INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTIONS: ROSARIO CASTELLANOS (1925-1974) and GLOBAL FEMINIST DISCOURSES by ERIN LOUISE GALLO a DISSERTATION
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INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTIONS: ROSARIO CASTELLANOS (1925-1974) AND GLOBAL FEMINIST DISCOURSES by ERIN LOUISE GALLO A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Romance Languages and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2018 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Erin Louise Gallo Title: International Interventions: Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974) and Global Feminist Discourses This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Romance Languages by: Pedro García-Caro Chairperson Cecilia Enjuto-Rangel Core Member Karen McPherson Core Member Lynn Stephen Institutional Representative and Sara D. Hodges Interim Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2018 ii © 2018 Erin Louise Gallo This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (United States) License. iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Erin Gallo Doctor of Philosophy Department of Romance Languages June 2018 Title: International Interventions: Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974) and Global Feminist Discourses This thesis explores the international dimensions of Rosario Castellanos’ writings, which exhibit a constant—and evolving—preoccupation with feminist literature from across the world. The Mexican woman, public intellectual, professor, author, and ambassador dialogued with Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Betty Friedan, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Gabriela Mistral, and Clarice Lispector, among others, while relating their ideas to Mexican women’s lives. Her journalistic production, essays, poetry, and narrative undergo an evolution as Castellanos articulates a unique Mexican feminist project that factors in race, class, and other intersections affecting Mexican women. I access Castellanos—who has been considered “the Simone de Beauvoir of Mexico”—through the lens of global feminism, which considers the varying layers of power and powerlessness when women of disparate regions and cultures seek solidarity. Through a global feminist perspective we see how Castellanos, rather than blindly importing First World women’s agendas, carefully intervenes in global feminist discouses with the needs of Mexican women. In her evolution, Castellanos grows closer to a feminist project that, rather than buying into the myth of a global sisterhood, evokes instead a desire for a Latin American sisterhood and for Mexican women’s self-definition. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Erin Louise Gallo GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene University of Nevada, Reno Universidad de Colima, Colima, Mexico University of Iowa, Iowa City DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Romance Languages, 2018, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Spanish Language and Literatures, 2011, University of Nevada, Reno Bachelor of Arts, Spanish and Journalism, 2007, University of Iowa AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Mexican and Latin American Literature Feminist Theory Cultural Studies PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Employee, University of Oregon, 2011-2018 Language Assistant, Middlebury College at Mills, summers 2012, 2013 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Graduate Research Grant, Center for the Study of Women in Society, 2015. Stickels Graduate Student Award, Department of Romance Languages, University of Oregon, 2015. Outstanding TA Scholarship, Program of Core Humanities, University of Nevada, Reno, 2010. v PUBLICATIONS: Gallo, Erin. “The Political Becomes the Personal: Rosario Castellanos and the U.S. Women’s Liberation Movement.” Hispanic Review 85.3 (2017): 295-313. Gallo, Erin. “Placing Mexico on the Map: Rosario Castellanos and Global Feminist Literature.” CSWS Annual Review (2017): 32. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has blossomed thanks to the careful reading, thoughtful insights, and steadfast support of many people. I owe sincere thanks to colleagues at the University of Oregon and elsewhere. Kevin Regan-Maglione, my officemate and close friend, was a faithful reader and constructive critic. The Romance Languages Graduate Student Association (RLGSA) hosted multiple Works-in-Progress events where I presented my work to the department and received important feedback from my peers. Baran Germen, Michelle Kyoko Crowson, and Danielle Seid—colleagues in English and Comp Lit whom I greatly admire—supported my project in its many stages. Bruno Ríos and Isabel Díaz Alanís, Mexicanists at other universities who became close confidants and friends, inspired me along the way. I would be remiss to forget Brian Gollnick, the