Resources

This page will host various sources about Latinx literature and culture, and Monster theory:

Week 1 of our course dealt with questions surrounding why we create monsters and what uses they serve in culture. You can see my reflection of our discussion of Cohen’s “Monster Culture” and Halberstam’s Skin Shows here.

In Week 2 we reflected on the use of “Latinx”––its benefits and complications. Here are some other useful essays and op-eds about the topic:

Kurly Tlapoyawa, “Can We Please Stop Using ‘Latinx’? Thanx.”

Ester Trujillo, “Central Americans Aren’t Co-Opting Chicano Studies. They’re Building on Their Shared History.”

Claudia Milian, LatinX. In this new book Milian argues that “LatinX” is the most powerful conceptual tool of the Latino/a present, an itinerary whose analytic routes incorporate the Global South and ecological devastation. Milian’s study deploys the indeterminate but thunderous “X” as intellectual armor, a speculative springboard, and a question for our times that never stops being asked. 

Remezcla, “Hispanic vs. Latino vs. Latinx: A Brief History of How These Words Originated.”

The special issue of Cultural Dynamics on Latinx, “LatinX Studies: Variations and Velocities.” Articles by leading scholars in Latino/a/x Studies on the history, possibilities, and problems with the term.

Alan Pelaez Lopez considers the X as a wound in a powerful essay, “The X In Latinx Is A Wound, Not A Trend,” that signals the histories of colonization, racism, and misogyny central to the formation of Latinidad.

Week 3-4. We finished discussing The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) this week. Here are some interviews and a brief bibliography that I believe will contextualize and enhance a critical understanding of the novel:

• I wrote an article about the difficulty of reading Díaz’s work in light of the sexual misconduct allegations against, and how his work replicates the violence it claims to be writing against: “‘I Think About You, X––: Re-Reading Junot Díaz after ‘The Silence.'” Latino Studies 18, no. 4 (2020): 507-30.
• This interview with Junot Díaz is interesting for hearing an author contextualize his own work: “The Search for Decolonial Love: An Interview with Junot Díaz.” By Paula M.L. Moya. June 26, 2012, 2012. http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/paula-ml-moya-decolonial-love-interview-junot-d%C3%ADaz.
• José David Saldívar, “Junot Díaz’s Search for Decolonial Aesthetics and Love.” In José David, edited by Monica Hanna, Jennifer Harford Vargas and Ramón Saldívar, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 321-349.
• DanielBautista, “Comic Book Realism: Form and Genre in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 21, no. 1 (2011): 41-53.
• Lyn Di Iorio, “Laughing through a Broken Mouth in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” In Junot Díaz and the Decolonial Imagination, edited by Monica Hanna, Ramón Saldívar and Jennifer Hardford Vargas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 69-87.
• Junot Díaz, “Mil Máscaras: An Interview with Pulitzer-Winner Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao).” By Matt Okie. September 2, 2008, 2008.
• Monica Hanna, “Reassembling the Fragments: Battling Historiographies, Caribbean Discourse, and Nerd Genres in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Callaloo 32, no. 2 (2010): 498-520.
• This entire edited collection is dedicated to Díaz’s work: Junot Díaz and the Decolonial Imagination (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016).
• T.S. Miller, “Preternatural Narration and the Lens of Genre Fiction in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Science Fiction Studies 38, no. 1 (2011): 92-114.
• Ana Rodríguez Navas, “Words as Weapons: Gossip in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” MELUS 42, no. 3 (2017): 55-83.
• José David Saldívar, “Conjectures of ‘Americanity’ and Junot Díaz’s ‘Fukú Americanus’ in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” The Global South 5, no. 1 (2011): 120-36.

I am also *very* excited about the new documentary series, Queer for Fear, that is premiering on Shudder! It features interviews with Kimberly Peirce, the writer of Carrie (2013), actor Jennifer Tilly of the Child’s Play series, director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body and Yellowjackets, Oz Perkins, who directed the incredible Gretel & Hansel and is the son of Anthony Perkins, and, most importantly for our class, Carmen Maria Machado, whose collection, Her Body and Other Parties (2017) we will read later this semester.

Week 5: It’s officially spooky season! The New York Times publishes reviews of films to watch during the season, including one of my favorites this year, The Innocents. Shudder also produced a docuseries, Queer for Fear, that I’m very excited to watch, and which features one of the authors we’ll be reading this semester, Carmen Maria Machado.

Week 6: In this week’s blog, I reference Saidiya Hartman’s incredible article, “Venus in Two Acts,” which helps us think about the gaps in the archive and the impossible yet necessary act of writing against these holes in knowledge. On a lighter note, I also watched Bodies Bodies Bodies, which was a super fun comedic-horror film.

I’ve been so behind on posting, but these are some sources that I’ve found have been informing my teaching of these texts:

New York Times, “How Horror Stories Help Us Cope With Real Life”