Table Of Contentandrist - xx - 3 05/12/2015 15:21 Page i
This book addresses the hominid obsession with his/her own body and its func-
tions as a subject, plus the effects of exterior factors to which the body may be
subjected, as represented in art and literature of the extended Hispanic world. The
first “selfies” were prehistoric negative hand images and human stick figures,
followed by stone and ceramic representations of the human figure. Thousands
of years later, moving via historic art and literature to contemporary social media,
the contemporary term “selfie” was self-generated.
The Body, Subject & Subjected illuminates some “selfies.” This collection of
critical essays about the fixation on the human self addresses a multi-faceted
geographic set of cultures – the Iberian Peninsula to pre-Columbian America and
Hispanic America – analyzing such representations from medical, literal and
metaphorical perspectives over centuries. Chapter contributions address the
representation of the body itself as subject, in both visual and textual manners,
and illuminate attempts at control of the environment, of perception, of behavior
and of actions, by artists and authors. Other chapters address the body as
subjected to circumstance, representing the body as affected by factors such as
illness, injury, treatment and death. These myriad effects on the body are inter-
preted through the brushes of painters and the pens of authors for social and/or
personal control purposes.
The essays reveal critics’ insights when “selfies” are examined through a
focused “lens” over a breadth of cultures. The result, complex and unique, is that
what is viewed – the visual art and literature under discussion – becomes a mirror
image, indistinguishable from the component viewing apparatus, the “lens”.
The Editor, Dr. Debra D. Andrist, Professor of Spanish at Sam Houston State
University (SHSU), was multi-term founding chair of Foreign Languages there,
former multi-term Chair of Modern & Classical Languages/Cullen Professor of
Spanish at the University of St. Thomas/Houston (UST) and rose to Associate
Professor of Spanish, Baylor University. Her scholarly work focuses on art and
literature by and about women and medical topics.
The cover illustration is reproduced thanks to the permission of Raúl Gutiérrez,
administrator at the Cuevas Prehistóricas de Cantabria. It is one of the multiple
negative human hand stencils from the Paleolithic period, located specifically in
Cueva El Castillo, one of about a dozen caves near Puente Viesgo in the north
central Spanish province of Cantabria. This particular cave contains what are
arguably some of the earliest European visual representations of the body (of
animals as well as humans). Thus, this hand is one of the first “selfies,” among
other cave art body representations in both hemispheres of the Hispanic world
over the ages. http://cuevas2015.viavox.com/el-castillo-2/photo-gallery/
andrist - xx - 3 05/12/2015 15:21 Page ii
“A fascinating tour across genres and cultures of the Hispanic and Pre-
Colombian worlds, illuminating concepts and depictions of the body
as identity, conscience and the subject of art and literature. How has
a subject so basic been ignored for so long? Andrist now corrects the
record.”Nicolás Kanellos, Ph.D., Brown Foundation Professor, Director of
Arte Público Press and Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage
“This very original and ground-breaking book consists of two primary
themes: the human body and its functions as a subject and the body
as it becomes subjected to external factors. The second theme includes
three sub-themes which show how the body is subjected to illness,
injury and the treatments and interventions and the eventual death in
some cases. This is the best book available on the subject.”Genaro J.
Pérez, Ph.D., Professor of Spanish, Co-Editor, Monographic Review, mono-
graphicreview.org
“The Body Subject and Subjectedis a salient contribution to the field
of carnal hermeneutics. The contributors of this provocative volume
engage the reality of embodiment as experienced in the Hispanic life-
world. The range of topics, including environmental, political,
perceptual, and medical concerns are engaged from multiple forms of
Hispanic aesthetics. Anyone fascinated by the aesthetic rationality
that emerges from Hispanic life and culture will find these articles
invaluable.”John Francis Burke, author ofM estizo Democracy: The Politics
of Crossing Borders
“This collection of critical essays meticulously provides insightful
examination on social and artistic life over a grand dimension of multi-
cultural, trans-historic, and trans-Atlantic significance, which
facilitates the reader profound understanding of the values and (self)
challenges in the Hispanic world as well as for the whole humanity.”
