Lexington Books
Pages: 240
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7391-4779-5 • Hardback • November 2010 • $121.00 • (£93.00)
978-0-7391-4781-8 • eBook • November 2010 • $114.50 • (£88.00)
C. Alejandra Elenes is associate professor of womenOs studies at Arizona State University.
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Chapter 1: From the Historical Borderland to Borderlands/La Frontera:Border Studies and Borderland Theorization
Chapter 3 Chapter 2: Borderland Epistemologies, Subjectivities, and Feminism: Toward Border/Transformative Pedagogies
Chapter 4 Chapter 3: La Llorona: Decolonial and Anti-Patriarchal Cultural Politics
Chapter 5 Chapter 4: The Virgin of Guadalupe: Spirituality, Desire, Consumption, and Transformation
Chapter 6 Chapter 5: Malintzin/Marina/Malinche: Embodying History/Reclaiming Our Voice
Chapter 7 Chapter 6: Re-Mapping Transformative Pedagogies: New Tribalism and Social Justice
C. Alejandra Elenes makes an important contribution to Chicano/a studies, feminist theory, borderlands studies, and critical pedagogy in one of the first single-authored books about La Llorona, La Malinche/Malintzin, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Rather than view these three female figures as static, authentic, or reified archetypes, Elenes uses historical and contemporary sources to document their multiple articulations and meanings within popular culture. The interdisciplinary methods and cross-disciplinary intellectual discourse-which weaves feminist theory and critical pedadogy with US third world scholarship-successfully bridges the academic apartheid that plagues education theory and practice, and in doing so Elenes illuminates why these connectionsare vital to educational strategies, changing communities, and contestations of domination. Drawing on the work of Chicana visual artists and theorists who re-imagine La Llorona, La Malinche/Malintzin, and the Virgin of Guadalupe as borderlands sites of gender, sexuality, race, class, and spirituality, Elenes brilliantly demonstrates how the three figures offer critical pedagogical insight for American experiences inside and outside of the classroom. She names this re-configurative and contested process,
— Karen Mary Davalos, Loyola Marymount University
Dr. Elenes constructs a marvelous tapestry that weaves together pedagogy and women's everyday experiences with the deconstruction and decolonial reimagining of La Llorona, La Virgen de Guadalupe, and Malinztin/Malinche. Her insightful analysis pushes us to examine the representations of these three figures in relationship to the production of knowledge and the formation of Chicana feminist subjectivities. Transforming Borders represents provocative scholarship that makes an outstanding contribution to cultural studies, gender studies, Chicana/o studies, and educational studies-a truly remarkable book.
— Dolores Delgado Bernal, University of Utah
C. Alejandra Elenes makes an important contribution to Chicano/a studies, feminist theory, borderlands studies, and critical pedagogy in one of the first single-authored books about La Llorona, La Malinche/Malintzin, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Rather than view these three female figures as static, authentic, or reified archetypes, Elenes uses historical and contemporary sources to document their multiple articulations and meanings within popular culture. The interdisciplinary methods and cross-disciplinary intellectual discourse-which weaves feminist theory and critical pedadogy with US third world scholarship-successfully bridges the academic apartheid that plagues education theory and practice, and in doing so Elenes illuminates why these connections are vital to educational strategies, changing communities, and contestations of domination. Drawing on the work of Chicana visual artists and theorists who re-imagine La Llorona, La Malinche/Malintzin, and the Virgin of Guadalupe as borderlands sites of gender, sexuality, race, class, and spirituality, Elenes brilliantly demonstrates how the three figures offer critical pedagogical insight for American experiences inside and outside of the classroom. She names this re-configurative and contested process, "border/transformative pedagogies," because it is within the cultural spaces of subject-formation that personal, material, emotional, and spiritual power is created and has consequences for human action and agency. It is a book that all organizers, educators, and communities against silencing must read.
— Karen Mary Davalos, Loyola Marymount University