The New Social Subject as Transgender: Woman as Revolutionary Man

  • Ileana Rodríguez The Ohio State University

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to explore: 1) the nature, possibility, or impossibility of the political, and for that, I examine the makeup of the social subject –in this paper that of woman as urban guerrilla; and 2) the understanding of “the feminine” as an entry point to the malleability or transformability of being. How these two questions are related and how the crossover between the political and the philosophical discourse takes place is the burden of this exhibit. My compass in the first point is the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe on hegemony and radical democracy; my compass in the second is Catherine Malabou’s work on plasticity. My ground for this exercise is an interview of Leticia Herrera, urban guerrilla commander of the Sandinista Revolution, published as Guerrillera, mujer y comandante de la Revolución Sandinista. Memorias de Leticia Herrera. The presentation moves directly to the second point, the malleability or transformability of being, as the transgender nature of the social subject: woman as a revolutionary man; and show how this premises the (im)possibility of politics as hegemony or radical democracy.

Author Biography

Ileana Rodríguez, The Ohio State University

Humanities Distinguished Professor of Spanish, Emérita. The Ohio State University. Libros publicados: Gender Violence in Failed and Democratic States (Pallbrave, 2016). Hombres de empresa, saber y poder en Centroamérica: Identidades regionales/Modernidades periféricas: (IHNCA, 2011. Debates Culturales y Agendas de Campo: Estudios Culturales, Postcoloniales, Subalternos, Transatlánticos, Transoceánicos (Cuarto Propio, 2011). Liberlistm at its Limits: Crime and Terror in the Latin American Cultural Text. (U of Pittsburgh P., 2009); Transatlantic Topographies: Island, Highlands, Jungle, (U. of MN P, 2005); Women Guerrillas, and Love: Understanding War in Central America (U of MN P., 1996); House/Garden/Nation: Space, Gender, and Ethnicity in Post-Colonia Latin American Literatures by Women (Duke U. P. 1994); Registradas en la historia: 10 años del quehacer feminista en Nicaragua (Vanguardia, 1990); Primer inventario del invasor (Nueva Nicaragua, 1984).

Published
2018-12-06
How to Cite
Rodríguez, I. (2018). The New Social Subject as Transgender: Woman as Revolutionary Man. Revista Telar ISSN 1668-3633, (21), 93-112. Retrieved from http://revistatelar.ct.unt.edu.ar/index.php/revistatelar/article/view/407