Looking from the Outside in: Guadalupe Nettel’s Creation of Two Protagonists Reduced to Bare Life and Alternative Spaces
Subject Area
Hispanic Women Writers
Abstract
Después del invierno (2014) by Guadalupe Nettel, both Claudio and Cecilia, the two protagonists, are strangers in the countries where they reside. Claudio is Cuban and lives in New York and Cecilia is Mexican and resides in Paris. They are ignored by the cities they inhabit and feel alienated, and consequently they retreat into themselves and away from the others and their own humanity in its essence. Nettel emphasizes the fragility of human existence and the weakness of the human spirit in her novel. Both Claudio and Cecilia resort to living in an alternative space outside the norms of society.
Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, analyzes the idea of citizenship and lack thereof, in relation to his idea of camp, which is a place outside of the law. According to Agamben in areas deemed as camps, individuals are reduced to bare life and are used to the extent to which those that police the situation prefer and choose. This essay will demonstrate that both Claudio and Cecilia lived in an alternative space in society where they are reduced to a status of bare life and their own humanity slowly was taken from them and transformed into something unrecognizable.
Brief Bio Note
Maria was awarded a Teaching Assistantship at the University of Kentucky for up to five years while completing a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies. She is currently in her second year at the University of Kentucky. She teaches two elementary Spanish classes while taking nine hours of graduate course work. She completed her M.A. at Middle Tennessee State University in December of 2013. She is passionate about teaching and enjoys helping others learn Spanish. She wants to research and work with mystics and nuns from the Colonial period in Mexico. She hopes to show the relationship they had with food. She is also interested in looking at how food relates to gender and religion.
Keywords
Women Hispanic Writers, Agamben, Alternative Spaces, Guadalupe Nettel
Location
Room 210
Presentation Year
2017
Start Date
3-23-2017 3:45 PM
Embargo
11-3-2016
Recommended Citation
Hoffman, Maria L., "Looking from the Outside in: Guadalupe Nettel’s Creation of Two Protagonists Reduced to Bare Life and Alternative Spaces" (2017). South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL). 28.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/seccll/2017/2017/28
Looking from the Outside in: Guadalupe Nettel’s Creation of Two Protagonists Reduced to Bare Life and Alternative Spaces
Room 210
Después del invierno (2014) by Guadalupe Nettel, both Claudio and Cecilia, the two protagonists, are strangers in the countries where they reside. Claudio is Cuban and lives in New York and Cecilia is Mexican and resides in Paris. They are ignored by the cities they inhabit and feel alienated, and consequently they retreat into themselves and away from the others and their own humanity in its essence. Nettel emphasizes the fragility of human existence and the weakness of the human spirit in her novel. Both Claudio and Cecilia resort to living in an alternative space outside the norms of society.
Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, analyzes the idea of citizenship and lack thereof, in relation to his idea of camp, which is a place outside of the law. According to Agamben in areas deemed as camps, individuals are reduced to bare life and are used to the extent to which those that police the situation prefer and choose. This essay will demonstrate that both Claudio and Cecilia lived in an alternative space in society where they are reduced to a status of bare life and their own humanity slowly was taken from them and transformed into something unrecognizable.
