By Sara Castro-Klarén

From the Preface

In the paper, "Literature, Feminism and the Alpha Male: A Search Beyond the Dominance Metaphor," Dr. Castro-Klaren examines the relationship between feminist literary criticism and Latin American literature by women authors. Based on the premise that Latin American letters have developed in close contact with theoretical developments in the United States and Europe, Dr. Castro-Klaren analyzes how North American and European feminist literary theorists have addressed the question of a universal feminist speaking subject. The paper looks at two distinct theories of the feminine subject: gynocriticism and French (anti-)feminism. While the former asserts women's writing as part of an essentialist female tradition, the latter rejects the assumption of an authentically female voice and focuses on examining the constitution of sexual difference. Dr. Castro-Klaren outlines the influence of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalyis on feminist literary theory and examines how various feminist theorists, including Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous, and Judith Butler, have challenged its theories of women. In conclusion, Dr. Castro-Klaren presents the ideas of Nancy Chodorow, Jane Flax, Judith Butler, and Gayatri Spivak to encourage a move away from an essentialist view and assert that, as cultural constructs, gender differences are relational. As such, feminists and other subjects outside of dominant literary traditions may be best examined from a local rather than universal context.