Masculinity after Trujillo

The Politics of Gender in Dominican Literature

Bibliographic Data

ID19982137
AuthorsMaja Horn (corresponding author)
Year2014
Pages220
Publication date2014-01-28
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueMasculinity after Trujillo (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity Press of Florida (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5744/florida/9780813049304.001.0001
OpenAlexW4238543696
Open LibraryOL28507578M
ISBN9780813049304
LanguageEN
Citations received16

This book argues that discourses of masculinity circulating in the cultural and political sphere in the Dominican Republic, including in much of the country's literary canon, structure notions of citizenship and state power in problematic ways. However, Masculinity after Trujillo challenges prevalent understandings of Dominican masculinity as primarily an outgrowth of a long-standing Latin American patriarchal "tradition" and highlights how masculinity has been transformed over time, including by the Rafael L. Trujillo dictatorship (1930–1961) and through the impact of U.S. imperialism and other transnational impulses. Drawing from the work of political theorist Ernesto Laclau, I show how these notions of masculinity have far-ranging effects on Dominican political and public culture today and help to sustain a political status quo that fails to alleviate deep-seated economic and social inequities, forcing many Dominicans to emigrate. Problematically, I argue, these dominant gender discourses are reproduced in the works of some of the most important post-dictatorship Dominican intellectuals and writers, including in the works of Marcio Veloz Maggiolo, the foremost living Dominican novelist. This context gives therefore both a particular cultural and political weight to the alternative gender and sexual repertoires that I trace in the work of Dominican and Dominican American writers, including Hilma Contreras, Rita Indiana Hernández, and Junot Díaz. From within a historically and culturally specific framework that is mindful of the ineluctable role of outside forces and of continual cultural changes, this book thus asks how Caribbean literature and culture contribute to envisioning greater gender equality, sexual justice, and, more broadly, enhanced citizenship in the region

Masculinity · Sociology · Gender Studies · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America · Dominican literature · Dominican republic · Gender identity · History and criticism · Masculinity in literature · Men · Psychology · Social conditions

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