Borderlands Saints - (Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States) by Desirée A Martín (Paperback)
About this item
Highlights
- Winner of the 2014 Latina/o Studies Section - LASA Outstanding Book Award In Borderlands Saints, Desirée A. Martín examines the rise and fall of popular saints and saint-like figures in the borderlands of the United States and Mexico.
- About the Author: DESIRÉE A. MARTÍN is an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Davis.
- 296 Pages
- Literary Criticism, American
- Series Name: Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States
Description
About the Book
Borderlands Saints examines the rise and fall of popular saints and saint-like figures in the borderlands of the United States and Mexico. Focusing specifically on Teresa Urrea (La Santa de Cabora), Pancho Villa, César Chávez, Subcomandante Marcos, and Santa Muerte, the book traces the intersections of these figures, their devotees, artistic representations, and dominant institutions with an eye for the ways in which such unofficial saints mirror traditional spiritual practices and serve specific cultural needs.
Book Synopsis
Winner of the 2014 Latina/o Studies Section - LASA Outstanding Book Award
In Borderlands Saints, Desirée A. Martín examines the rise and fall of popular saints and saint-like figures in the borderlands of the United States and Mexico. Focusing specifically on Teresa Urrea (La Santa de Cabora), Pancho Villa, César Chávez, Subcomandante Marcos, and Santa Muerte, she traces the intersections of these figures, their devotees, artistic representations, and dominant institutions with an eye for the ways in which such unofficial saints mirror traditional spiritual practices and serve specific cultural needs.Popular spirituality of this kind engages the use and exchange of relics, faith healing, pilgrimages, and spirit possession, exemplifying the contradictions between high and popular culture, human and divine, and secular and sacred. Martín focuses upon a wide range of Mexican and Chicano/a cultural works drawn from the nineteenth century to the present, covering such diverse genres as the novel, the communiqué, drama, the essay or crónica, film, and contemporary digital media. She argues that spiritual practice is often represented as narrative, while narrative--whether literary, historical, visual, or oral--may modify or even function as devotional practice.
Review Quotes
"Addressing religion, spirituality and sanctity in Chicana/o culture, Borderlands Saints makesa significant contribution to a burgeoning area that demands critical attention."--Carl Gutiérrez-Jones "University of California, Santa Barbara" (2/11/2013 12:00:00 AM)
"Through Martín's incisive critical textual analysis we come to see the borderlands--and the exchange there between devotees and saints--as an important site for the performance of secular sanctity. Borderlands Saints is an invaluable contribution to border studies."--Laura G. Gutiérrez "author of Performing Mexicanidad: Vendidas y Cabareteras on the Transnational Stage" (6/17/2013 12:00:00 AM)
"Borderland Saints offers compelling portraits of popular and secular saints who exist unapologetically outside the realm of official church teaching."-- "Latino Studies"
About the Author
DESIRÉE A. MARTÍN is an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Davis.
