Delirium and Destiny: A Spaniard in Her Twenties (review)

326 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Consequently, some essays denounce how "national genealogies and communal bonding have been often founded on die repression ofthe queer," while otheis trace how "the queer can in turn affiliate him- or herself with alternative genealogies and construct dissident, queei family romances" (xiii-xiv). Among rhe former, Lugo-Ortiz's re-reading ofthe lesbian body in die male canon of Puerto Rican literature and Rubén RÃ-os Avilas evocative yet eiudite analysis of Ramos Otero and Arenas as Caribbean writers in exile whose woiks subscribe to a notion of exile "as a kind of inteimediate, puigatorial in-betweenness... the neither here nor there quality of a writing foi which eccentricity means to be forever cast offfrom the centei" (103) stand out. Several contributors engage in complex evaluations ofthe contradictory politics of representation found in queer texts. Such is the case of Epps's thorough essay on fragmentation in Juan Goytisolo's Paisajes después de L· bataüa in which he takes the bisexual Spanish writer to task (as he had previously done in his kndmaik work Significant Vioknce: Oppression and Resistance in the Narratives of Juan Goytisok, 1970-1990. Oxford UP, 1996) for his misogyny and for shunning explicit engagement in queer liberation politics, at the same time that he takes the queei critic to task foi expecting that literature written by queer writers should spouse liberation politics. Similarly effective in underlining contradictory representations of lesbian desire is Bergman's essay on abjection and ambiguity in Bemberg's cinematic rendering of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's life. Another group of contributois read against die grain some of Hispanism's most cherished texts. Thus, Gossy's brilliant analysis of MarÃ-a de Zayas's ¿Quién ha visto que una dama se enamore de otra? and Jáuregui's bold reading of Lazarilk de Tonnes force the ieadet to approach Golden Age literature from a refreshing perspective. Also, Molloy's elegant essay on "The Politics of Posing" challenges the Latin American canon. By analyzing decadentist posing "as an oppositional practice and a decisive cultural statement [of] political import and destabilizing energy" (142), she reads foundational texts such as Rodó'sylnW'as an act of posing^w patria, a model of homosociability... an exeicise in... homoerotic posing" (150) and complicates the notion of queer performativity from a Latin American perspective. Although I wish the collection contained more studies on lesbianism (only three essays out of fifteen ate dedicated to lesbian desire and representation ), Hispanisms and Homosexualities provides a forceful tool for Hispanists committed to widening the scope and import of our field and to conversing across traditional periodizations and geographic demarcations. Most importantly, Molloy and Irwin's anthology behooves Hispanists to reckon with queer readings in a productive, engaging mannet so that we may better serve our students and our field. Gema P. Pérez-Sánchez University of Miami Delirium and Destiny: A Spaniard in Her Twenties State University of New York Press, 1999 By Maria Zambrano Translated by Carol Maier Maria Zambrano must be counted as one of die major philosophical thinkers of Spain's twentieth century, as a pioneering woman in Spain and in exile, and as a principal European intellectual— and female intellectual. Zambrano was, however, neglected in the arid intellectual landscape ofthe long Flanco dictatoiship, and has, until recent years, been neglected in Hispanism outside Spain. Though honois iained upon hei in democratic Spain, she remained virtually unknown to most Hispanists in the United States. Roberta Johnson and Alda Blanco are two of those few scholars who have done much to remedy the lack of awareness of this thinker and her work. The present book is another major step and a highly significant publishing event. The graceful tianslation by Carol Maier of Zambrano's exile text of the eaily Fifties, accompanied by Johnson's excellent contexrualizing and interpretative essay, wiU bring Zambrano's thought to a wide academic and student audience. Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 327 Zambrano's text is a philosophical, ideological , and obliquely personal autobiography set within a biogf aphy of Spain seen as an oiganic being in its movement towaid, and...