Dude Lit
Mexican Men Writing and Performing Competence, 1955–2012
By Emily Hind
The University of Arizona Press
How did men become the stars of the Mexican intellectual scene? Dude Lit examines the tricks of the trade and reveals that sometimes literary genius rests on privileges that men extend one another and that women permit.
The makings of the “best” writers have to do with superficial aspects, like conformist wardrobes and unsmiling expressions, and more complex techniques, such as friendship networks, prizewinners who become judges, dropouts who become teachers, and the key tactic of being allowed to shift roles from rule maker (the civilizado) to rule breaker (the bárbaro). Certain writing habits also predict success, with the “high and hard” category reserved for men’s writing and even film directing. In both film and literature, critically respected artwork by men tends to rely on obscenity interpreted as originality, negative topics viewed as serious, and coolly inarticulate narratives about bullying understood as maximum literary achievement.
To build the case regarding “rebellion as conformity,” Dude Lit contemplates a wide set of examples while always returning to three figures, each born some two decades apart from the immediate predecessor: Juan Rulfo (with Pedro Páramo), José Emilio Pacheco (with Las batallas en el desierto), and Guillermo Fadanelli (with Mis mujeres muertas, as well as the range of his publications). Why do we believe Mexican men are competent performers of the role of intellectual? Dude Lit answers this question through a creative intersection of sources. Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and critical readings, this provocative book changes the conversation on literature and gendered performance.
The makings of the “best” writers have to do with superficial aspects, like conformist wardrobes and unsmiling expressions, and more complex techniques, such as friendship networks, prizewinners who become judges, dropouts who become teachers, and the key tactic of being allowed to shift roles from rule maker (the civilizado) to rule breaker (the bárbaro). Certain writing habits also predict success, with the “high and hard” category reserved for men’s writing and even film directing. In both film and literature, critically respected artwork by men tends to rely on obscenity interpreted as originality, negative topics viewed as serious, and coolly inarticulate narratives about bullying understood as maximum literary achievement.
To build the case regarding “rebellion as conformity,” Dude Lit contemplates a wide set of examples while always returning to three figures, each born some two decades apart from the immediate predecessor: Juan Rulfo (with Pedro Páramo), José Emilio Pacheco (with Las batallas en el desierto), and Guillermo Fadanelli (with Mis mujeres muertas, as well as the range of his publications). Why do we believe Mexican men are competent performers of the role of intellectual? Dude Lit answers this question through a creative intersection of sources. Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and critical readings, this provocative book changes the conversation on literature and gendered performance.
Others have told the masculinist story of the Golden Age of Mexican filmmaking; Hind here tells the story of something like the Golden Age of the literary establishment, reinforced by its overlap with the material power of government and the symbolic power of academic institutions and its many ramifications (the US enjoyed the latter but not the former). This becomes an amazingly efficient machine of male-centered intellectual and artistic privilege, not, of course, without its internal contradictions.'—David William Foster, MISTRAL: Journal of Latin American Women’s Intellectual Cultural History
'Dude Lit: Mexican Men Writing and Performing Competence is a fight on the battlefield of gender. Emily Hind writes in a way that makes the reader want to join the pursuit of equality and puts many of the quiet conversations on Hispanic gender troubles.'—Courtney Patterson, Communication Booknotes Quarterly
‘This is a splendidly argued book that provides a wide-ranging survey and stock-taking of an intellectual and cultural terrain. The work is deft, surefooted, confident, mature, and accessible.’ —Debra A. Castillo, Cornell University
Emily Hind is an associate professor of Spanish at the University of Florida. Hind has published two books of interviews with Mexican writers, as well as a book of criticism, Femmenism and the Mexican Woman Intellectual from Sor Juana to Poniatowska: Boob Lit.
Introduction
PART I. THE CIVIL ENGINEERING OF MACHOS
1. High and Hard, Prohibition and Permission, Bárbaro and Civilizado
2. Putting the Genius in Homogenous: What Does an Intellectual Look Like?
3. What Does Genius Swear By?
4. The Penis in Literature (and at the Movies)
PART II. REBELLION AS CONFORMITY
5. Bullying Games
6. The Antisocial Cool and Philanthropic Credit
7. Gendered Ageism and Literary Depression
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
