UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA TESIS DOCTORAL Paradigms of Postmodern Presentism: Towards the Chicana Decolonization of the Imaginary Paradigmas del presentismo postmoderno: hacia la descolonización chicana del imaginario MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTORA PRESENTADA POR Elsa del Campo Ramírez DIRECTORA Carmen Méndez García Madrid, 2018 © Elsa del Campo Ramírez, 2017 UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID PROGRAMA DE DOCTORADO EN ESTUDIOS LITERARIOS Facultad de Filología TESIS DOCTORAL Paradigmas del presentismo postmoderno: Hacia la descolonización chicana del imaginario Paradigms of Postmodern Presentism: Towards the Chicana Decolonization of the Imaginary MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTOR PRESENTADA POR Elsa del Campo Ramírez Directora Carmen Méndez García Madrid, 2017 © Elsa del Campo Ramírez, 2017 UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID Programa de Doctorado en Estudios Literarios Facultad de Filología PARADIGMAS DEL PRESENTISMO POSTMODERNO: HACIA LA DESCOLONIZACIÓN CHICANA DEL IMAGINARIO PARADIGMS OF POSTMODERN PRESENTISM: TOWARDS THE CHICANA DECOLONIZATION OF THE IMAGINARY TESIS DOCTORAL Presentada por: Elsa del Campo Ramírez Dirigida por: Dra. Carmen Méndez García Madrid, 2017 Programa de Doctorado en Estudios Literarios Facultad de Filología PARADIGMAS DEL PRESENTISMO POSTMODERNO: HACIA LA DESCOLONIZACIÓN CHICANA DEL IMAGINARIO PARADIGMS OF POSTMODERN PRESENTISM: TOWARDS THE CHICANA DECOLONIZATION OF THE IMAGINARY Tesis Doctoral presentada por ELSA DEL CAMPO RAMÍREZ Para la obtención del Grado de Doctor ACKNOLEDGEMENTS People tend to assume a doctoral dissertation is a strictly individual task, a mission one accomplishes solo. Well, yes and no. It is true that the major bulk of work is done by the mentee, but an enabling and nurturing environment and, specifically, the appropriate individuals must also accompany in all those moments of manic inspiration and overwhelming tedium that, more often than not, encompass the process of creation. Unfortunately, they cannot read books for you, no matter how concerned they may be by the puffiness of your eyebags, but they can, and they do, in fact, help in many other ways that need proper ascertaining. These people’s contributions, even if frequently invisible, may become as indispensable as one’s coffee maker and persistence. I understand those who prefer to go without acknowledgments at the beginning of their dissertations, but my personal experience and several situations I have undergone during this time make it impossible for me to hand in these pages without recognising and adequately thanking all those individuals who have somehow made it possible. So, here it goes. First, thanks to my advisor, Carmen Méndez, who, perhaps following the commands of her Trekkie spirit, is one of those cherished professors for whom students are actually a priority; and who has consistently sacrificed her time and most likely her mental health in order to provide me with valuable help and guidelines, the most meticulous corrections I have ever witnessed, and endless assistance. I deeply appreciate her constant support and kind- heartedness at every stage of the whole process, and her patience when guiding me throughout all the confusing paperwork. And my Lord of the Flies T-shirt, of course, which I still wear. Thanks also to the University of California Los Angeles, for allowing me the honour of spending a whole research year at the Chicana/o Studies Department to become more acquainted with a culture that, up until then, I had exclusively been able to access through books. Only when I was there, and certainly with the aid of the most attentive of mentors, was I capable of finding the true (and ultimate) focus of my thesis. Special thanks to Profe (prof. Alicia Gaspar de Alba), to prof. María Cristina Pons, prof. Roberto Chao Romero, prof. Abel Valenzuela, prof. Reynaldo Macías, prof. Maylei Blackwell, prof. Rafael Pérez Torres, and to my dear Ellie Hernández, for unwearyingly and kindly teaching me to face reality from a different perspective, and to acknowledge all those instances where my internalised racism and my privileged position were preventing me from understanding how sex and gender cannot be disengaged from the colour of one’s skin. Thanks also to Kendy Rivera, for being always so eager to listen to what I had to say, not minding how stupid it might sound, and treating me as an equal despite her obviously superior intellect. I am eternally grateful to my mother, for her blind faith and her limitless belief in my aptitudes, for supporting me emotionally and economically, and for taking so many sacrifices, always with a smile in her face, to invest in my personal, academic, and intellectual formation. Absolutely none of this would have ever been