University Press of Florida Masculinity After Trujillo: The Politics of Gender in Dominican Literature

Review "An outstanding and necessary book, with a brilliant cultural, historical, and political contextualization of the literature examined. Masculinity after Trujillo covers important lacunae in previous scholarship on Dominican post-dictatorship literature."--Revista de Estudios Hispánicos"A highly persuasive challenge to established critical currents concerning the major tenets of masculinity under the dictatorship, the terms in which it might be understood, the complexity of the semiotic practices which sustained it, and the intricate rhetorical legacies which it has spawned."--Caribbean Quarterly"A novel and thoughtful analysis of the sexual gender relations and the construction of masculinity in contemporary Dominican culture."--The Americas"Asserts that Trujillo-style manhood permeates Dominican culture and politics, preventing the country from making progress toward equitable gender relations."--Hispanic American Historical Review"Engaging and well researched . . . deepens our knowledge of contemporary gender attitudes in the Dominican Republic as well as of the linkages between discourses of masculinity, political power, and Dominican literary production."--Latin Americanist Product Description Any observer of Dominican political and literary discourse will quickly notice the prevalence of certain notions of hyper-masculinity. In this extraordinary work, Maja Horn argues that these gender conceptions became ingrained during the dictatorship (1930-1961) of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, as well as through the U.S. military occupation that preceded it.Where previous studies have focused mainly on Spanish colonialism and the sharing of the island with Haiti, Horn emphasizes the underexamined and lasting influence of U.S. imperialism and how it prepared the terrain for Trujillo's hyperbolic language of masculinity. She also demonstrates how later attempts to emasculate the image of Trujillo often reproduced the same masculinist ideology popularized by his government.Through the lens of gender politics, Horn enables readers to reconsider the ongoing legacy of the Trujillato, including the relatively weak social movements formed around racial and ethnic identities, sexuality, and even labor. She offers exciting new interpretations of such writers as Hilma Contreras, Rita Indiana Hernández, and Junot Díaz, revealing the ways they challenge dominant political and canonical literary discourses. About the Author Maja Horn is assistant professor of Spanish and Latin American cultures at Barnard College, New York, USA