from Corridos! Tales of Passion and Revolution (vignette on soldaderas by El Teatro Campesino); "Soldadera," a clip from Que viva México (Russia, 1931-32; based on murals of Siqueiros, Rivera, and Orozco; MEDIA SVC VT222); and possibly a clip from Like Water for Chocolate (MEDIA SVC VT3195). Also: Zapatista Women (30 min.) and a clip from Marcos: History and Myth. Website on Adelita (click here): Be sure to visit this web site with images and texts on "Adelita" for your further analysis. You are also encouraged to do some searching of the internet on your own to find other relevant materials. Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 7: Andrés Reséndez Fuentes, "Battleground Women: Soldaderas and Female Soldiers in the Mexican Revolution," The Americas 51:4 (April 1995), 525-553 [ER]; "Transcription of the Script for Soldadera--Part IV of Que Viva Mexico!;" María Herrera-Sobek, The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis (1990), 92-116. Website on Ramona (click here): Be sure to visit this web site with images and texts on "Ramona" for your further analysis. You are also encouraged to do some searching of the internet on your own to find other relevant materials. Readings Required for Entire Group, Week 8: Elizabeth Salas, "Soldaderas: New Questions, New Sources," Women's Studies Quarterly 23:3/4 (1995), 112-116; three short chapters from Elaine Katzenberger, ed., First World, Ha ha ha! The Zapatista Challenge, 99-118; and "Zapatista Women / Mujeres Zapatistas" <http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~geneve/zapwomen/enter.html>. Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations (Week 8) and Final Papers: (you will have to find these on your own if you are interested in further reading): Sandra McGee Deutsch, "Gender and Sociopolitical Change in Twentieth-Century Latin America," Hispanic American Historical Review 71:2 (1991), 259-271; Shirlene Soto, Emergence of the Modern Mexican Woman: Her Participation in the Revolution and the Struggle for Equality, 1910-1940 (1990); Elizabeth Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History (1990); Elizabeth Salas, "Soldaderas in the Mexican Revolution: War and Men's Illusions," in Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850-1990: Creating Spaces, Shaping Transitions, Heather Fowler-Salamini and Mary Kay Vaughan, eds. (1994), 93-105; Josephina Niggli, "Soldadera (Soldier-Woman)," in Mexican Folk Plays (1938); Ana Macias, "Women and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920, in Against All Odds: The Feminist Movement in Mexico to 1940, 25-57; Margaret Randall, Gathering Rage: The Failure of Twentieth Century Revolutions to Develop a Feminist Agenda (1992); John Reed, Insurgent Mexico (look for descriptions of Elizabetta, soldadera); Rosario Castellanos, El eterno femenino: farsa (1975) (look for a re-creation of Adelita). |
| Unit V: Frida
Kahlo (1907-1954) A cult-like following
has also developed in recent years behind this intriguing figure from the
Mexican revolutionary era. Why are women around the world embracing this
painter and her work, inadvertently transforming her from a subversive into
a commodity? To what extent are "othered groups" finding solace in
Kahlo's own multi-dimensional "otherness" and pain (woman-artist,
daughter of Catholic/cultural Jews, bisexual, handicapped, frustrated in
motherhood, Communist, nonconformist swearing smoker, indigenista,
feminist, etc.)? How has her life and/or art contributed to the evolution of
mexicanidad as it is perceived inside and outside of Mexico? What
does her work capture of the Revolution and the social and cultural changes
it set in motion? One observer suggests she constructed an identity of
"female mestizaje" by "unifying the stereotyped images
of Mexican women." Would you agree? What do you make of her heavy
reliance on self-portraiture? What insights does Kahlo's work give us into
the way the female body is/was lived vs. made, at least in her cultural
milieu? Did she challenge traditional imagery of the female body? If so, how
and to what end? Does her work evoke pain? If so, is this significant for
considerations of gender?