possible without you, Mum, so all of this I owe it to you. Gamsahabnida, Oppa, too, for your undeniable contribution in this respect. Special thanks to Enrique, too, who up to this date can take pride (?) in being the only one to have attended each and every congress and seminar I have participated in and who has followed my progress ever since I started. I would like to thank him for his relaxation tips before speaking in public, for reminding me that this was all for a reason (and that I should not step onto the stage biting the papers I am supposed to read), and for unquestioningly believing in me. And, of course, thanks to Willy, for keeping me focused and mentally stable despite the ordeal these past few years have been for both of us at so many levels and in so many aspects. Thanks for those well-deserved pints, those tons of Kinder Bueno chocolate bars when in a slump, your relentless backing, and your unpaid proofreading sessions. To Mum, who saw as her responsibility what for me has been a privilege. To Willy and Enrique, for being always there. PARADIGMS OF POSTMODERN PRESENTISM: TOWARDS THE CHICANA DECOLONIZATION OF THE IMAGINARY Resumen………………………………………………………………………………1 Summary…………………………………………………………………………...…5 0-Curtain Up: Introduction…………………………………………………….……9 1-The Weight of the Present: Some Theoretical Questions……………………..…25 1.1-New Historicism, Cultural Materialism and Presentism………………….………28 1.2-Presenting Presentism: In search of a definition………………………….……....44 1.3-Illustration: Margaret Atwood’s “Gertrude Talks Back”…………………………………………………………………...….54 2-Origins and Misconceptions: Delimiting Presentism……………………………61 2.1-Origins……………………………………………………………………..……..63 2.1.1-Postmodern Influences on Presentism………………………………….64 2.1.1.1-This Delusion We Call Reality…………………………..…...67 2.1.1.2-This Shattering We Call the Subject……………………….....70 2.1.2-Pulling the Leash: Limiting the Scope of Presentism……………….…..72 2.1.2.1-Quite Postmodern, but not Quite…………………………..…73 2.1.2.2-The Loyal Subject in the Realm of Fiction………………...….74 2.2-Misconceptions………………………………………………………………......82 2.2.1-The Disdainful Misconception: Presentism is Inherently Uncritical……………………………………………...…84 2.2.2- The Unilateral Misconception: Presentism is only work-reader oriented…………………………….………….….89 2.3-In Need of a Better Definition: Presentism and Aesthetic Materialism…………………………………………………….………………....96 2.3.1-Presentism and Close Reading…………………………………….……98 2.3.2-Presentism and the Social Aesthetic……………………………..……101 3-Presentism and the Decolonial Imaginary……………………………………...109 3.1-The Recovery of the Serpent God: The Chicano Movement and Chicana Feminist Theory……………………………..………...112 3.2-Postmodernism and the Chicana/o Movement……………………..…………...126 3.2.1-Fragmentation, Alienation and Minorities………………………….…131 3.2.2-Postmodern History vs. Herstory………………………….............….135 3.3-Coyolxauhqui’s Daughters and The Decolonization of the Imaginary……………………………………………………………....…141 3.4-“Sound and Fury” or, Are Presentism and the Decolonial imaginary Compatible?.........................................................................................149 3.4.1-Presentism is not mere Revisionism………………………………......153 4-The Spatial Turn of Presentism…………………………………….…………...159 4.1-Against Unidimensionality: Presentism is not only temporal……………………………..………………………………………161 4.2-Globalization and Decolonial Studies………………….……………………….169 4.3-Spatial Decolonization and Presentism………………………..………………..172 5-“Not to Either State Inclined:” Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Sor Juana’s Second Dream……………………………………………...............…183 5.1-Some Preliminary Questions About the Phoenix of Mexico……………………………………………………………………..…185 5.2-How to Build a Proto-Feminist, Lesbian Character Through Space……………………………………………………………….….200 5.2.1-The Social Cage: The Nun in a Convent……………………………...205 5.2.2-The Corporal Cage: Woman’s Body, Woman’s Restrictions…………………………………...………….…209 5.2.3-The Emotional Cage: Lesbianism in Pandora’s Box……………………………………………………….…..211 6-Helena Maria Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came withThem……………………...219 6.1-Archetypical Women in the Chicano Cultural Imaginary……………....222 6.2-Presentism in Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came with Them……………...233 6.2.1-The Use of History for Neo-Colonial Denunciation……………………………………………….....234 6.2.2-The Use of Space for Displacement Denunciation…………………………….………...………….249 7-Curtain Drop: Final Conclusions…………………………………………….…265 Bibliography….………………………………..……………………………….….281 Paradigmas del presentismo postmoderno: Hacia la descolonización chicana del imaginario RESUMEN De acuerdo con el Oxford English Dictionary, se entiende por presentismo la tendencia a interpretar hechos pasados desde una perspectiva actual. Esto, en el campo de la crítica literaria equivaldría