Haiqing Sun, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Spanish, Chair of the Department
of Foreign Languages, Texas Southern University
“This book is a compelling exploration of aesthetic representations
and interpretations of the human body in the Indigenous, Hispanic
American, and Spanish traditions. The thirteen essays based on
varying methodological approaches provide thought-provoking mate-
rial for both students and academics as the essays underscore how
artists portray the body as both subject itself, and subjected to, a multi-
tude of external factors.” Kimberly A. Habegger, Associate Professor of
Spanish, Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Regis University
andrist - xx - 3 05/12/2015 15:21 Page iii
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Copyright © Sussex Academic Press 2016; Introductions and editorial
organization of this volume Copyright © Debra D. Andrist.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2016.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139
Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Applied for.
ISBN 978-1-84519-740-7 (hbk)
ISBN 978-1-78284-328-3 (e-pub)
ISBN 978-1-78284-329-0 (e-mobi)
ISBN 978-1-78284-330-6 (e-pdf)
This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including
tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to
electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures.
andrist - xx - 3 20/10/2015 20:25 Page v
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments x
Part I Introduction to the Body as Subject: The Body Itself
& Its Functions
1 The Body and Indigenous Control of Environment. 6
The Fluids of Life: Blood, Water, Power and Bugs
à la Tlaxcalteca
Jeanne Gillespie
2 The Body and Control via Artistic Exercise. Pablo Picasso: 13
From Physical to Mental Dissection of the Human Body
Enrique Mallen
3 The Female Body and Control via Transformation: 55
The Beauty and the Beast
Debra D. Andrist
4 The Body and Caricature for Socio-Political Control. 73
Aesthetically Resilient: Josep Bartolí Guiu’s Political
Cartoons in España Libre(1939–1977 NYC), a Spanish
Civil War Exile Newspaper
María Montserrat Feu López
Part II Introduction to the Body as Subjected: Dysfunctions,
Illness and Injury
5 The Body Control of the Dysfunctional Body. Seeing With 95
Eyes Shut: Representations of Blindness in Pablo Picasso
Enrique Mallén
6 Control of the Female Body. Threats and Violence 113
vs. Strategies
Debra D. Andrist
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vi | CONTENTS
7 Control of the “Gay” Male Body. Ravaged by Disease, 145
AIDS in the Latin-American Literature Scenario
Jorge Chavarro (co-translated by Debra D. Andrist)
Part III Introduction to the Bodyas Subjected: Prescriptions
for Treatment/Cures (Medical and/or Other
Interventions)
8 The Body Cured by Cleansing: Washing Away the 157
Evidence: Midwives and Ritual Cleansing in
Mesoamerica and Colonial New Spain
Jeanne Gillespie
9 The Body Cured by Plants: Where Have all the (Chocolate 164
and Popcorn) Flowers Gone? Recovering Healing
Botanicals in Nahuatl Poetry
Jeanne Gillespie
10 The (Spiritual) Body Cured by Alchemy: Francisco de 172
Quevedo and His Knowledge of Alchemy
RoseMary Salum-Nemer (translated by Debra D. Andrist)
Part IV Introduction to the Body as Subjected: Death
11 The Body as Sacrifice for the Future: La Llorona: Death 187
of a Boy, Birth of a Nation
Norma A. Mouton
12 The (Dead) Body as Catharsis in Art: Death and the Mask 196
in Pablo Picasso
Enrique Mallen
13 The Transcendence of the Body: Gabriel García Márquez’s 219
Love in the Time of Cholera: Love and Death as
New-World Mosaic
Lauren M. P. Derby
Conclusions 239
The Editor and Contributors 240
Index 244
andrist - xx - 3 20/10/2015 20:25 Page vii
Preface
In general, this book project started decades ago in a central part of
the U.S. with me, a very young child on, or accompanying, personal
medical journeys. My own body and mind, as well as those of loved
ones, were subject of—and subjected to—many of the aspects of the
themes in this book: function and dysfunction in terms of illness and
injury, restoration in terms of treatment and interventions and, finally,
death.
My very earliest memories as a two-year-old are of my father, post-
polio, doing hundreds of push-ups on the farmhouse living-room floor
as part of his recovery. A scant couple of years later, my parents finally
found a physician who could help me with my own leprosy-like allergy
eczema on the feet. Initially, for more than a year, we drove more than
400 miles round-trip once a week, spending two days each trip at an
up-and-coming young physician’s office, where I became the subject
of a study and article in the early days of allergy medicine.
