Bodies and Biases

Sexualities in Hispanic Cultures and Literatures

1996

David Foster and Roberto Reis, editors

A bold look at representations of sexual behavior in Hispanic culture.

Looking at a wide range of cultural practices and artifacts, including television, popular music, and pornography, Bodies and Biases addresses representations of sexual behavior and collective identity, homosexuality, and ideologies of gender in historical and contemporary Hispanic culture.

Contributors: Silvia Bermúdez, Dário Borim Jr., Herbert J. Brant, Lou Charnon-Deutsch, Ana García Chichester, Brad S. Epps, Gustavo Geirola, Mary S. Gossy, J. Eduardo Jaramillo-Zuluaga, Marina Pérez de Mendiola, Salvador A. Oropesa, James A. Parr, Javier Aparicio Maydeu, Claudia Schaefer-Rodríguez, Robert ter Horst.

Looking at a wide range of cultural practices and artifacts, including television, popular music, and pornography, Bodies and Biases addresses representations of sexual behavior and collective identity, homosexuality, and ideologies of gender in historical and contemporary Hispanic culture.

Topics include cross-dressing on the seventeenth-century Spanish stage, gay life in Cuba and Mexico, a butch-femme reading of Peri-Rossi’s Solitario de amor, pornography, and queer and lesbian spaces. Some essays offer radical rereadings of canonical texts like Don Quijote and Martín Fierro; others bring to the fore lesser known works, such as Marco Denevi’s Rosaura a las diez and the writings of Virgilip Piñera. Reflecting a diversity of sociological, literary, and psychological theoretical underpinnings, Bodies and Biases is a fascinating analysis of sexuality in the context of Hispanic literature and culture.

Contributors: Silvia Bermúdez, U of California, Santa Barbara; Dário Borim Jr.; Herbert J. Brant, Indiana U/Purdue U at Indianapolis; Lou Charnon-Deutsch, SUNY at Stony Brook; Ana García Chichester, Mary Washington College; Brad S. Epps, Harvard U; Gustavo Geirola; Mary S. Gossy, Rutgers U; J. Eduardo Jaramillo-Zuluaga, Denison U; Marina Pérez de Mendiola, U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Salvador A. Oropesa, Kansas State U; James A. Parr, U of California, Riverside; Javier Aparicio Maydeu, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona; Claudia Schaefer-Rodríguez, U of Rochester; Robert ter Horst, U of Rochester.

David William Foster is Regents’ Professor of Spanish and Women’s Studies at Arizona State University, where he is director of Spanish graduate studies.

Roberto Reis (1949-94) was professor of Brazilian studies at the University of Minnesota.

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