Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology

by Héctor Calderón (Editor), Ramón David Saldívar (Editor), Luis Leal (Contributor)

This pathbreaking anthology of Chicano literary criticism, with essays on a remarkable range of texts—both old and new—draws on diverse perspectives in contemporary literary and cultural studies: from ethnographic to postmodernist, from Marxist to feminist, from cultural materialist to new historicist.
The editors have organized essays around four board themes: the situation of Chicano literary studies within American literary history and debates about the “canonâ€; representations of the Chicana/o subject; genre, ideology, and history; and the aesthetics of Chicano literature. The volume as a whole aims at generating new ways of understanding what counts as culture and “theory†and who counts as a theorist. A selected and annotated bibliography of contemporary Chicano literary criticism is also included.
By recovering neglected authors and texts and introducing readers to an emergent Chicano canon, by introducing new perspectives on American literary history, ethnicity, gender, culture, and the literary process itself, Criticism in the Borderlands is an agenda-setting collection that moves beyond previous scholarship to open up the field of Chicano literary studies and to define anew what is American literature.

Contributors. Norma Alarcón, Héctor Calderón, Angie Chabram, Barbara Harlow, Rolando Hinojosa, Luis Leal, José E. Limón, Terese McKenna, Elizabeth J. Ordóñez, Genero Padilla, Alvina E. Quintana, Renato Rosaldo, José David Saldívar, Sonia Saldívar-Hull, Rosaura Sánchez, Roberto Trujillo

310 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 11, 1991

Reviews

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some real gems in this collection, which shed light on where Chicano (net yet Chicanx or even Chicana/o) literary studies was be the end of the 1980s and moving into the 1990s. The works with the most punch tended toward ideological critique, while the more folklorist pieces felt like a throwback to an earlier moment in Chicano studies that perhaps would be well worth reviving. It was easy to tell how significant Ramón Saldívar’s, José David Saldívar’s, Padilla’s, and Calderón’s pieces were going to be so impactful when they would appear in their longer respective monographs. Sonia Saldívar-Hull’s overview of Chicana feminism was strong (as was her own monograph on the same subject, elaborating on readings found in this essay) and Angie Chabram’s bird’s eye view of Chicano criticism is well worth revisiting and reading alongside John Guillory’s book, Professing Criticism, suggesting how limited his work is with regard to the developments of literary studies coming out of the social movements of the 1960s. A good snapshot of the critical directions of this period.

[Nina]

"Narrative, Ideology, and the Reconstruction of american Literacy History" pages 11-20.
José David Saldívar

"Chicano Border Narratives as Cultural Critique" pages 167-180.
José David Saldívar