professor who helped me on my path towards a doctoral degree. I am happy to call him my colleague today. I owe gratitude to the undergraduate students in my literature and culture classes for being beautiful humans and for engaging seriously with the materials we studied. They let me workshop authors, texts, and ideas, and many parts of this dissertation are the product of in-class tangents about women-authored literature. There were various institutions that helped me along the way. At the Oaxaca Summer Institute in 2016, Mexicanist historians gave me tools for how to re-think “the archive.” The Center on Diversity and Community (CoDaC) hosted quarterly writing groups. It was there in the basement of Susan Campbell Hall (aided by free coffee and snacks) that I wrote more than half of this dissertation. I am grateful for the support of the Department of Romance Languages, who funded me along the way with scholarships and gave me the opportunity to teach undergraduate literature and culture classes. vii Finally, thanks to the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS), I had the funds to spend three months in Mexico City during the winter of 2016 while conducting final research. I owe gratitude to my family for supporting me in the completion of this project. My mother, Jane Forman Adorno, is my longest and most faithful supporter. My partner, lover, and best friend, Derek Larwick, encourages my every endeavor and challenges me to believe in myself. Our three-month-old daughter, Anastasia Eve, made me a mother, which enriched my reading of Castellanos’ feminist evolution. When she is older, I will also thank Ana for being a happy baby during the final edits of this dissertation. This project is mostly indebted to my doctoral committee. Karen McPherson molded my readings of feminist history with candor and kindness. Lynn Stephen, a genuine and punctual scholar, reinforced my voice on 20th Century Mexico feminism and encouraged me to think interdisciplinarily. Cecilia Enjuto-Rangel, in all her feminist brilliance, pushed me in my poetic analyses and encouraged me to write with more confidence. These three professors inspire me as a woman scholar. Finally, mil gracias a Pedro García-Caro, my dissertation chair and close friend, who through much coffee, laughter, and conversation, helped see this project to its final stages. These people (and more that I am forgetting) were invaluable to the conception and articulation of this dissertation. Any errors are the result of my own misjudgment. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION: GLOBAL FEMINISM AND THE MAKING OF A MEXICAN FEMINIST ....................................................................................................................................... 1 II. ON THE MEXICAN WOMEN’S MOVEMENT: 1968-1971 .............................................. 23 III. ON LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN’S WRITING: CANONICITY AND 1969 ................. 54 IV. ON THE ANGLO-AMERICAN WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT: 1966-1967 ....................................................................................................................................... 85 V. ON FRENCH FEMINISMS: SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR AND SIMONE WEIL ............. 121 VI. TOWARD A MEXICAN FEMINIST PROJECT: VIAJE REDONDO (1971) AND EL ETERNO FEMENINO (1975) ....................................................................................................... 151 VII. CONCLUSIONS: CASTELLANOS IN THE 21ST CENTURY ...................................... 187 REFERENCES CITED .............................................................................................................. 192 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: GLOBAL FEMINISM AND THE MAKING OF A MEXICAN FEMINIST Usted, señora, abnegada mujercita mexicana; o usted, abnegada mujercita mexicana en vías de emancipación: ¿qué ha hecho por su causa en los últimos meses? Me imagino la respuesta obvia: repasar el texto ya clásico de Simone de Beauvoir, ya sea para disentir o para apoyar sus propios argumentos o simple y sencillamente para estar enterada. Mantenerse al tanto de los libros que aparecen, uno tras otro, en los Estados Unidos: las exhaustas descripciones de Betty Friedan, la agresividad de Kate Millet, la lúcida erudición de Germaine Greer. -“La liberación del amor,” Excélsior, Jul 20, 1972 Today, we celebrate the life and legacy of Rosario Castellanos, one of Mexico’s most influential authors. Her poems, stories, and essays were fundamental to the development of the female voice in literature, both in her homeland and across the world. Her master’s thesis, Sobre cultura femenina (On Female Culture), inspired an entire generation. Castellanos also served as the Mexican ambassador to Israel, where she ultimately passed away in 1974. We’re honored to shed light on this incredible