Masculinity after Trujillo : the politics of gender in Dominican literature /
Maja Horn.
- Gainesville : University Press of Florida, (c)2014.
- 1 online resource (xvi, 202 pages)
"This book is a part of the Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture publication initiative, funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation."
Includes bibliographies and index.
Introduction: The politics of gender in the Caribbean -- De-tropicalizing the Trujillo dictatorship and Dominican masculinity -- One phallus for another: post-dictatorship political and literary canons -- Engendering resistance: Hilma Contreras's counternarratives -- Still loving Papi: globalized dominican subjectivities in the novels of Rita Indiana Hernández -- How not to read Junot Díaz: diasporic Dominican masculinity and its returns -- Conclusion.
Any observer of Dominican political and literary discourse will quickly notice how certain notions of hyper-masculinity permeate the culture. Many critics will attribute this to an outgrowth of "traditional" Latin American patriarchal culture. Masculinity after Trujillo demonstrates why they are mistaken. In this extraordinary work, Maja Horn argues that this common Dominican attitude became ingrained during the dictatorship (1930-61) of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, as well as through the U.S. military occupation that preceded it. Where previous studies have focused mainly on Spanish colonialism and the controversial sharing of the island with Haiti, Horn emphasizes the underexamined and lasting influence of U.S. imperialism and how it prepared the terrain for Trujillo's hyperbolic language of masculinity. She also demonstrates how later attempts to emasculate the image of Trujillo often reproduced the same masculinist ideology popularized by his government. By using the lens of gender politics, Horn enables readers to reconsider the ongoing legacy of the Trujillato, including the relatively weak social movements formed around racial and ethnic identities, sexuality, and even labor. She offers exciting new interpretations of such writers as Hilma Contreras, Rita Indiana Hernández, and Junot Díaz, revealing the ways they successfully challenge dominant political and canonical literary discourses.
9780813048994
016715379 Uk
Dominican literature--History and criticism. Masculinity--Dominican Republic. Masculinity in literature. Gender identity--Dominican Republic. Men--Psychology.--Dominican Republic