èצӰÏñ

Presentation will focus on some of the transnational stories (historias) and novels written by Sandra Cisneros. It begins by considering how Cisneros thematizes the plight of Greater Mexico's beleaguered multiculture in The House On Mango Street and Caramelo and then defends it against the charges of failure. The presentation ends by turning toward the issues of figural language and border identities in Cisneros' fiction.

José David Saldívar, trained in English and Comparative Literature at Yale University and èצӰÏñ, is best known for his literary historical analysis of the inter-American novel, US-Mexico border cultural studies, and critical social theory. The general direction of Saldívar’s recent publications in Cultural Studies, Modern Fiction Studies, Nepantla, and American Literary History, concern local US literary and cultural processes in relation to the outernational pressures of Americanity, coloniality and power. He is pursuing research on the War of 1898, the Cultures of US Imperialism, and the Global South.

While the approach is comparative and transnational, a central focus of Saldívar’s work is in the critical formations of Americanity and coloniality. He is presently completing a book provisionally entitled Subaltern Modernities: Americanity, Coloniality of Power, and the Cultures of Greater Mexico, and his most recent book is entitled Latin@s in the World-System (co-edited with Ramón Grosfoguel and Nelson Maldonado-Torres), published by Paradigm Press in 2005.