Rezensionen AAA Band 37 (2012) Heft 2 284 Astrid M. Fellner (ed.), Body Signs: The Latino/ a Body in Cultural Production. (American Studies in Austria 6). Zürich [etc.]: Lit, 2011. Mar Gallego 1 The volume edited by Astrid Fellner intends to claim the importance of the body in US Latino/ a culture by focusing its attention on the manifold ways in which the racialized and gendered body figures prominently in many Latino/ a writers and artists’ production, going from the colonial Americas to recent literary and visual representations. Aptly entitled Body Signs, Fellner’s groundbreaking publication engages in the interaction of body and identity politics, revealing how Latino/ a bodies are (re)imagined and (re)constructed as the suitable scenario where to enact metaphoric and symbolic renderings of the ‘other,’ or the ‘abject’ with respect to mainstream political and cultural representations of ‘acceptable’ bodies. As a whole, the volume succeeds in its alleged purpose of bringing to the forefront the primacy of the body in order to present a more complete picture of US Latino/ a cultural production. The different sections into which the book is divided testify to this intentional rewriting of the crucial role played by Latino/ a bodies in Latino/ a culture by covering three main areas of interest, namely memory politics through the historical renditions that are traced back to the colonial period, border theory and its remapping of the canon, and the influence of performativity studies on textual reconfigurations of the Latino/ a body as a site for difference. The last section of the book is devoted to recent works by Latino/ a writers which reflect the “diversity of corporeal discourses in Latino/ a culture” (16), as the editor suitably explains. The historical section opens with a very interesting discussion of Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación (1537), according to its author Juan Bruce-Novoa the socalled “ur-moment of American expression” (24). Analyzing the significance of Cabeza de Vaca’s enunciation, Bruce-Novoa’s insightfully problematizes it by drawing attention to issues of identity formulations of the we (Christians) and the they (Indians). Addressing related topics such as the rewriting of (hi)story, criminal and religious discourses of the time, the critic foregrounds a particular episode in The Account, in which the intentional burning of native bodies is manipulated by Cabeza de Vaca to purposely engage in a redemptive narrative that ultimately “saved the bodies from de facto excommunication” (27). Thus, Bruce-Novoa’s excellent study proves quite useful: it resignifies the ambiguity of those bodies as they are read and reread according to different codes of interpretation. This endless process of resignification, appropriation and reinvention can be applied not only to Cabeza de Vaca’s work but also to other seminal texts, such as William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá’s La historia de la Nuevo México, Thomas Jefferson’s Notes of the State of Virginia, and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, to 1 The author wishes to acknowledge the funding provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Research for the writing of this review (Research Project FEM2010- 18142). Rezensionen AAA Band 37 (2012) Heft 2 285 end up analyzing Walt Disney’s documentaries released during World War II. Bruce-Novoa’s impressive collection of literary and visual texts attests to the common need felt by all these writers and cultural workers to represent the ‘other’ bodies and reassign them an inferior and disposable status, since they are ‘used and abused’ in order to ground firm notions of the dominant subject as the only viable configuration of the American self. In the second chapter devoted to the analysis of Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá’s La noche oscura del Niño Avilés, certain features are shared with the previous chapter in terms of the rewriting of (hi)story and its significant impact on identity politics, in this case in Puerto Rican literature. John Waldron contextualizes Juliá’s novel as a response to the long colonial history of Puerto Rico and its everlasting influence on modes of representation by choosing to center on a slave revolt during the Spanish colonial period. In doing so, Waldron manages to throw light on the strategic representational devices Juliá employs in order to unsettle the established order based on the classical notion of the Great Chain of Being. 