The New Social Subject as Transgender: Woman as Revolutionary Man
- Ileana Rodríguez Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Latin American Literatures and Culture - Ohio State University
Dr. Rodríguez’s presentation explores: 1) the nature, possibility or impossibility of the political, examining the makeup of the social subject—here woman as urban guerrilla; and 2) the understanding of ‘the feminine’ as an entry point to the maleability or transformability of being. How these two questions are related and how the cross over between the political and the philosophical discourse takes place is the burden of this exhibit. Dr. Rodríguez’s compass in the first point is the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe on hegemony and radical democracy; her compass in the second is Catherine Malabou’s work on plasticity. The grounds for these exercises is an interview with Leticia Herrera, urban guerrilla commander of the Sandinista Revolution, published as Guerrillera, mujer y comandante de la Revolución Sandinista. Memorias de Leticia Herrera. She will then address the maleability or transformability of being, as the transgender nature of the social subject: woman as a revolutionary man; and show how this premises the (im)possibility of politics as hegemony or radical democracy.
Supporters
Sponsored by the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS), the Center for Women's and Gender Studies (CWGS), the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese