Publication Date

2014-05-19

Availability

Open access

Embargo Period

2014-05-19

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PHD)

Department

Modern Languages and Literatures (Arts and Sciences)

Date of Defense

2014-05-06

First Committee Member

Lillian Manzor

Second Committee Member

George Yúdice

Third Committee Member

Gema Pérez-Sánchez

Fourth Committee Member

Jean-François Lejeune

Abstract

This study investigates the ways narrative, theatre, and performance art negotiate identities across Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the United States, and larger global contexts. I research how physical, social, and temporal spaces transform enactments and receptions of text and performance. Particularly, I investigate the effects of transnationality in works that represent queer subjectivities. I intervene in Queer Studies, expanding the notion of queer beyond sexuality to include nationality, race, and class. While identity politics emerges around fixed categories of identity, I argue that representations of subjectivity in transnational networks of production dissociate politicized identification from the rigid geographic and cultural boundaries of the nation-state. I introduce the concept of queer transnationality, which demands access to identification without ascribing the body to binary understandings of identity. I employ this concept to highlight the fluidity of all voluntary and involuntary identifications assumed or imposed by binary and hierarchical naming powers. By investigating the relationship between narrative, theatre, and performance art, I emphasize how each work plays on and against the separation of language and corporeality, and how Caribbean authors and artists redefine cultural and national belonging in multiple geographic spaces.

Keywords

Transnational; Queer; Performance; Theatre; Cuba; Dominican Republic; Puerto Rico

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