Hindsight and the Real : Subjectivity in Gay Hispanic Autobiography

Vilaseca, David

ISBN 10: 3039100092 / ISBN 13: 9783039100095

Published by Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2003

Unread book in perfect condition. Seller Inventory # 24807724

Synopsis:

Hindsight and the Real: Subjectivity in Gay Hispanic Autobiography studies the representations of self and the discursive constitution of identity in the autobiographical works by several (mostly) gay-identified authors in modern Spanish, Catalan and Latin American literature. These include, among others, Reinaldo Arenas’s Antes que anochezca (1992), Juan Goytisolo’s Coto vedado (1985) and En los reinos de taifa (1986), Jaime Gil de Biedma’s Retrato del artista en 1956 (1994) and Salvador Dalí’s Un diari: 1919–1920 (1994). The book contains a series of case studies linked to a recurring central argument. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary critics and philosophers (including, among others, Slavoj Žižek, Ernesto Laclau, Homi Bhabha and Emmanuel Lévinas), it proposes a notion of identity and (homo)sexuality which is neither essentialist nor merely ‘positional’ (discursive). Thus, while attempting to show (in post-structuralist fashion) that gay Spanish and Latin American self-representations are retroactive constructs invariably inflected by political and discursive factors such as nationality, ‘race’ and class, the book also stresses the role of the ‘Real’ – the kernel of pre-discursive substance which, according to Lacan and his followers, both precedes and exceeds the symbolic order.

About the Author: The Author: David Vilaseca is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of The Apocryphal Subject: Masochism, Identification and Paranoia in Salvador Dalí’s Autobiographical Writings (Peter Lang, 1995). He has published in many professional journals both in the UK and abroad.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Hindsight and the Real : Subjectivity in Gay...
Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Publication Date: 2003
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: As New