BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Research Interests and Plans

Krzysztof Kulawik. Born in 1971 in Knurów, Ðl�sk (Silesia) Province, Poland. Completed undergraduate studies in Hispanic Philology at the Uniwersytet Jagiello½ki in Kraków, Poland with a degree of Magister in 1994. Spent one year studying Portuguese language and culture at the Universidade de Coimbra in Portugal during 1991-1992, also receiving a diploma there. Later, pursued  graduate studies toward the Master in Arts degree in Spanish American Literature at the Instituto Caro y Cuervo in Bogotá, Colombia in the years 1993-1996. Since 1996, continued graduate studies at the doctoral level at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, USA. Major field of study and research in contemporary Latin American Literature, with a minor specialization in Latin American Studies. Received the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in August 2001. Currently employed as Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.

1. Background. In the course of my undergraduate studies, I received a philological formation in Romance Languages at Jagiellonski University in Poland and at the Universidade de Coimbra in Portugal, combining the study of languages (major in Spanish, minor in French and Portuguese) with Latin, historical and comparative linguistics of Romance Languages, and the study of literatures of Spain (medieval through contemporary) and Latin America (colonial through contemporary). Afterwards, in South America, during my Master’s degree studies at the Instituto Caro y Cuervo in Bogotá, Colombia, I continued the philological approach, yet focusing more on the application of structuralism (Barthes, Greimas), deconstruction theory (Derrida, Culler), semiotics (Peirce, Morris), semantics and discourse theory (Austin, Searle, Lyons, Van Dijk, Ducrot) . However, literature remained my preferred area of theoretical and critical inquiry. Due to the instruction I received in linguistic theory, I have a strong interest in the application of its elements to the study of literature. My analytical approach today remains mostly semantic-discursive and poststructuralist, yet combined with a socio-cultural exploration.

Moreover, my academic formation in Europe has helped me to conceptualize and contextualize such Western aesthetic trends as the Classicism, the Baroque, Modernism, and especially the avant-garde. The experience acquired while living and studying in Colombia has contributed to my understanding of the Latin American colonial, neo-colonial, modernist and avant-garde aesthetics. The study of literature at the Caro y Cuervo helped me to develop critical ideas with the application of postmodern cultural theory to the Latin American context.

During the five years of my graduate studies toward the doctoral degree at the University of Florida, I have been researching on issues related mainly to the construction of identity of the postmodern and postcolonial subject in Latin America through textual expressions–both literary and critical. The courses I  took at UF covered mostly 19^th and 20^th century narrative, poetry, essay and drama (both Spanish American and Peninsular). However, the major fields of specialization in my Ph.D. program were contemporary narrative, literary theory, postcolonial theory, feminism, and the theory of identity. I owe the successful application of various precepts from this theory in Spanish American and Peninsular literature to the studies carried out under the guidance of professors Andrés Avellaneda, Diane Marting, Efraín Barradas, and Geraldine Nichols, among others. My research on the issues of identity in Latin America was enhanced by the completion of a minor in Latin American Studies, with a concentration in Latin American social thought, politics and history under the guidance of Professor Phillip Williams.

a) Summary. My research is in the field of contemporary Latin American narrative literature. My area of specialization is literary theory and the theory of identity applied to the narrative of the last three decades of the 20^th century, the so-called postmodern or post-boom novel. My dissertation, entitled Linguistic transvestism: the disguising of sexual identity in the neobaroque narrative of Severo Sarduy, Diamela Eltit, Osvaldo Lamborghini and Hilda Hilst [trsl. Travestismo lingüístico: el enmascaramiento de la identidad sexual en la narrativa neobarroca de Severo Sarduy, Diamela Eltit, Osvaldo Lamborghini e Hilda Hilst] , is a discursive-semantic analysis combined with a socio-cultural exploration of chosen works in Spanish and Portuguese by four writers from Cuba, Chile, Argentina and Brazil respectively. Their exuberant and experimental narrative style can be called the "neobaroque avant-garde". The dissertation focuses on these particular exuberant and experimental qualities of ten novels and stories that demonstrate changing, ambiguous representations of traditional models of national, racial, cultural and individual, especially gender, identities in the Latin American context.

