Books by Cristina Santos
This is an interdisciplinary examination of depictions of girlhoods through a comparative study o... more This is an interdisciplinary examination of depictions of girlhoods through a comparative study of foundational fairy tales revised and reimagined in popular narrative, film, and television adaptations.
The success of franchises such as The Hunger Games, Twilight and Divergence have re-presented the young heroine as an empowered female, and often a warrior hero in her own right. Through a selection of popular culture touchstones this empowerment is questioned as a manipulation of feminist ideals of equality and a continuation of the traditional vision of female awakening centering on issues of personal choice, agency, physical violence, purity, and beauty. By investigating re-occurring storytelling frameworks and archetypes, Untaming Girlhoods examines different portrayals of girlhoods in the 20th- and 21st-century Anglo-American cultural imaginary that configure modern girlhoods, beyond the fairy-tale princess or the damsel in distress, into refigurations that venture away from the well-trodden path for a new breakaway path to authentic selfhood.
This will be a useful and enlightening text for students and researchers in Girlhood Studies, Gender Studies, Film Studies, Popular Culture and Media Studies.
Virgin Envy: The Cultural (In)significance of the Hymen -- Korean translation, 2019
Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires and Virgins is a multi-cultural and interdisciplina... more Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires and Virgins is a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary work founded on the idea that female monstrosity is buried within cultural constructs. It looks at the cult of the female body as a contested site of patriarchal fears and anxieties around female sexuality and its reproductive power. Cristina Santos explores how any process of female sexual development occurring outside society’s predetermined acceptable behavior patterns for women is considered deviant, monstrous, and/or degenerate. This type of socio-cultural censorship of female self-expression then leads to the prejudgment of the female by external forces within confining and inauthentic roles for the individual. Ultimately, those women who chose an authentic self-expression of their sexuality run the risk of possible exclusion from their community and punishment for not adhering to the dominant normative code.
Contrary to what rationalism preached, monsters did not disappear with the arrival of the capital... more Contrary to what rationalism preached, monsters did not disappear with the arrival of the capitalism. They still exist and share our world. At any given historical moment, monsters represent either deviations or deformations of a preconceived idea of the normal. It is within this context that the "Other", the one that deviates from the status quo, has been perceived as threatening and therefore monstrous. The monster represents humanity’s anxiety and fear of what escapes fixed meaning or is not completely understandable or that which is different.
Monstrous Deviations brings together an international group of collaborators who are dedicated to rigorously exploring the (re)presentation of monstrosity and the monster through a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach thereby seeking to broaden our understanding of the subject. It is the intention of the collaborators of this edited volume to bring discussions of monsters and the monstrous to the fore by unmasking racial, cultural and social paradigms hidden behind the concept of the ‘Other’ as both an individual and/or group of people.
Is the monster apart from, or a part of the Self? If the monster is the Other, not the Self, then... more Is the monster apart from, or a part of the Self? If the monster is the Other, not the Self, then is that Other intimately intertwined with the Self? Is the monster that which the Self denies, represses, or sheds in order to be? The monster has been with us in art and literature for centuries and we cannot seem to erase it from our thinking. More than ever, in fact, we are bombarded with images of monsters, with humanity s constant re-creation of the monster. One can also ask: Is it the monster masking as humanity or humanity masking as the monster? Is the monster intrinsically inhuman or is it depicted as such because humanity seeks to censor ignore/dismiss that which is different? The chapters in this collection examine the imagined monster as humanity s (re)-creations of monsters and the monstrous beyond the traditional physical representations in the attempt to scrutinize if the true monster is actually within us all and not limited to any outward physical monstrous representation.
This innovative study embarks, from a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach, on redefining... more This innovative study embarks, from a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach, on redefining the "supernatural" as elements that fail to be framed as "natural" by their socio-cultural environment. The "supernatural" elements depicted in this study encompass such monstrous representations as witches, vampires, angels, virgins, apparitions, and other universally recognized reflections of human existence-though not all "supernatural" representations are seen as "monstrous," but as physical and psychological embodiments of common human experience. Contributors to this project represent a wide scope of literary genres and eras, as well as differing theoretical approaches, united by the common goal of defining the "irreality of reality."
The narrative style of both Clarice Lispector and Carmen Boullosa is characterized by a postmoder... more The narrative style of both Clarice Lispector and Carmen Boullosa is characterized by a postmodern tendency toward an increased reader participation. This is accomplished by a process of liberalizing a pre-established socio-cultural repertoire with respect to female identity. The female protagonists, created by Lispector and Boullosa and examined in this book, struggle to find their true voices and their real life experiences. The resulting literary style of both these authors parallels this struggle, subverting traditional narrative structure and utilizing a dialogue that is particularly suited to describe this feminine process of conscientization.
