The body as nation in solo performances of Puerto Rico
說明
178 p
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 71-06, Section: A, page: 1857
Adviser: Tamara Underiner
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Arizona State University, 2010
In this dissertation I analyze the ways "Puerto Rico" -- as a flexible concept of cultural belonging -- is articulated in solo performance. Considering the relentless political/colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S., the island lends itself as a unique site for the exploration of national performatives. Solo performance is also unique in its challenges to theories of nation that call for a necessary collectivity and literality in the construction of nationhood. Understanding nation, as it is performed on the flesh, opens its boundaries of state, politics, history, modernity, and discourse. My study explores how one body can be representative of the whole in spite and because of its marginalization from the totality of the nation imagined. How does thinking about nation as an appropriatable state of being instead of an imposed or earned status help to expand the ways nations define themselves and the people that make them?
Employing theories of nation as well as cultural, queer, theatre, and performance studies, I offer a detailed analysis of the ways sexualized, racialized, genderized, and politicized solo bodies perform Puerto Rico. My study focuses on six sites of solo performance, ranging from the traditional monologue, to the one-woman show, to the performance of religious preaching, and queer political activism