I analyze the ways in which stable patterns of sexual identity of the subjects (characters, narrators, implicit authors) appearing in these narrative works are disguised, transvested and transgressed. I explain the ways in which sexual categories of the feminine and the masculine are deconstructed through textual operations. My attention is centered on the connection existing between a changing perception of what is individual--sexual (also political, national, and racial identity, and the evolving forms of literary-artistic expression as textual means of carrying out this transgression. I should add that characters, narrators, and even implicit authors/ readers with ambiguous or transgressive sexual attributes are the typical subjects that appear in all these novels. Many of them are androgynous metamorphic bisexuals or cross dressers (e.g., Socorro and Auxilio, Pup, Cobra, and Colibrí in Sarduy’s novels, or E. Luminata in Eltit’s novel) victimized by sado-masoquistic oppressors or becoming the oppressors themselves (e.g. La Regente and la Señora in Sarduy, or some of the openly sadistic characters in Lamborghini’s Sebregondi). Their sometimes violent sexual de-categorization, the erasure of a binary distinction between their masculine and feminine traits is achieved by means of such formal (linguistic and stylistic) techniques as lexical and syntactic experimentation (e.g. inconsistency in grammatical endings, changing of proper names, confusing word order, shifting grammatical and semantic referents), by means of narrative experimentation (e.g. erasure of a stable narrative voice and of any spatial-temporal coherence), and by an exuberant linguistic ornamentation leading to a meaning-obliterating saturation.

To recapitulate my idea, I affirm that there is a functional relationship between the sexual transgression and eccentricity of the transvested fictional characters on the one hand, and, on the other, the functioning of a narrative style characterized by exuberance and artifice (heavy use of ornamentation, poetic figures, etc.), by linguistic (lexical, syntactic) and narrative experimentation, also by metafiction, and by parody. These formal procedures allow for a de-categorization of sexual attributes that "un-define" the characters (or voices) in the novels as men or women, or even as homo or heterosexuals. Androgyny and travesty achieved by means of artifice and parody is the most prominent feature of these narrations. To further explain the title of my dissertation, Linguistic transvestism, I will add that my work focuses on analyzing precisely those stylistic and linguistic elements which disguise, confuse, or "cross dress" the traditional binary (masculine/feminine) patterns of representing sexual identity. Ultimately, it focuses on the philosophical implications that this exuberant and transgressive style may have in the context of (post)modern Latin American society, particularly as a form of political dissent.

The narrative with which we are dealing emphasizes language as a tool of transgression and scrutinizes the very process of writing as a textually implicit means of transvesting the subject and attaining sexual ambiguity, which in itself can be considered a form of political dissidence. Through the use of exuberant and experimental procedures, these writers create a new textual space for questioning predetermined markers of sexuality by de-categorizing them, a process which through textual operations allows the reader to form a new perception of the subject, and the critic to advance a theory of the subject not yet defined by scientific discourse nor accepted by the society. These exuberant and experimental –generally destabilizing– narrative procedures find their roots already in the 17^th century Spanish Baroque prose (Quevedo, Gracián) and in Latin American colonial literary traditions (Solís Valenzuela, Sor Juana Inés and foremost, Catalina de Erauso in La monja alférez), procedures which in the context of contemporary literature, have come to be called "neobaroque".

b) Methodology. A poststructuralist (relativist, discursive and semantic) approach is applied to the analysis. A relation is established between the content (transgressive sexuality) and the form (artifice and experimentation) of the selected novels, demonstrating that there exists a functional connection between the sexually transgressive characters and the exuberant style of the novels, a relation which eventually leads to the obliteration and de-categorization of binary sexual distinctions. The semiotic model of the three-part sign (by Peirce) is utilized to show how meaning can be destabilized by a displacement of the steady relationship of the three constituent parts of the sign: the representing "symbol" and the represented "object" by the function of the contextually and culturally motivated "interpretant" or the part of the sign which has the "relating" function.