Spanish Textbooks by Cristina Santos
2nd Canadian Edition, Feb 2014
1st Canadian Edition, 2013
Papers by Cristina Santos
The Undead in the 21st Century: A Companion, 2022
InterDISCIPLINARY Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies, 2015
. As recent as the release of 12 Years a Slave , the memory of slavery in the public sphere has b... more . As recent as the release of 12 Years a Slave , the memory of slavery in the public sphere has been a prevalent topic of discussion within the American cultural imaginary; however, the same cannot be said about Canada’s own legacy of slavery. In Afua Cooper’s The Hanging of Angelique the reader is exposed to the hidden testimony of one of Canada’s own dark secrets of slavery in the story of a Portuguese-born slave woman’s trials in Montreal during the 1730s. Cooper bears witness to Angelique’s voice of defiance and agency as represented in the trial sources and ultimately renders ‘visible’ the story of a “Portuguese-born Black woman who refused to accept her bondage” (backcover). This paper proposes to re-examine the hidden history of Canada’s involvement with the diasporic African slave trade by considering the life narrative of a Portuguese female slave’s rebellion/resistance as told by Afua Cooper in The Hanging of Angelique . We argue that Cooper uses a form of testimonial writ...
With the publication of Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La frontera (1987), women’s testimonial lit... more With the publication of Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La frontera (1987), women’s testimonial literature has been viewed as an important genre that breaks silences, raises consciousness and builds solidarity among women, especially Latinas and Chicanas. Testimonial writing functions as one means through which Latina/ Chicana writers, scholars, educators, and students are resisting traditional patriarchal conditions and constructs of motherhood to revise the institution as one based on empowerment through solidarity and sisterhood. In this paper, we explore the testimonial model established by the Latina Feminist Group as a vehicle through which to identify the diverse forms and contexts of mothering practices occurring at the borderlands of bi-geographical and bi-cultural identities. This paper is organized by way of four sections. The first provides an overview of Latin American and Chicana testimonial theory while the second section identifies testimonial writing as a pedagogy and...
Is the monster apart from, or a part of the Self? If the monster is the Other, not the Self, then... more Is the monster apart from, or a part of the Self? If the monster is the Other, not the Self, then is that Other intimately intertwined with the Self? Is the monster that which the Self denies, represses, or sheds in order to be? The monster has been with us in art and literature for centuries and we cannot seem to erase it from our thinking. More than ever, in fact, we are bombarded with images of monsters, with humanity s constant re-creation of the monster. One can also ask: Is it the monster masking as humanity or humanity masking as the monster? Is the monster intrinsically inhuman or is it depicted as such because humanity seeks to censor ignore/dismiss that which is different? The chapters in this collection examine the imagined monster as humanity s (re)-creations of monsters and the monstrous beyond the traditional physical representations in the attempt to scrutinize if the true monster is actually within us all and not limited to any outward physical monstrous representation.
... de sus personajes sobrenaturales 7 Cristina Santos y Adriana Spahr 2 La fuerza curativa y el ... more ... de sus personajes sobrenaturales 7 Cristina Santos y Adriana Spahr 2 La fuerza curativa y el poder de las hierbas: Entrevista a Don Ruperto Araujo-Villar ... 35 Cristina Santos 5 Seres mitológicos guaraníes de ayer y de hoy 53 Olga Mendieta 6" Diz-me o que comes e eu te direi ...
e-cadernos CES
This article explores the fear of political otherness in Mariana Enríquez's short story "The Inn"... more This article explores the fear of political otherness in Mariana Enríquez's short story "The Inn" in which the author combines the reality of Argentine history with elements of the gothic horror style while maintaining a sharp focus on social criticism. "The Inn" blurs the lines between the reality of a not-so-distant past and elements of the supernatural to delve into an Argentine history scarred by the last dictatorship. This article seeks to examine the use of the figure of the desaparecido as representative of a politics of erasure of the political other that has been systematically censored and unacknowledged. It is also an examination of the remembering and re-inscribing of the desaparecido as an intergenerational cultural exercise to counteract an institutionalized narrative of erasure and forgetting.
ecadernos CES. Special issue: “Endangered Citizenship: Crime, End of the World and Biopolitics in Postcolonial Literatures and Cinema”, 2019
This article explores the fear of political otherness in Mariana Enríquez’s short story “The Inn”... more This article explores the fear of political otherness in Mariana Enríquez’s short story “The Inn” in which the author combines the reality of Argentine history with elements of the gothic horror style while maintaining a sharp focus on social criticism. “The Inn” blurs the lines between the reality of a not-so-distant past and elements of the supernatural to delve into an Argentine history scarred by the last dictatorship. This article seeks to examine the use of the figure of the desaparecido as representative of a politics of erasure of the political other that has been systematically censored and unacknowledged. It is also an examination of the re-membering and re-inscribing of the desaparecido as an intergenerational cultural exercise to counteract an institutionalized narrative of erasure and forgetting.
