Description
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Transnational and Transcultural American Studies are interested in dynamics that do not simply propel contact between geographical and cultural spaces but transcend conceptual boundaries and physical borders in a globalized world. Firmly positioned within these theoretical fields, this book suggests a reading of Chicana Narrative that goes beyond established scholarly particularizations such as "ethnic minority writing." Instead, in a creative application of Ken Plummer's vision of a "Sociology of Stories," it makes a case for flexible, unfinalizable narrative chains that link human stories across genres, times and spaces. Narrowing this global scope to Chicana Narrative outlines a chain of narrative resistance that begins with Gloria Anzaldúa's seminal text Borderlands/La Frontera. This book contends that motifs introduced by Anzaldúa in 1987 continue to be featured in works by Chicana authors Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros and Michele Serros, and are ultimately addressed at communities of support worldwide. Julia Andres's study brilliantly incorporates theoretical paradigms related to contemporary narratology scholarship in the hermeneutics of the literary works written by well-known Chicana authors such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, and Michele Serros as well as the ground-breaking Latina Feminist Group's collection of testimonies titled Telling to Live. These creative works are contextually situated within the survival strategies encapsulated in the storytelling endeavor. The study splendidly explores the exceptional authors listed above and conjoins their writings to the innate power of testimonios rightly perceived as emanating largely from personal experience itself. Andres also demonstrates an extraordinary ability to deploy sophisticated theories for elucidating complex narrative processes and in this manner offers us a superb contribution to both narratology theory and to Chicana literary analysis.María Herrera-SobekAssociate Vice Chancellor and Professor of Chicana and Chicano StudiesUniversity of California at Santa Barbara