2 Especially enlightening in Waldron’s contribution is his revisiting of the different historical discourses and practices since the Enlightenment and their crucial connection to hegemonic positions that supported the twin projects of colonization and enslavement. Claiming the importance of oral Puerto Rican representations and African retentions, Waldron’s reading of Juliá’s text expands the very notion of Puerto Rican identity by unraveling the politics of canon formation that excluded any modes or tropes different from those dictated by Western tradition. Moreover, through the disordering of the body and the creation of a new embodied subjectivity, Juliá destabilizes Western hierarchical order and enables a blatant critique of European colonialism. Claudia Leitner’s chapter on the influential figure of the Malinzi is an extremely interesting and nuanced investigation into the politics of memory in colonial times, informed by what feminist and gender critics identify as blind spots in Foucault’s theories. In this case, the rewriting of history runs parallel to a necessary reassessment of the Malinzi or Malinche in Chicana discursive practices. Concretely, Leitner embarks on the alleged project of what Foucault defined as the “mirage of sex” by exploring D.H. Lawrence’s The Plumed Serpent (published in 1926) and other textual renderings that purposely revisit the figure of the Malinche, such as Octavio Paz’s “Los hijos de la Malinche” (‘The Sons of Malinche’) in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950). Leitner highlights the multiple ways in which this figure is constantly recontextualized and reinterpreted but remains tied up with notions of “rupture, displacement, and dissolution” (77). Besides, La Malinche tends to fuse with La Chingada, which reenacts the primordial violation of the conquest, thus condemning her to the status of sexual object, even in later feminist perspec- 2 For more information, see Arthur Lovejoy’s classical text The Great Chain of Being. A Study of the History of an Idea (1976), and a more recent take in Hossain’s “‘Scientific Racism’ in Enlightened Europe: Linneaus, Darwin, and Galton” (2008). Gates also comments on the influence of this concept in the eighteenth century in order to substantiate racist theories in The Signifying Monkey (1988). Rezensionen AAA Band 37 (2012) Heft 2 286 tives. 3 Although the author acknowledges that there have been recent critical attempts to read her as a multicultural symbol, Leitner urges to rethink this figure within the framework of indigenous mythology and ritual ceremonials, showing her impressive knowledge of ancient native beliefs and worldview. By questioning the logic of Western hierarchies and notions of sex and desire, Leitner brilliantly argues for the reinterpretation of this figure as emblematic in the initial phase of European colonization in the Americas and the pervading influence of the effects of cultural colonization in Mexican consciousness and identity. The second section is headed by Alexandra Ganser’s slightly tenuous interrogation of cultural memory and trauma in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony. The author substantiates her chapter on Silko’s mixed ancestry to examine the effects of multiple heritage and hybrid identities in a Southwestern context. In this contribution, memory and trauma studies facilitate a critical perspective that is particularly interested in describing the body as a site for traumatic inscriptions and identities. What Ganser’s analysis accounts for is precisely the lingering effects of different kinds of “cultural traumata” 4 Silko’s seminal novel deals with, especially after its protagonist Tayo’s confrontation with the two kinds of oppression that suffocate him: white hegemony and the Laguna community. In Ganser’s reading, Tayo’s fashioning of identity is equally informed by the rediscovery of the Laguna Pueblo and the rest of his multilayered and pluriethnic legacy. To achieve this new understanding of identity, Tayo needs to discard internalized fragmented visions of the “tragic half-breed” (111) by probing into the creative negotiations of different cultural heritages. In doing so, the author is careful to theorize that a new cultural space can be recreated to debunk old hierarchies by transgressing borders. Recalling notions of border theory (although not explicitly), Ganser finally reassesses the importance of the hybrid figure as a privileged medium for reconstruction and integration of the diverse cultural (hi)stories and memories into a coherent whole. Markus Heide adds new layers of meaning in his perceptive study of John Rechy’s City of Night and the Miraculous Day of Amalia López. Similar to Silko, Rechy has repeatedly refused to be ‘labeled,’ in his case as gay or Chicano, arguing for a dynamic and inclusive sense of identity and literary constructions. Despite his overt refusal, Heide contends that Rechy’s texts actually allow for a profound revision of hegemonic epistemologies and ideologies by centering on hybrid identities and cultural worlds, either ethnic or sexual, that “explode from within” those given categories. Hence, the central aim of this chapter is the exploration of Rechy’s use of two strategic devices, ambivalence and self-reflexivity, as “strategies of infiltration, or as a form of narra- 3 Most surprisingly, eminent Chicana feminists such as Rosario Castellanos endorsed this oversexualization and commodification of the Malinche, which eventually speaks back to the pervasive and long-standing influence of a Westernized conception of the figure as inscribed in the narrative of conquest. 