In book: Virgin Envy: the Cultural (In)Significance of the Hymen.
Eds. Jonathan A. Allan, Cristin... more In book: Virgin Envy: the Cultural (In)Significance of the Hymen.
Eds. Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr
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Books by Cristina Santos
The success of franchises such as The Hunger Games, Twilight and Divergence have re-presented the young heroine as an empowered female, and often a warrior hero in her own right. Through a selection of popular culture touchstones this empowerment is questioned as a manipulation of feminist ideals of equality and a continuation of the traditional vision of female awakening centering on issues of personal choice, agency, physical violence, purity, and beauty. By investigating re-occurring storytelling frameworks and archetypes, Untaming Girlhoods examines different portrayals of girlhoods in the 20th- and 21st-century Anglo-American cultural imaginary that configure modern girlhoods, beyond the fairy-tale princess or the damsel in distress, into refigurations that venture away from the well-trodden path for a new breakaway path to authentic selfhood.
This will be a useful and enlightening text for students and researchers in Girlhood Studies, Gender Studies, Film Studies, Popular Culture and Media Studies.
Monstrous Deviations brings together an international group of collaborators who are dedicated to rigorously exploring the (re)presentation of monstrosity and the monster through a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach thereby seeking to broaden our understanding of the subject. It is the intention of the collaborators of this edited volume to bring discussions of monsters and the monstrous to the fore by unmasking racial, cultural and social paradigms hidden behind the concept of the ‘Other’ as both an individual and/or group of people.
Spanish Textbooks by Cristina Santos
Papers by Cristina Santos
Eds. Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr
The success of franchises such as The Hunger Games, Twilight and Divergence have re-presented the young heroine as an empowered female, and often a warrior hero in her own right. Through a selection of popular culture touchstones this empowerment is questioned as a manipulation of feminist ideals of equality and a continuation of the traditional vision of female awakening centering on issues of personal choice, agency, physical violence, purity, and beauty. By investigating re-occurring storytelling frameworks and archetypes, Untaming Girlhoods examines different portrayals of girlhoods in the 20th- and 21st-century Anglo-American cultural imaginary that configure modern girlhoods, beyond the fairy-tale princess or the damsel in distress, into refigurations that venture away from the well-trodden path for a new breakaway path to authentic selfhood.
This will be a useful and enlightening text for students and researchers in Girlhood Studies, Gender Studies, Film Studies, Popular Culture and Media Studies.
Monstrous Deviations brings together an international group of collaborators who are dedicated to rigorously exploring the (re)presentation of monstrosity and the monster through a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach thereby seeking to broaden our understanding of the subject. It is the intention of the collaborators of this edited volume to bring discussions of monsters and the monstrous to the fore by unmasking racial, cultural and social paradigms hidden behind the concept of the ‘Other’ as both an individual and/or group of people.
Eds. Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr
Eds. Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr
Eds. Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr
Bathory, a 16th century Hungarian noblewoman, killed and bathed in the blood of 600 virgin girls. In examining Bathory's sense of the erotic one comes to note that she is only able to "feel" a connection to her self in her acts of sexual perversion, torture and murder. I argue that Bathory's desensitization to "normal" life experiences fuel her pursuit of the female power of the erotic as an example that supports the patriarchal view of the danger of the female erotic as female power.
In fully embracing her desires Bathory feeds her sense of megalomaniacy thereby engaging in a sense of power of the erotic which is not curtailed by the normative socio-cultural roles. Does Bathory's megalomaniacy cause a distortion of the personal erotic that leads to a distortion of the self into pornography and obscenity as evidenced in her actions? Does the lack of feeling for the other and the more desperate desire for power make her acts of violence more obscene?
Eighteen years later, in 2011, ‘Once Upon a Time’ an American fantasy-drama television series created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz , also revises classical fairy tales by not only emphasizing the role of women, but, most importantly, expanding on their interpretation. Surprisingly, the character Little Red Riding Hood also has to accept her wolf part in order to be independent and liberated from the patriarchal socio-cultural preconceptions of her environment. This paper seeks to explore the role of Little Red Riding Hood in becoming a complete human being when the wolf part of her is accepted as an integral part of her personality—that is, to be fully human she must also accept the ‘monster’ within her.
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