In-class Viewing: We will probably only have time to view short segments of videos. We may draw from the following list: Frida Kahlo: Portrait of an Artist (documentary; 62 min.); Frida: naturaleza viva (1984 docu-drama; 108 min.; MEDIA SVC VT1011); Frida Kahlo: Portrait of a Woman (MEDIA SVC VT4139); and Guerrillas in Our Midst (MEDIA SVC VT1746). Website on Frida Kahlo (click here): Be sure to visit this web site with images and texts on Frida Kahlo for your further analysis. You are also encouraged to do some searching of the internet on your own to find other relevant materials. PLEASE NOTE: Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, class does not meet during Week 9 (Nov. 25th), but please prepare the two weeks' worth of readings for discussion during Week 10. Also, since the two weeks have to be condensed into one class period (Week 10), only a very limited number of oral presentations will be allowed on that date. Required Readings for Entire Group, Week 9 & 10 Liza Bakewell, "Frida Kahlo: A Contemporary Feminist Reading," Frontiers 13:3 (Spring 1993), 165-189 (try searching from JANUS); Carlos Fuentes, "Introduction," in The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait (1995), 7-24 ; selections from Frida Kahlo, The Letters of Frida Kahlo: Cartas Apasionadas, Martha Zamora, comp. (1995); "Frida's Life of Pain" lyrics by El Vez; Nicole Cooley, "Self-Portrait: Frida Kahlo," (poem) The Nation 261:22 (December 25, 1995), 834; Joanna Rawson, "Self-portraits By Frida Kahlo," (poem) The American Poetry Review 21:1 (Jan.-Feb. 1992), 31; Carol E. Miller, "Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States, Frida Kahlo, 1932," (poem) Frontiers 17:3 (1996), 101; Oriana Baddeley, "'Her Dress Hangs Here'" De-frocking the Kahlo Cult," Oxford Art Journal 14:1 (1991), 10-17; Suzi Gablik, "'We Spell It Like the Freedom Fighters'" A Conversation with the Guerrilla Girls," Art in America 82:1 (January 1994), 43-47. Additional Bibliography for Oral Presentations (Week 10) and Final Papers: (not on e-reserve) Holly Barnet-Sánchez, "Frida Kahlo: Her Life and Art Revisited," Latin American Research Review 32:3 (1997), a very helpful review essay; Sarah M. Lowe and Carlos Fuentes, eds., The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait; Judd Tully, "The Kahlo Cult," ARTnews 93:4 (1994), 126-134; Janis Bergman-Carton, "Strike a Pose: The Framing of Madonna and Frida Kahlo," Texas Studies in Literature and Language 35:4 (Winter 1993), 440-452; Raquel Tibol, Frida Kahlo: An Open Life (1993); Sarah M. Lowe, Frida Kahlo (1991); David Lomas, "Body Languages: Kahlo and Medical Imagery," in Kathleen Adler and Marcia Pointon, eds., The Body Imaged: The Human Form and Visual Culture Since the Renaissance (1993), 5-19; Mary Hull Webster, "The Kahlo Enigma: Pasión por Frida at The Mexican Museum," Artweek 23:22 (1992), 25; Andrea Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo: Pain and Passion (1992); J. Pontello, "Frida Fever," Southwest Art 21 (August 1991), 23; Martha Zamora, Frida Kahlo: The Brush of Anguish (1990); Janice Helland, "Aztec Imagery in Frida Kahlo's Paintings," Woman's Art Journal 11 (1990), 8-13; Joan Fimbel DiGiovanni and Ronald R. Lee, "The Art and Suffering of Frida Kahlo," in Creativity and Madness: Psychological Studies of Art and Artists (1995), 81-95; Janice Helland, "Culture, Politics, and Identity in the Paintings of Frida Kahlo," in The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History (1992); Jean Franco, "Body and Soul: Women and Postrevolutionary Messianism," 102-112 (plus notes), Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico; Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (1983); Hayden Herrera, Frida Kahlo (1992); Araceli Rico, Frida Kahlo: fantasia de un cuerpo herido (1988); Michael Newman, "The Ribbon around the Bomb," Art in America 71:4 (1983), 160-169; Nancy Breslow, "Frida Kahlo: A Cry of Joy and Pain," Americas 32:3 (1980), 33-39; Margarita Luna Robles, "What Frida Kahlo Thought of the Suicide of Dorothy Hale, 1939," (poem); Rauda Jamis, Frida Kahlo (1985); Elena Poniatowska and Carla Stellweg, Frida Kahlo: The Camera Seduced (1992); Frida Kahlo Unmasked: Portraits by Various Photographers; Hayden Herrera, comp., Frida Kahlo: The Paintings (1993); Paula M. Cooey, Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist Analysis (1994), esp. 94-108; Elizabeth Bakewell, "Picturing the Self: Mexican Identity and Artistic Representation, Post-1968," Ph.D. Thesis, 1991, Brown University; Mira Schor, "Girls Will Be Girls," Artforum 29:1 (September 1990), 124-129; Peter Glusker, "The Self-Portrait of Frida Kahlo (Letter to the Editor)," [try searching from JANUS]. FINAL ESSAYS DUE TUESDAY OF FINALS WEEK, by 5 PM, 309 Grayson (push well under door; and keep a backup) |