On 12 November, NOG PhD Valeria Stabile defends her PhD dissertation titled Pues no soy mujer. The Upheaval of Singularity in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, which centers on the revolution that sor Juana started in the debate about singularity, sexedness, and in-betweenness—not only in the field of literary studies and literary criticism, but also in the broad landscape of feminist and gender studies.
Debate About Difference
By defining herself neither as a woman, nor as a stable subject belonging to a fixed homogeneous group or genre, sor Juana opens an interesting debate about difference and non-binarism. In sor Juana’s literary corpus, identities are endless and impossible to grasp in their ultimate meaning. They remain forever impossible to place, neither fully present nor fully absent. They exist in a dangerous balance between (nepantla) life and death, dancing and moving, following the chaotic geometry of points, folding the ordinate symmetry of lines, and subverting the hegemonic order of the patriarchal and colonial world.
The Age-Old Question of Identity
According to Stabile, sor Juana problematises the age-old question of identity from within. This causes not only a disintegration of the structure of identity and of the process of identification, but also a breakup of the very structuralist ground upon which they stand. In Stabile’s understanding, sor Juana interestingly reconfigures a non-binary and fluid position for her complex subjectivity, both as a woman poet and a criollo in colonised Mexico, that even today can enter into a powerful dialogue with contemporary feminist theory.
Details PhD Defense
Date: Friday November 12, 2021
Time: 10.15-11.15
Location: Due to Covid-19 the PhD defense is hybrid. You can follow the ceremony through this livestream
Title: Pues no soy mujer. The Upheaval of Singularity in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Rosemarie Buikema, Dr. K.C. Thiele, Prof. M.J. Rodrigo Mora and Prof. E. Balletta
