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Year:: 2017
Contributor:: Valle-Gutierrez, Laura F. (author); Drumsta, Emily (advisor); Alvarado, Leticia (reader); Brown University (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Nuyorican literature; Beur literature; Essentialism (Philosophy); Identity construction
Extent:: 103 p.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7301/Z04F1P5P

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Abstract:: This thesis explores two distinct literary bodies, Nuyorican and Beur literature, as characterized in four foundational novels in the genre: Down These Mean Streets, Le Gône du Chaâba, When the Spirits Dance Mambo and La Seine était rouge. I pair literary criticism with sociological and geographical frameworks, to examine the way that second-generation migrants try to construct cohesive subjectivities in these texts. Constantly negotiating the unifying and discriminatory forces of language, race, and space, these texts nuance the reader's understanding of the way these groups conceive a need for strategic essentialism. Analyzing male-authored texts, I examine the way that liminal spaces are constructed by these authors through code-switching and lexicons that are defined by multiple dialects. I connect these lexicons to identity performance and construction with regards to racialized identities. I then look to female-authored texts to explore how women negotiate collective memory and personal history and how language subverts structures of alterity. Finally, I look at the interrelated projects of truth and memory
Notes:: Senior thesis (AB)--Brown University, 2017; Concentration: Comparative Literature

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Rights: In Copyright
Restrictions on Use: Collection is open for research.

Citation

Valle-Gutierrez, Laura F., "From El Barrio to La Banlieue: fictions of identity in Nuyorican and Beur literature" (2017). Comparative Literature Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.7301/Z04F1P5P

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Comparative Literature Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Comparative Literature department.
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From El Barrio to La Banlieue: fictions of identity in Nuyorican and Beur literature