Candidate: Adela Josefina Najarro

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: English

Title: Inroads Towards Contemporary Latina Literature: Poetry and Criticism

Committee:
Dr. Allen Webb, Chair
Dr. Herbert Scott
Dr. Patricia Montilla
Dr. Robert Vann

Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2003, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
3011 Brown Hall

Abstract:
My dissertation is comprised of two volumes, one a collection of original poetry, titled Conversation with Rubén Darío, the other an investigation into contemporary Latina literature, titled Two Places at Once: Latina Life, Literature and the American Way. In the poetry collection, I make a conscious decision to reach beyond US literature to the poetry, prose and lives of Latin American authors such as Rubén Darío, Cesár Vallejo, Alfonsina Storni, and Jorge Luis Borges. The "conversation" with these authors and their texts investigates my Nicaraguan-American family life, Catholicism, and at times incorporates the use of Spanglish. My dissertation's critical volume investigates socio-political issues that affect the production of Latina literature in the United States, and examines how Catholicism, and the use of Spanglish work within the various texts of Latina authors. Chapter four focuses on Latina literature and the American literary canon. I propose that by working within the tradition of literary history, Latina authors and their literature alter the current configurations of the canon. The style of the work itself is a meta-argument toward the inclusion of personal and narrative frameworks as viable strategies in the production of knowledge, and each chapter begins with an autobiographical essay as introduction to the chapter's critical focus. The range of authors chosen represent various Latino/a groups within the US: Dominican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Chicanas, and Cuban-Americans. The central authors under study are Julia Alvarez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Ana Castillo, and Cristina Garcia.

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