4 In trauma studies, cultural traumata are defined as the traumatic experiences that plague collective memory after terrible episodes such as slavery or the Holocaust (Fellner 106). Rezensionen AAA Band 37 (2012) Heft 2 287 tive sabotage,” in the author’s words (126). Emphasizing the role of Rechy’s texts as performing cultural critique, Heide skillfully discusses the impossibility of establishing identity demarcations or simplifying assumptions about ethnic or engaged literature by delving into the criticism of Chicano/ a cultural practices and literary history. What is tremendously stimulating is precisely Rechy’s critical viewpoint about Chicano/ a discourses, which clearly enriches our own understanding of cultural imagery and its impact on the reconfiguration of body and identity politics. Marcus Embry’s suggestive contribution once more tackles key questions of the definition of Latinidad and Latino/ a culture by delimiting the contours of the Caribbean through an overview of Latin American literature. His main concerns evolve around issues of the costs of mainstreaming and appropriation propitiated by the contemporary scenario of globalization and late capitalism, as they are intrinsically associated with processes of canon formation, but also with the commodification of ethnic identities. Specifically, Embry makes lucid use of Mayra Montero’s In the Palm of Darkness to question the legacy of Magical Realism as imbricated with the Caribbean geography itself. Extinction, dispossession, imperialism and cold war are conjured up by Montero’s text as it affects Chicano/ a bodies and identities. The author consistently problematizes the processes of assimilation and marketing in mainstream culture, and how this inclusion can enlarge and reconceptualize the category of American literature itself. By acknowledging the theoretical insights it draws from, Astrid Fellner’s captivating contribution on Laura Aguilar’s photography inaugurates the third section of the publication and proves to be one of the most significant chapters in the collection. Her pertinent analysis of colored queer theory undoubtedly sheds light on the ways in which the recognition of difference - ethnic or sexual - may imply processes of subversion and empowerment. Following Butler’s ideas, Fellner makes much of Aguilar’s provocative depiction of the body as a politically inscribed entity, especially as it touches upon notions of the abject and performative gender that help to question the heteronormative ideal of beauty, while simultaneously enabling to challenge the dominant tradition of nude art represented by Mexican painter Botero. Underlining the instability of gender categories, Fellner’s persuasive discussion further defies Chicano/ a iconography that assigns women the opposite roles of either La Virgen de Guadalupe or La Malinche, which is interpreted in yet another possible way: as the “site of cultural betrayal: the repressed, submissive, heterosexual body” (158). 5 Thus, Fellner convincingly argues, Aguilar’s photography not only attempts to expose the fragility of gender categories but effectively meditates on the fascination with the power of abjection her nudes so consistently provide to visual spectators. Doris Einsiedel’s chapter offers an illuminating reading on Julia Alvarez’s novel ¡Yo! and her essay collection Something to Declare, even though one feels she tries to comprise too many topics that should be dealt with in more 5 In this sense, Fellner seems to be responding to the debate about the Malinche proposed by Leitner’s piece, although it is not explicitly stated by the editor. Rezensionen AAA Band 37 (2012) Heft 2 288 depth. She also revisits the instability of gender categories and the devastating effects of the mainstream beauty standard with its pervasive cult around the human body in her Chicana protagonists, who feel torn between their conflicting and shifting allegiances. Particularly informative is her insight into the commodification of appearance and body shapes, as she relates it to the postmodern class-systems both in the Dominican Republic and in the United States. In her project of deconstruction of the white body as the norm, the author includes three invisible forces that constitutes, as she claims, “a turning point in the interpretation of the construction of the