The National Body in Mexican Literature

The National Body in Mexican Literature presents a revisionist reading of the Mexican canon that challenges assumptions of State hegemony and national identity. It analyzes the representation of sick, disabled, and miraculously healed bodies in Mexican literature from 1940 to 1980 in narrative fiction by Vicente Leñero, Juan Rulfo, among others.

"Rebecca Janzen is a rising star in the Mexicanist field, as evidenced by her close readings of the twentieth-century Mexican canon." - Emily Hind, Associate Professor of Spanish & Portuguese, University of Florida, USA

"Blind prostitutes and criminals, mestizo patriarchs and indigenous matriarchs, labor organizing messiahs, and millions of chilangos bustling through the Mexico City subway system. These are the inhabitants of the short stories, novels, and chronicles that appear in Rebecca Janzen's The National Body in Mexican Literature. Through a series of seamlessly integrated historical reflections and insightful literary analyses, Janzen elegantly explores how these characters represent, confront, contest, and become subject to the post-revolutionary State's biopolitical power." - Brian L. Price, Associate Professor of Hispanic Literature and Culture, Brigham Young University, USA

"The National Body in Mexican Literature is a major contribution to the study of Mexican Literature, and undoubtedly one of the most important books on Mexican cultural studies to emerge in recent years. Janzen's book shows how the Mexican State uses the body (illnesses, disabilities, or marginal experiences of the body) to convey a vision of the 'National body.' In studying literary works, the author is able to portray a thought-provoking book that challenges current interpretations and reads against the grain of the canonical representations of some of our major works of fiction." - Pedro Palou, Associate Professor of Latin American Literature and Studies, Tufts University, USA

Auteur
Rebecca Janzen is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Bluffton University, USA.