Feminism, Nation and Myth: La Malinche

$39.95

Edited by Rolando Romero and Amanda Nolacea Harris

ISBN: 978-1-55885-440-6
Publication Date: April 30, 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192

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Feminism, Nation and Myth explores the scholarship of La Malinche, the indigenous woman who is said to have led Cortés and his troops to the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán. The figure of La Malinche has generated intense debate among literature and cultural studies scholars. Drawing from the humanities and the social sciences, feminist studies, queer studies, Chicana/o studies, and Latina/o studies, critics and theorists in this volume analyze the interaction and interdependence of race, class, and gender. Studies of La Malinche demand that scholars disassemble and reconstruct concepts of nation, community, agency, subjectivity, and social activism.

This volume originated in the 1999 “U.S. Latina/Latino Perspectives on la Malinche” conference that brought together scholars from across the nation. Filmmaker Dan Banda interviewed many of the presenters for his documentary, Indigenous Always: The Legend of La Malinche and the Conquest of Mexico.

Contributors include Alfred Arteaga, Antonia Castañeda, Debra Castillo, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Deena González, María Herrera Sobek, Guisela Latorre, Luis Leal, Sandra Messinger Cypess, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Amanda Nolacea Harris, Rolando J. Romero, and Tere Romo.  These academic essays are complemented by the creative work of Alicia Gaspar de Alba and José Emilio Pacheco, both of whom evoke the figure of La Malinche in their work.

ROLANDO J. ROMERO teaches U.S. Latina/Latino and Mexican literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he is the founding director of the Latina/Latino Studies Program. He is the general editor of Discourse: Journal in Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture. He has published essays in Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Confluencia, and Revista Iberoamericana, among others. He served as chief academic consultant for Dan Banda’s PBS documentary Indigenous Always: The Legend of La Malinche and the Conquest of Mexico, a documentary that explores the life of La Malinche. He was a Senior Fellow of the Fulbright Commission and has also held fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Center for 20th Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

AMANDA NOLACEA HARRIS was a Chicana Studies Dissertation Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2003-2004. She has written on a number of topics including Chicano allegory and La Malinche. She attended the Cornell School of Theory and Criticism in 2003. She worked as managing editor of Discourse: Journal in Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture (1999-2002) and as researcher, translator and coordinator for Dan Banda’s PBS documentary Indigenous Always: The Legend of La Malinche and the Conquest of Mexico.

Learn more by visiting his faculty page.