Those experiences, insights and interest which resulted from both
long-term situations amplified to professional near-obsession much
later. As a newly-minted assistant professor and social activist, I real-
ized the life-changing/life-saving value of the practical medical
applications of LOTE (the current buzz-word for “languages other
than English”) language and culture acquisitions. The initial impetus
grew out of emergency midnight phone calls for “freebie” translations
for patients—perhaps suffering life-threatening illnesses or injuries—
from a small-city south-central U.S. hospital in an area with a
relatively high Spanish-language-dominant population but little or no
interest in/access to other-than-English resources for medical profes-
sionals and patients. Thus, in the early eighties, I began to design
medical Spanish courses but not the traditional ones mainly limited to
terminology from the Latin. Those role-playing and realia-based
courses morphed into the added classroom use of visual art and liter-
ature to illustrate medical situations and points, as well as essential
cultural overlays. This is not to mention that these interests informed
my own scholarly research, professional presentations and publica-
tions. Professorships at three universities and hundreds of students
over the years, undergraduates and graduates, taking both required
andrist - xx - 3 20/10/2015 20:25 Page viii
viii | PREFACE
core-courses and language-major ones, as well as students who were
continuing-education professionals in the medical fields, have helped
to hone the approach, content and more.
However, this book addresses the hominid obsession with his/her
own body and its functions as a subject itself, plus the body as
subjected to outside circumstances and dynamics, the effects of exte-
rior dysfunctional factors, especially illness and injury, as well as
death, to which the body may be subjected. These are exemplified by
the art and literature of the extended Hispanic world in this book,
which is considerably more cultural than pedagogical. Even so, I am
indebted to all those students who took those courses over the years
for their recognition of the pressing practical—and ethical—need for
English/Spanish Spanish/English bilingualism in the medical profes-
sions in the U.S. Experiences with them led to so many efforts and
projects.
In this latest project, I am particularly indebted to my participating
author-colleagues, most of whom have been presenters in numerous
related-topic professional organization conference sessions I have
organized over the years, to Professors Erin Cassidy and Linda
Meyers, librarians at Newton Gresham Library at Sam Houston State
University and to Anthony V.P. “Tony” Graham, Editorial Director
at Sussex Academic Press, for all their efforts and assistance in bringing
this volume to press.
A majority of the chapters in this book originated as conference
papers which represented scholarship in the arts and humanities from
a medical perspective. These presentations were unique for some of
the science professionals attending the conferences. Of course, while
there is the explicitly hard-science informational medical literature,
non-fiction and medical art per se, whether historical representation
of treatment or other aspects or the use of, e.g., position emission
tomography (PET) images for aesthetic purposes rather than diag-
nostic ones, there is an area of scholarship in the arts and humanities
which applies the scientific method to not-necessarily-explicitly-
medical literature and studio art in terms of their medical aspects. At
least one international journal,M edicine and Literature, is solely dedi-
cated to featuring professional essays from this perspective, though
many such articles have appeared in many professional journals in the
general literary field.
As examples of such interdisciplinarity, in at least one unpublished
work, Dr. Sofía A. Esquiff, then faculty at University of St.
Thomas/Houston, compared the medical case history to the develop-
ment of a HIS/STORY, complete with characters, plot, etc. Two
chapters in this book are works by my then-graduate students at that
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Preface | ix
university in the late nineties and early two thousands. In fact,
Professor RoseMary Salum’s chapter on alchemy, in the treatment
section, began as her master’s thesis there. Three of my colleagues from
Baylor and Sam Houston State contributed to this book. All three of
Dr. Jeanne Gillespie’s chapters, one on indigenous Amerindians’
bodies and control of environment, in the body itself section, and her
two chapters on Aztec midwives’ procedures and on healing Aztec
poetry, which both appear in the medical-interventions section, orig-
inated in this manner. Dr. Enrique Mallen’s paper on the realistic
representation of the human body by the best-known male Spanish
and Italian painters during the Renaissance and Golden Age of Spain
morphed into a chapter on Picasso and “dissection” in his painting, in
the body itself and its functions section. His chapters on blindness and
death in Picasso’s art are featured in the dysfunctions and death
sections, respectively. Dr. Jorge Chavarro, though long a physician
himself, was my Spanish-master’s graduate student at Sam Houston
State. His study of HIV-AIDS in Latin American literature, appears in
the dysfunctions section. Both Professor Lauren Derby’s chapter and
Dr. Norma Mouton’s (who was also my graduate student at University
of St. Thomas/Houston), in the death section, are associated with such
conferences. My own particular chapters in the book began that way
as well. Each of us is still actively involved in these fields, teaching,
presenting and publishing!
