Gender and literary genre

An approach to writings of subversion

Abstract

The introduction and recognition of the term "gender" as a category of analysis that allows to distinguish the systems of meaning and cultural representation around sexed bodies has been the subject of multiple and protracted discussions. However, reflection upon the instability and institutionalization of the very concept of gender leads us to think about its relationship with the literary fact from a more precise perspective: what is the way in which sexualized subjectivity emerges in literary texts?
Directing our attention to the broad categories of subjectivity and literary genre leads us to three proposals. First, to recognize a double process of identity construction implied in a literary text: a political voice that demands its representation, and a filiation to an architext framed in a literary tradition and canon. Second, to acknowledge autobiographical writing as the narrative fabric par excellence in which subjectivity weaves a recognition of itself, but also to acknowledge, with reference to the work of Pedro Lemebel, how chronicles and testimonies can play a similar role. Third, to appreciate that literary genres which resist the systematization of their transgression mechanisms suffer a similar fate in academia to the one gender diversity suffers in the realm of politics.