Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology(Post-Contemporary Interventions)

This anthology of Chicano literary criticism, with essays on a remarkable range of texts - both old and new - draws on diverse perspectives in contemporary literary and cultural studies; from ethnographic to postmodernist, from Marxist to feminist, from cultural materialist to new historicist. The editors have organized essays around four broad themes, the situation of Chicano literary studies within American literary history and debates about the "canon"; representations of the Chicana/o subject; genre, ideology and history; and the aesthetics of Chicano literature. The volume as a whole aims at generating new ways of understanding what counts as culture and "theory" and who counts as a theorist. A selected and annotated bibliography of contemporary Chicano literary criticism is also included. By recovering neglected authors and texts and introducing new perspectives on American literary process itself, "Criticism in the Borderlands" is an agenda-setting collection that moves beyond previous scholarship to open up the field of Chicano literary studies and to define anew what is American literature.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments ix Foreword: Redefining American Literature / Roland Hinojosa xi Editors' Introduction: Criticism in the Borderlands 1 Part I. Institutional Studies and the Literary Canon Narrative, Ideology, and the Reconstruction of American Literary History / RamÓn SaldÍvar 11 The Rewriting of American Literary History / Luis Leal 21 The Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American Feminism / Norma AlarcÓn 28 Part II. Representations of the Chicana/o Subject: Race, Class, and Gender Imprisoned Narrative? Or Lies, Secrets, and Silence in New Mexico Women's Autobiography / Genaro Padilla 43 Body, Spirit, and the Text: Alma Villanueva's Life Span / Elizabeth J. OrdÓÑez 61 Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters: The Novelist as Ethnographer / Alvina E. Quintana 72 Fables of the Fallen Guy / Renato Rosaldo 84 Part III. Genre, Ideology, and History The Novel and the Community of Readers: Rereading TomÁs Rivera's Y no se le tragÓ la tierra / HÉctor CalderÓn 97 Ideological Discourses in Arturo Islas's The Rain God / Rosaura SÁnchez 114 Conceptualizing Chicano Critical Discourse / Angie Chabram 127 Sites of Struggle: Immigration, Deportation, Prison, and Exile / Barbara Harlow 149 Part IV. Aesthetics of the Border Chicano Border Narratives as Cultural Critique / JosÉ David SaldÍvar 167 On Chicano Poetry and the Political Age: Corridos as Social Drama / Teresa McKenna 188 Feminism on the Border / From Gender Politics to Geopolitics / Sonia SaldÍvar-Hull 203 Dancing with the Devil: Society, Gender, and the Political Unconcious in Mexican-American South Texas / JosÉ E. LimÓn 221 Works Cited 237 Selected and Annotated Bibliography of Contemporary Chicano Literary Criticism 260 Index 275 Contributors 287

Review :
'Criticism in the Borderlands maps the significant contribution of Chicano and Chicana literary and cultural studies toward defining a culture of resistance in the United States...' --Suzanne Oboler, Novel: A Forum on Fiction