Words that Speak, Literature that Acts: Diamela Eltit's Narrative Performances Bush, Daniella W creator 2012 xiii, 323 p. born digital Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2012) Ortega, Julio Director Ybarra, Patricia Reader Tierney-Tello, Mary Beth Reader Brown University. Hispanic Studies sponsor theses Diamela Eltit trauma urban space Chilean politics transitions PerformanceDictatorshipEltit, Diamela1949- RPB 20121023 engEnglishThroughout 2011, Chile was swept by a wave of protests using performance to communicate demands for educational reform. Ranging from flash mobs to kiss-ins, these political mobilizations based on an aesthetics of embodiment and presence can be traced to the art activism that emerged in Chile after the 1973 coup initiated a seventeen-year dictatorship. In particular, the narrative of contemporary Chilean author Diamela Eltit (b. 1949) offers a case study that articulates the ways in which performance allows artists and activists to create consciousness about the need for social change in the midst of crisis. While the current protest movements in Chile respond to an on-going crisis of political representation and the increasing failure of traditional artistic forms to communicate meaningfully in a hyper-stimulated society, Eltit's work engages with the crisis of state-induced violence and trauma during the Chilean dictatorship, and then with the ensuing promulgation of olvido created by the transition to democracy, as the predominance of a neoliberal philosophy displaced memories of violence with the trends of the market.<br/> This dissertation charts performance as an interdisciplinary discourse that permeates the work of Diamela Eltit. Applying a Performance Studies lens to her narrative, it asks: what is it that Eltit's work does? If it is clear that her writing is always a hybrid project of image, voice, prose, and action, then what has motivated Eltit's move beyond the literary, and what is lost when critics and readers fail to recognize and incorporate her performances into the greater body of her work? I trace Eltit's physical and literary performances as they map urban space, grapple with military repression, construct alternate national epics, and restage transitional politics and justice. Building on the theoretical work of Richard Schechner, Peggy Phelan, Rebecca Schneider, Elaine Scarry, and Diana Taylor, I argue that Eltit's performances not only complement but also complete a broader narrative project that questions the boundaries and limitations of literature, art, and politics, while simultaneously revealing a Chile that is still struggling to define itself in the wake of its traumatic past. <br/>10.7301/Z0222S2JIn CopyrightCollection is open for research.dissertations