ABSTRACT

Doubles and Hybrids in Latin American Gothic focuses on a recurrent motif that is fundamental in the Gothic—the double. This volume explores how this ancient notion acquires tremendous force in a region, Latin America, which is itself defined by duplicity (indigenous/European, autochthonous religions/Catholic). Despite this duplicity and at the same time because of it, this region has also generated "mestizaje," or forms resulting from racial mixing and hybridity. This collection, then, aims to contribute to the current discussion about the Gothic in Latin America by examining the doubles and hybrid forms that result from the violent yet culturally fertile process of colonization that took place in the area.

part I|54 pages

Doubling the Self

chapter 1|13 pages

Scalding Drops on a Naked Eye

The Motif of the Double in Seeing Red by Lina Meruane

chapter 2|14 pages

Monstrous/Wondrous Transformations of the Female Body

A Reading of Daniela Tarazona’s El animal sobre la piedra and the Gothic

chapter 4|13 pages

Knocking at the Door of Your Prison House of History

Carlos Fuentes’s Aura (1962) and Angela Carter’s “The Lady of the House of Love” (1979)

part II|28 pages

Double Bodies

chapter 6|11 pages

Gothic Queerpos

Metamorphosis, Ambiguity, and Queer Bodies in José Ricardo Chaves’s “El prostíbulo de Monsieur Venus”

part III|48 pages

Animals as Doubles

chapter 7|16 pages

Maize, Coyotes, and Fireflies

Transformation and Nagualism in Hombres de maíz

chapter 8|16 pages

Mirrors and Shapeshifters

The Double in Gastão Cruls and Murilo Rubião

part IV|44 pages

Doubles and Spaces

chapter 10|16 pages

Aztec Revenants in Mexican Fiction

chapter 11|14 pages

From Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles to María Mandinga

Gothic Transmutations in García Márquez’s Del amor y otros demonios

chapter 12|14 pages

Doubles, Specters, and Community Trauma

Collapse, Repetition, and Horror in the Mexican Earthquakes of 9/19

part V|30 pages

The Double in Film

chapter 13|16 pages

Civilization and Barbarism

Argentina and the Uncanny Other Within

chapter 14|14 pages

The Latin American Asylum

Gothic Spaces and the Transformation of the Mentally Ill in Mora’s Cachaza and Bodanzky’s Bicho de sete cabeças [Brainstorm]