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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts WOMB GENEALOGIES: CONCEIVING THE NEW WORLD A Dissertation in Comparative Literature and Women’s Studies by Nicole Lynn Sparling © 2009 Nicole Lynn Sparling Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2009 ii The dissertation of Nicole Lynn Sparling was reviewed and approved* by the following: Sophia A. McClennen Director of Graduate Program in Comparative Literature Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Women's Studies Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Djelal Kadir Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature Susan M. Squier Brill Professor of Women's Studies and English Lorraine Dowler Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Geography Laurence Prescott Professor of Spanish and African American Studies Caroline D. Eckhardt Department Head of Comparative Literature Professor of Comparative Literature and English * Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT Despite the advancements made by feminist activists and civil rights movements in the twentieth century, the status of women in the Americas began to deteriorate sharply in the 1970s and 1980s as dictatorships and neo-conservative regimes emerged. In this political climate, the reproductive lives of female citizens became an issue of national interest as women were often expected or forced to relinquish certain rights (both civil and human) and to assume traditional gender roles. At the same time, literary texts from several countries of the Americas dealt explicitly with the relation between language, reproduction, and the nation. These novels, namely Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Ariel Dorfman’s La última canción de Manuel Sendero (1987), Diamela Eltit’s El cuarto mundo (1988), Carlos Fuentes’s Cristóbal Nonato (1982), Clarice Lispector’s A hora da estrela (1977), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), made the female body, actually and figuratively, central to their political critiques of the nation at a time when women’s reproductive lives had become yet again a site of population control. I argue that when these texts use the female body as a metaphor for the nation, it is actually the womb that becomes symbolic of national space, for any agency on the part of the embodied female subject in terms of nation formation is belied by the passive description of its birth: the nation is born. Further, I propose that the rhetoric of biopolitics, which describes the way that power is organized and instrumentalized through definitions of life itself, reveals how figurative language serves to perpetuate the relation of inclusive exclusion that the feminine has with the nation and the body politic. At the core of this study is the question of how to escape this ideational cycle which links figurative and material violence. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................v Introduction: Womb Genealogies: Conceiving the New World ......................................................1 Biopolitics and the Feminization of Bare Life ......................................................................9 Womb (Con)figurations ......................................................................................................16 Ethical Concerns: Gender, Race, Class, and Nation ...........................................................23 Chapter One: Origin Stories: (Re)producing the Nation in the Americas .....................................27 The Colonial Period: “Discovery” and Conquest ...............................................................27 A. Holy Lands ................................................................................................................32 B. New World Husbands ...............................................................................................36 C. Native Bodies, Raw Materials ...................................................................................43 Scientific Transmutations, Gender Dominations ................................................................47 The Trouble with Gender and Nation .................................................................................56 Chapter Two: Barren Lives, Dangerous Figures ...........................................................................63 Biopolitical Stakes ..............................................................................................................72 Bodily Figures .....................................................................................................................80 A. The Sexual Life of Plants ..........................................................................................86 B. Life’s Blood ...............................................................................................................94 C. Fetal Positionings and Ovoid Symbolism ................................................................102 D. Space Travel and the Darkness Within ....................................................................109 Unreliable Witnesses .........................................................................................................116 Chapter Three: Bare Life Conceptions ........................................................................................124 Genre and Gender: The Politics of Reproducing Bare Life ..............................................128 Voices from Beyond and Within ......................................................................................144 Domestic Disturbances, or Why the Personal is Political ................................................160 Chapter Four: Revolutionary Wombs and Body Politics ............................................................178 Charting Novel(tie)s .........................................................................................................186 The Birth of the Author .....................................................................................................199 A Symbolic Mother for the Nation: Whose Body Politic? ..............................................218 Corporeal Conclusions .................................................................................................................233 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................243 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was made possible by the generous support of the Crawford family, Penn State’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and the Research and Graduate Studies Office. It is with utmost admiration and appreciation that I thank my advisor Sophia A. McClennen, who has always challenged and encouraged me intellectually and whose guidance has been and will continue to be invaluable. I would also like to extend my deep gratitude to Djelal Kadir for having seen the potential in me and for being a constant source of wisdom and strength. Lorraine Dowler, Aníbal González Pérez, Laurence Prescott, and Susan M. Squier have been so inspiring to me professionally and personally and their careful attention to my work has meant so much. Hilda Chacón and Ana Distefano have been my role models because they continue to inspire and educate with passion. The Departments of Comparative Literature and Women’s Studies have been my homes away from home these past years and I will be forever grateful for the environment of camaraderie created by Thomas O. Beebee, Caroline D. Eckhardt, Jonathan P. Eburne, Lori Ginzberg, Carolyn Sachs, and all of the office staff, most especially Irene Grassi. I am particularly grateful for the hospitality and generosity of the Chilean scholars, writers, and friends who I met during my time abroad, most notably Rubí Carreño, Eugenia Brito, Diamela Eltit, Claudia Montero, Raquel Olea, Josh M. Pilz, and Raúl Rodríguez Freire. I will always be indebted to my dear graduate school colleagues who are now life-long friends: Sara Scott Armengot, Robin Kuzu, Luz Angélica Kirschner, María Luján Tubio, Ipek Kismet, Atia Sattar, Michelle Toumayants, Dawn Taylor, Tracy Cramer Scaltz, Mariano Humeniuk, Stephanie Jenkins, and Beate Brunow. I would also like to thank Rebecca Alexander Riggi and Karen Ann Sinko for their unconditional friendships. My parents, Laurie and Glenn, have been vi my greatest teachers, for they live by example. I will be forever grateful for the sacrifices that they have made, so that my sisters and I could find our passions. I am thankful for my sisters, Kristen and Lauren, who continue to amaze me and keep me grounded. Finally, I would like to thank all of my family and all of my friends for their unconditional love and support, especially my grandparents Glenn, Carol, Ray, and Lois, who always believed in me. vii In honor of my grandmother, whose strength and courage of conviction continues to inspire me. Carol Sparling (1922-1994) 1 INTRODUCTION Womb Genealogies: Conceiving the New World Figurative representations of the female body, especially the womb, have been used at different moments in the history of the Americas to rationalize the subordination of women. Despite the advancements made by feminist activists and civil rights movements in the twentieth