Decolonial Puerto Rican Women's Writings

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Roberta Hurtado

   Pages 1-27

3. Enfleshment: Beneath the Body Lies Flesh

   • Roberta Hurtado

   Pages 29-47

4. Flesh-Memories: Bearing Witness to Trauma and Survival

   • Roberta Hurtado

   Pages 49-68

5. Sentient Narratives: Similes, Metaphors, and Dusmic Poetics Within the Senses

   • Roberta Hurtado

   Pages 69-88

6. Envisioning Empowerment: Recodifying the Meaning of Historical Trauma

   • Roberta Hurtado

   Pages 89-110

7. Strategic Decolonization: Methods for Resistance and Community Healing

   • Roberta Hurtado

   Pages 111-130

8. Conclusion: Sentient-Flesh Subversions

   • Roberta Hurtado

   Pages 131-137

9. Back Matter

   Pages 139-157

   PDF

This book explores representations of sentient-flesh — flesh that holds consciousness of being — in Puerto Rican women’s literature. It considers how different literary devices can participate in the decolonization of the flesh as it is obfuscated by mappings of the 'body' from the Enlightenment era and colonial endeavors. Drawing on studies of cognitive development and epigenetics to identify how sentient-flesh creates knowledge of power and navigates methods of subversion for social justice, this book grapples with the question of how Puerto Rican women, living in the nation of their colonizer, manifest an identity that exists beyond the scope of colonization. It makes the case for a change in perspective that illustrates the conceptual shift from survivors to thrivers to educators. To do so, it draws upon Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory in the flesh; Iris Lopez’s theories of trauma-knowledge; and María Lugones’s concept of 'world travelers' to retain the corporeal flesh and physical location in Latinas’ attempts to write subversion under U.S. colonization across racial, cultural, and ethnic boundaries, as well as the gendered-sexuality barriers identified by Emma Pérez. This project builds on their work to frame Latina literature within a new discussion of how corporeal, memory, and sentient experiences of identity must center sentient-flesh as the source of decolonial consciousness rather than relapsing into discourses of the 'body'.

• Power
• Affect
• PTSD
• Trauma
• Space
• Psychology

• State University of New York at Oswego, Oswego, USA

  Roberta Hurtado

Roberta Hurtado is Assistant Professor of Latina/o/x Literature and Culture at SUNY Oswego, USA. She completed her graduate work at the University of Texas San Antonio. She has published with journals such as Chiricú, Label Me Latina/o, and El Mundo Zurdo.

Policies and ethics