{"pk":41821,"title":"Vengeful Bodies: Representing Femicide in Latin American Culture","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>This essay is concerned with fiction in terms of gender as it relates to femicide, a phenomenon largely associated with the Latin American region. In the realm of culture (literature and art), fiction not only portrays femicide but also provides a language to understand the bodily reality of gender based violence, an occurrence which simulates and demarks the fragility within a socialized fiction like gender. When it comes to depicting atrocities like femicide, one is always phased with the question of ethics. Is there a “right way” to depict that which is intrinsically wrong? I will explore these issues through the often called Gothic horror novel <em>Hurricane Season</em> by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor and the performance/installation pieces “Jardín de flores” and “Monumento a las desaparecidas” by Guatemalan Regina José Galindo. I analyze these two works to demonstrate the varying and opposing manners of portraying femicide and gender based violence. While it is perhaps productive to consider the ethics of representation in art and literature, </p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial  4.0","short_name":"CC BY-NC 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"Gender Studies"},{"word":"Performance Studies"},{"word":"literary theory"},{"word":"Latin American Studies"},{"word":"affect theory"},{"word":"queer theory"}],"section":"TENSIONS IN LATIN AMERICAN CITIES","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/16d1z7v1","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Vivian","middle_name":"","last_name":"Arimany","name_suffix":"","institution":"Columbia University","department":"Latin American and Iberian Cultures"}],"date_submitted":"2025-01-13T03:13:09.250000+03:00","date_accepted":"2025-07-03T03:50:19.626000+03:00","date_published":"2025-12-12T04:45:00+03:00","render_galley":{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/mester/article/41821/galley/47380/download/"},"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/mester/article/41821/galley/47380/download/"}]}