A semantic procedure (Luis Ramírez Peña) is applied to the analysis by dividing the text into three levels: history, narration, and discourse, in every one of which different meaning generating phenomena take place. The text is also considered in two dimensions: the semantic, as a set of textual operations that help generate meaning; and the pragmatic, as speech act in a communicative situation that produces the desired effect between the writer and the reader. Basing the analysis on the three levels, the following order is employed: the analysis of the subjects (characters) appearing in the plots of the novels (Cap. 1), the analysis of the narrative voices and structures (Cap. 2), and the analysis of the most characteristic discursive modes: exuberance, artifice, parody and eroticism (playfulness) (Cap. 3). A connection is being established between the distinct regional traditions of the four authors and the common style they represent through exuberance and experimentation in the ten chosen narrative works –the neobaroque avant-garde. The significant political implications this style may have on contemporary thought and culture in Latin America, especially on the aesthetics of the mass media, is considered as one of the main applications of this study for future use.

c) Theoretical basis. In my analysis, I utilize semiotic theory (functioning of the sign --Charles Peirce), narratology (the operational modes of narrative structures –Gerard Genette, Mieke Bal, Cesare Segre), reception theory (Wolfgang Iser, Humberto Eco), and textolinguistic analysis (Teun Van Dijk). The dialogical and polyphonic aspects of the novelistic work as well as the role of parody and intertextuality are considered in reference to Mikhail Bakhtine’s work (Dialogical Imagination), also to Julia Kristeva, and Linda Hutcheon. Postcolonial theory (Nelly Richard, Doris Sommer, Homi Bhabha, Mary Louise Pratt) and postfeminist criticism (Gloria Anzaldúa, Judith Butler, Joan Scott, Alice Jardine, Elizabeth Grosz) are applied in the analysis of issues related to the ambiguous sexual identity of the subjects, and male/female transgression in the representation of the body, also considered a space for political expression. The theory of identity de-formation and deconstruction is based on the works by Gilles Deleuze, Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and Gilles Lipovetsky. When dealing with the concept of "excess" and expenditure in content and style, George Bataille’s writings are considered, as well as is Michel Foucault’s theory on the discursive (symbolic) construction of sexuality. Eroticism and the role of exuberance in the poetics of the neobaroque, and in achieving the effect of simulation, is discussed in relation to several critical works by Sarduy (e.g. Simulación and Barroco) and by Néstor Perlongher (Prosa plebeya). Finally, the role of erotic transgression in textual representations is also examined in reference to the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

3. Significance of the project. The study I carried out can contribute to:

a) underscoring the possibilities that the narrative of several contemporary Latin American authors offers in transcending traditional binary patterns in the representation of sexual identity by means of employing an exuberant and experimental style, the "neobaroque".

b) visualizing the "text" as a space for the questioning of a stable sexual identity, and also as a space for expressing political dissent by means of gender transgression, disguise and ambiguity, all achieved by the usage of an exuberant style called the "neobaroque"; through textual operations, it is possible for the reader and critic to advance a theory of the subject not yet readily accepted by scientific discourse nor by the society.

c) providing critical tools for future readers to understand and interpret more easily some of the difficult aspects of a narrative style characterized by inaccessibility and experimentation, a style which has been categorized by means of various terms such as the Latin American "neobaroque narrative", the "novel of the neoavant-garde" or the "postmodern novel"; this would allow to bring these texts closer to the general audience and to expand or shift the "canon" of Latin American narrative.

4. Application of the acquired knowledge in teaching. My research can be applied in the classroom by offering critical and theoretical tools for the study of the recent "post-boom" or "postmodern" narrative. I would propose a course in which my students and I would examine the significance of contemporary Latin American literature as a culturally unique voice in the global dialog on identity of the postmodern subject. The narrative production of the four writers can be used to exemplify some of the recent trends existing in Latin American experimental narrative. Conjointly, some of the chosen works, like Sarduy’s Colibrí, Eltit’s Lumpérica and Lamborghini’s Sebregondi retrocede can be incorporated in a general course focusing on the "novel of the post-boom," and one of its important aspects --experimentation with narrative form. I would include Sarduy’s De donde son los cantantes, Eltit’s Lumpérica and El cuarto mundo in a list of works for a course-seminar on contemporary, or "postmodern" Latin American narrative, as examples of works which combine the search for a national or social identity through extremely deconstructive methods. *[Also, all three authors (Sarduy, Eltit and Lamborghini, and possibly Hilst) can be placed on a reading list for a specialized seminar course exploring the representations of sexual identity and gender in Latin American narrative, beginning in the Modernism, and continuing through the avant-garde, the "new novel", the "boom", through the "post-boom"].

