Thesis ID: CBB001561998

Interpreting the (Me)xican Wise Woman: Convivial and Representation (2004)

unapi

Martinez-Cruz, Paloma (Author)


Columbia University
Bosteels, Bruno


Publication Date: 2004
Edition Details: Advisor: Bosteels, Bruno
Physical Details: 231 pp.
Language: English

This dissertation studies the figure of the wise woman (female folk healers, mystics, prophets, and shamans) in Mexican and Chicano/a literature and history. As a savior-transformer archetype she does not resort to violence or humiliation of the oppressor in order to realize emancipation. By introducing the phenomena of healing as a tool of resistance, she breaks the cycle of violent reciprocity perpetrated by sub- oppressors, enunciating the pilgrim's faith in actualizing a world apart. This Pre-Columbian to Post- NAFTA investigation demonstrates that gendered power in Mexican and Chicano/a groups has functioned as a counter- hegemonic presence in which wise women articulate the agency of female-based knowledge. This study is divided into two sections entitled Convivial and Representation. The Introduction and Chapter One compose the first section dealing with live expressions of indigenous and mestizo healing practices. Focusing on what is co-lived, Convivial advocates learning from rather than merely learning about indigenous curative traditions. Representation presents new strategies for interpreting creative and historical impressions of wise women. Using contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a novels along with Post-Conquest chronicles, we can critique the factors that delegitimize feminine spirituality. Chapter One explores the Occidental notion of authenticity as it commodifies indigenous rituals in Huautla de Jimnez, known for its sacred mushroom ritual that has gone under various transformations under the exigencies of spiritual tourism. Chapter Two discusses the centrality curanderas (female folk healers) in the contemporary Chicano novels Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya and So Far From God by Ana Castillo. Chapter Three reads the presence of women mystics and miracle-workers in four contemporary Mexican novels: Oficio de tiniblas by Rosario Castellanos, Hasta no verte Jess mo by Elena Poniatowksa, La inslita historia de la Santa de Cabora by Brianda Domecq, and Regina by Antonio Velasco-Pia. Chapter Four, Tiitl: Women Physicians of Early Mexico, engages the debate of gender complementarity in Pre-Hispanic culture, arguing that the mistrust of women doctors and parturient females reveals evidence of Pre-Conquest gynophobia.

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Description Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 64 (2004): 3702. UMI order no. 3110162.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001561998/

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Authors & Contributors
Achim, Miruna
Baer, Hans A.
Carrillo, Juan Luis
Chabrán, Rafael
Chowning, Margaret
De Vos, Paula Susan
Journals
Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Circumscribere: International Journal for the History of Science
Cronos: Cuadernos Valencianos de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia
Dynamis: Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam
História, Ciências, Saúde---Manguinhos
Publishers
University of California, Berkeley
Berghahn Books
Columbia University Press
Stanford University Press
University of New Mexico Press
University of Wisconsin Press
Concepts
Medicine, traditional
Medicine
Alternative medicine
Medicine and gender
Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence
Medicine and religion
People
Hernández, Francisco
Kneipp, Sebastian
Latour, Bruno
Léon y Gama, Antonio de
Saṅs-rgya-rgya-mtsho, Sde-srid
Ainslie, Whitelaw
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century
17th century
20th century, early
16th century
Places
Mexico
Germany
United States
Africa
Korea
Tibet
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