Queer Networks: Latin American Women in the First Half of the 20th Century
I will share the findings and challenges of my current research project. The book I am now writing, maps--thanks to mostly unpublished archival documents--a network of queer Latin American and Spanish women artists, writers, and patrons who lived away from their countries, traveled, and challenged heterosexual norms of family, sexuality, reproduction, and economic dependency. This project on queer networks reevaluates recognized visual artists, writers, intellectuals, and patrons such as Teresa de la Parra, Lydia Cabrera, Gabriela Mistral, Victoria Kent, and Frida Kahlo, along with figures who have been forgotten or minimized by official cultural history.Analyzing the affective, material, creative, erotic, and intellectual functions of these networks from the perspective of queer studies allows a new understanding of the conditions for cultural production and the way all cultural networks shape ideologies, poetics, intellectual projects, and political practices.
