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Born of Coatlicue: Literary Inscriptions of Women in Violence from the Mexican Revolution to the Drug War

Matousek, Amanda Leah
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366249191

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
This dissertation analyzes literary representations of women and violence from Mexican, Chicana, and Spanish authors. It focuses on two historical periods of extreme violence affecting the U.S.-Mexico border region: The Mexican Revolution and the turn-of-the-century crisis of the Nation-State that emerged subsequently. The comparative framework explores women’s strategies of survival and agency within the collapse of the security networks of this post-revolutionary State. I argue that although the literary corpus records some of the worst violence in the history of the region, the texts ultimately articulate messages of critical female participation and agency. Through diverse protagonists united by their coatlicuensidad, or dual creative and destructive identities, I show that regardless of their complex subject positions, their agency triumphs amid violent environments of societal—the disruption of structures and institutions—and social—the disturbance of humane interaction—upheaval. This oscillation between beauty and horror addresses the complexity of female subjectivities during explosions of violence at the U.S.-Mexico border. By prioritizing female voices, the novels become intellectual arms of resistance against systematic gender violence, silence, and impunity. The first chapter investigates women’s prominent roles and memories of the Revolution. My analysis of material culture and critical nostalgia demonstrates how these women juxtapose acts of violence with acts of humanity in order to effect a better future for their communities. Chapter two examines the violent effects of the demise of the post-revolutionary regime and its seven-decade old Nation-State model. It draws attention to the victims of femicide in northern Mexico, as the border becomes a battlefield between the forces that represent the erosion of the Nation-State and those of the State’s security apparatus. The victims of this form of gender violence represent the most salient casualties of such an erosion. This chapter also discusses matriarchal communities of knowledge amid this conjuncture, and how they foster social justice and encourage public grieving for murdered women. These novels return the voice to the women and expose the conditions that precipitate and sustain femicidal violence and abuse. The third chapter explores how women use their agency to enact the Drug War violence, or to report about it though the narconovela. Whether they seek to perpetuate drug crime and profit from it, or denounce it, their stories deserve to be told. These novels highlight female positions in the narcotics trade, in addition to demonstrating how they are affected by this recent wave of violence. All of the novels, Cartucho (1931) and Las manos de mama (1937) by Nellie Campobello, Las rebeldes (2011) by Monica Lavin, Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005) by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Ciudad final (2007) by Kama Gutier, If I Die in Juarez (2008) by Stella Pope Duarte, La reina del sur (2002) by Arturo Perez-Reverte, Perra brava (2010) by Orfa Alarcon, La reina del pacifico y otras mujeres del narco (2008) by Victor Ronquillo, and Tijuana: Crimen y olvido (2010) by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, represent the female experience during explosions of criminal violence, gender violence, and war at the border.
Ignacio Corona, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Ana Del Sarto, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Ulises Juan Zevallos-Aguilar, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
304 p.
Foreign Language; Gender Studies; Hispanic American Studies; Latin American History; Latin American Literature; Latin American Studies; Womens Studies

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Matousek, A. L. (2013). Born of Coatlicue: Literary Inscriptions of Women in Violence from the Mexican Revolution to the Drug War [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366249191

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Matousek, Amanda. Born of Coatlicue: Literary Inscriptions of Women in Violence from the Mexican Revolution to the Drug War. 2013. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366249191.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Matousek, Amanda. "Born of Coatlicue: Literary Inscriptions of Women in Violence from the Mexican Revolution to the Drug War." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366249191

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1366249191
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© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.