Besides integrating the production of the four authors, my work considers the uniqueness of each one, opening up into the analysis of four distinct regional narrative traditions, connected, in this case, by formal exuberance, experimentation, and the topic of sexuality. Each one can be considered as a parting point for exploring a particular cultural zone. I would feel most comfortable designing a course on the Cuban or the Caribbean neobaroque narrative, relating Sarduy to other writers such as José Lezama Lima, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Reynaldo Arenas, Virgilio Piñera, or to the Puerto Ricans Luis Rafael Sánchez and Rosario Ferré, especially in relation to the issues of gender, sexuality and the human body and its experimental representation through language. At the same time, I feel that I could handle the teaching of a course on Cono Sur narrative given that I am familiar with the work of the avant-garde predecessors of Diamela Eltit like Vicente Huidobro, Pedro Prado, María Luisa Bombal, and with her connections to the works of such contemporaries in Chile as Pedro Lemebel, Eugenio Britta, Enrique Lihn; and, in Argentina, I am well read in the connections of Lamborghini to the avant-garde narrative of Néstor Sánchez, Héctor Libertella, Arturo Carrera, Luisa Valenzuela, and, earlier, to Macedonio Fernández, Felisberto Hernández, Leopoldo Marechal, and Roberto Arlt and, of course, Jorge Luis Borges. All of these could be included in a seminar course on the avant-garde movements in Chile and Argentina, or on the thematic representation of the subject, the "I-self" in crisis since Modernity thru Postmodernity.

Generally speaking, contemporary narrative of the "post-boom" offers an excellent perspective on the way subjectivity is conformed and questioned in Latin American narrative in the last three decades, a time of a philosophical crisis called "postmodernity". Its effects on and links with the entire Western literary tradition, related to the concept of the Baroque and its modern extension, the Neobaroque, would be another field to explore and include in a work/course on comparative literature of Latin America, Europe and North America. The novels of the contemporary period offer a genuinely Latin American perspective in this debate on the modes of production of identity by questioning and scrutinizing the very modes of its representation in language. They are examples of a particularly Latin American –hybrid, syncretic, heterogeneous-- voice in the global dialog on identity, subjectivity and sexuality, extended to the contexts of politics, culture and society in the postmodern times.

5. Future plans. Sexuality, especially in its relation to androgyny, travesty and ambiguity, is a field that is currently opening up and is becoming more promising, especially in the field of Hispanic studies. Moreover, the critical literature on the existence and functioning of a "neobaroque" style in Latin American literature is currently receiving more attention. I hope to contribute by underscoring the importance and richness of this style which currently accounts for a significant portion of works created, but still little read in Latin America. I also hope to highlight the relevance that the revival of the Baroque has in contemporary Western aesthetics, anywhere from Hollywood to el Rio de la Plata, from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean.

Thus, I am working on the preparation of a manuscript for a book on sexual ambiguity in Latin American literature. I plan to publish more on the theme of exuberance and experimentation in contemporary Latin American literature after examining more thoroughly the connections that exist between a Caribbean narrative poetic, and the narrative styles of other parts of Latin America. Additionally, in relation to the themes of sexuality, I would consider examining the connections existing between the contemporary and the preceding historical periods of Latin American literature.

As a future goal, I plan to expand my research on Latin American narrative and social thought to include material for a book on the theme of sexuality and the experimental use of language for the purpose of questioning the established postcolonial (logocentric) power relations and norms existing in Latin America. Further development of this study will possibly establish a discursive relationship between the neobaroque style in contemporary narrative, and the recurring theme of transgressive sexual identity in the context of postmodern identity theory, applied mainly but not only to the Latin American context. An extension into the question of political protest and dissent is another theme I plan to explore more in depth in the future.