Race, Gender, and Animality in Twentieth-Century Mexico and Central America" (2017)
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Species Sadness: Race, Gender, And Animality In Twentieth- Century Mexico And Central America Carolyn Fornoff University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Latin American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Fornoff, Carolyn, "Species Sadness: Race, Gender, And Animality In Twentieth-Century Mexico And Central America" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2287. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2287 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2287 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Species Sadness: Race, Gender, And Animality In Twentieth-Century Mexico And Central America Abstract While the nonhuman has generally been disregarded as irrelevant to Mexicanist and Central Americanist scholarship on race, sexuality, gender, and politics, this project argues that thinking through the animal was a key method through which twentieth-century writers revised what ought to be considered “natural” and normative. The hypothesis that this project explores is that the animal operates as a figure that contests how the human—or a certain type of human marked by sexuality, gender, and race—has been produced and privileged by society. I argue that the turn to species intensifies during moments of ideological change. Species Sadness thus provides a framework for thinking about three periods of political turmoil in Central America and Mexico in relation to each other—rising fascism in the thirties, incipient feminism in the sixties, and the Sandinista revolution of the seventies—and argues that during moments of ideological revision, the concept of species is central. Interspecies erotics, domestic intimacy with pets, and animal vulnerability, are all unusual, yet key narrative tools to push readers to think beyond the human and define an ethics that is attentive to alterity. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Romance Languages First Advisor Rom�n de la Campa Keywords affect, animal studies, Central America, gender, Mexico, race Subject Categories Latin American Literature This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2287 SPECIES SADNESS: RACE, GENDER, AND ANIMALITY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA Carolyn Fornoff A DISSERTATION in Hispanic Studies For the Graduate Group in Romance Languages Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation _____________________ Román de la Campa Edwin B. and Lenore R. Williams Professor of Romance Languages Graduate Group Chairperson ________________________ Luis Moreno-Caballud, Associate Professor of Romance Languages Dissertation Committee: Beatriz González-Stephan, Lee Hage Jamail Professor of Latin American Studies Jorge Téllez, Assistant Professor of Romance Languages SPECIES SADNESS: RACE, GENDER, AND ANIMALITY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA COPYRIGHT 2017 Carolyn Fornoff This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are so many people that I would like to thank for their encouragement and support throughout the process of writing this dissertation. First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation director, Román de la Campa, for emboldening me to explore unconventional approaches to Latin American literature. His feedback pushed this project forward, always challenging me to give the analysis another twist, or to foreground the theoretical work that the primary source itself is performing. Second, I am deeply indebted to Beatriz González-Stephan, who first introduced me to the joys of cultural criticism during my undergraduate work at Rice University. Beatriz inspired me to enter academia and is ever ready with words of encouragement. She is a generous, unstoppable force of nature who has taken the time to mentor me in both academia and life. Third, I would like to thank Jorge Téllez for his copious and thoughtful feedback as I drafted this project. Jorge’s wide-ranging command of Mexican literature has been extremely useful as I have deepened my understanding of the field. I’d also like to extend my sincere thanks to Ignacio Sánchez Prado. Though not a member of my committee, Nacho’s advice has been key to my professionalization. His enthusiasm about this project has made me all the more eager to develop it further. I would also like to thank Bethany Wiggin for including me in the exciting process of building the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) during my time at Penn. Bethany’s remarkable creation of a space for interdisciplinary ecocritical work has inspired me and given me a second intellectual home at Penn. During my time as PPEH program coordinator, I watched Bethany as she navigated putting together iii academic and public-facing events, wrote grants, mentored grad students, and pushed forward institutionalizing EH at Penn. Through PPEH I have met many valuable interlocutors, including Zeb Tortorici and Etienne Benson, whose approach to animal studies has informed my own. I would also like to thank Patricia Kim for her camaraderie and unceasing moral support. My fellow participants in the Anthropocene and Animal Studies Reading Group that I founded at Penn have also provided me with invaluable intellectual company throughout the completion of this project. I am also incredibly grateful to my colleagues and friends who have sustained me throughout this process. Thank you to Lindsey Reuben for countless times listening to my gripes over a glass of wine. Kristen Turpin, for always being there to bounce ideas around with. Steve Dolph, for our friendship and environmental-oriented conversations over the last six years. Thank you as well to Emily Weissbourd, Isabel Díaz, Amelia Vielló, and Derek Beaudry for their encouragement. I’d also like to extend my appreciation to new friends found in the field. Conferencing with Oliva Cosentino, Iván Aguirre, Adriana Pérez Limón, and Mónica Garcia Blizzard has made me all the more excited to continue dialoguing about Mexican and Central American culture. This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous institutional support provided by the University of Pennyslvania. The SAS Dissertation Research Fellowship allowed me to conduct additional archival research in Guatemala during the summer of 2015, which benefited the development of Chapter 1. Similarly, the Latin American and Latino Studies Travel Research Award enabled me to visit Mexico City during the summer of 2016, where I conducted research at the Cineteca Nacional. Summer funding from the Spanish department was also invaluable for my travels to iv Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Finally, the Dissertation Completion Fellowship gave me the much-needed time to finalize this project during the 2016-17 academic year. Lastly, I am so appreciative for my family’s boundless love. I would like to thank my parents, Val and Tom, for encouraging me to follow my passion—and just get it done! My grandparents’s support throughout this process has also been incredibly sustaining. Thanks to my sister Suzi for never letting me take myself too seriously. Finally, this project would not have been possible without Jonathan’s unwavering encouragement. Thank you for always grounding me, encouraging me to care for myself, and lifting me up. v ABSTRACT SPECIES SADNESS: RACE, GENDER, AND ANIMALITY IN TWENTIETH- CENTURY MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA Carolyn Fornoff Román de la Campa While the nonhuman has generally been disregarded as irrelevant to Mexicanist and Central Americanist scholarship on race, sexuality, gender, and politics, this project argues that thinking through the animal was a key method through which twentieth-century writers revised what ought to be considered “natural” and normative. The hypothesis that this project explores is that the animal operates as a figure that contests how the human—or a certain type of human marked by sexuality, gender, and race—has been produced and privileged by society. I argue that the turn to species intensifies during moments of ideological change. Species Sadness thus provides a framework for thinking about three periods of political turmoil in Central America and Mexico in relation to each other—rising fascism in the thirties, incipient feminism in the sixties, and the Sandinista revolution of the seventies—and argues that during moments of ideological revision, the concept of species is central. Interspecies erotics, domestic intimacy with pets, and animal vulnerability, are all unusual, yet key narrative tools to push readers to think beyond the human and define an ethics that is attentive to alterity. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................ III ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... VI INTRODUCTION: THINKING WITH ANIMALS IN LITERATURE AND THEORY 1 CHAPTER 1: SHAMEFUL INTIMACIES: INTERSPECIES DESIRE IN 1930S CENTRAL AMERICAN FICTION ......................................................................................