body [...] familyties, religion and writing” (176-7). She eventually concludes that identity issues ultimately are predicated on what Turner terms “the project of the body” (cited in Fellner 184), and literature can still be regarded as the only refuge to explore disembodied subjectivity. The final chapter of this section closely returns to both border theories and Butler’s critical approaches, testifying once more to the importance of these theoretical frameworks for an adequate understanding of recent Chicana literature. Angelita Köhler commits herself to further disclosing the ways in which gender categories are arbitrary, especially as they refer to bodies that are signified upon as the excluded Other. Concretely, her work takes issue with the body as borderland in Cherrie Moraga’s Heroes and Saints and Ana Castillo’s Peel my Love like an Onion in order to assert the potentiality of the body to articulate multilayered and multifaceted selves. Addressing key issues such as the language of the body and the claim of speaking for oneself, both writers portray the disabled female body as a site for empowerment, rewriting the stereotype of the victimized Chicana and redefining the culturally assigned marginal spaces through a new understanding of the corporeality of the body and its discursive constructedness. The very last section of the book, devoted to Latino/ a fiction and poetry, is indeed remarkable and thought-provoking, providing textual examples of the above-mentioned aspects in the works of Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Juanita Luna Lawhn, Cecile Pineda, and Takeo Rivera. There is a certain unease about the grounds for the inclusion of Rivera, of Japanese and Filipino ancestry, who claims “a strong sense of solidarity with the history and politics of the Latino body” (229). Not willing to easily dismiss such a moving claim, the argument extends the influence of Latino/ a cultural work to other contexts and performs the intricacies of constructing multiple and hybrid identities, always in transit. Quite logically, these ideas lends coherence to the present volume, despite the obvious differences in the production of the four writers included in this section. All in all, the volume is a significant contribution and welcome addition to the growing field of studies on Latino/ a cultural production and on body studies in general. Its interdisciplinary approach to the controversial issue of the discursive and cultural constructedness of Latino/ a bodies will surely pave the way for future productive research and investigation. Rezensionen AAA Band 37 (2012) Heft 2 289 References Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (1998). The Signifying Monkey. New York [etc.]: OUP. Hossain, Shah Ashna (2000). “‘Scientific Racism’ in Enlightened Europe: Linneaus, Darwin, and Galton.” [Online] http: / / serendip.brynmawr.edu/ exchange/ node/ 1852 (17 Sep 2008). Lovejoy, Arthur (1976). The Great Chain of Being. A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mar Gallego Department of English Philology University of Huelva Möller, Swantje. Coming to Terms with Crisis. Disorientation and Reorientation in the Novels of Ian McEwan. (Anglistische Forschungen 415). Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2011. Johannes Wally Post-modernism has often been thought to equal the notorious slogan “anything goes,” especially when it comes to questions of how one should lead one’s life. The emphasis on contingency as a shaping factor of life as well as the awareness of the constructedness of human sense-making has earned postmodernism the reputation of being inherently anti-ethical, incapable of producing anything more substantial than moral relativism. After 9/ 11, this alleged lack of moral orientation even became a matter of political concern. On 22 September 2001, cultural critic Edward Rothstein (2001: online) published a piece in the New York Times in which he blamed postmodernism (as well as post-colonialism) for challenging the value of “truth and ethical judgement” and thus for indirectly justifying the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This article started a substantial public debate and although Rothstein’s position is an exception, the term post-modernism often seems to smack of something negative, such as the loss of centre, the dissolution of any bonds holding between signifier and signified and limitless subjectivity. What such an understanding of post-modernism overlooks is that “[p]ostmodernism, implicitly or explicitly, is about ethics before it is anything else” (Eaglestone 2004: 183). If one has to manoeuvre through a world where once well-established patterns offer no orientation anymore, the questions what is right and what is wrong do not simply become meaningless. They become all the more important.