English Language and Literature ETDs
Publication Date
Fall 11-15-2016
Abstract
Chicana Feminist Acts intervenes in the patriarchal forces that negate the historical presence and social agency of Chicanas on the stage of U.S. literature by recovering the transformative power of Chicana drama to enact feminist change. I position early playwrights Josephina Niggli, Estela Portillo Trambley and Teatro Chicana, alongside contemporary feminist playwright Cherríe Moraga, as part of the rich and varied history of feminist cultural production in the U.S. that challenges the systematic sexist oppression of Chicanas. My thesis is that Chicana theater stages a series of feminist “acts” that continuously re-stage Chicana subjectivity to resist fixed patriarchal and nationalist paradigms of gender and sexuality. Moreover, I maintain that, since the 1930s, Chicanas have staged feminist acts in theater that challenge dominant and Chicano gender/sex norms by imagining and performing different Chicana identities. The humanistic social scientific approach I take to this project allows the subjects of Chicana feminist theater to create its living history. Chicana theater comes alive through interviews with Chicana playwrights alongside archival investigations of photographic stills, playbills, and theater reviews. As a result, the trajectory of Chicana theater that I trace proves Mexican and Mexican American women have challenged dominant paradigms of gender and sexuality long before the 1970s’ so-called first wave of Chicana feminism. My research shows that theater has always played a transformative role in advancing the social position of Chicanas to enact social change.
Degree Name
English
Level of Degree
Doctoral
Department Name
English
First Committee Member (Chair)
Dr. Jesse Aleman
Second Committee Member
Dr. Melina Vizcaino-Aleman
Third Committee Member
Dr. Kathryn Wichelns
Fourth Committee Member
Dr. Tey Diana Rebolledo
Project Sponsors
UNM-Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Language
English
Keywords
Chicana Theater, Chicana Feminism, Chicana Literature, Chicana Playwrights, 20th Century American Theater, 20th Century American Literature
Document Type
Dissertation
Recommended Citation
Kubasek, Natalie M.. "Chicana Feminist Acts: Re-Staging Chicano/a Theater from the Early Twentieth Century to the Present." (2016). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/125
Included in
Literature in English, North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons
