PIGOTT HALL, ROOM 216
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Speaker: Anna Castillo (Stanford, PhD Candidate in Iberian and Latin American Cultures)

This talk looks at the potential effects of biomedicine’s ever-intensifying intrusion into everyday sexual intimacy and suggests that genderqueer agency can manifest through body modification. As plastic surgery and sex-reassignment procedures have become more popular and accessible, cultural expectations regarding body modification have shifted significantly. Metropolitan bodies in a place like Buenos Aires are now under pressure to conform to new plastic standards – that is, white, thin, gender-unambiguous, and beautiful. While many feminists have suggested that resistance to such medical innovations may be a fruitful way to appreciate diverse kinds of bodies and sexual desires, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s recent novel, Romance de la negra rubia (2015), alleges it is possible to queer medicine in the pursuit of extra-normative body presentations and intimacies. The talk will engage with posthumanist, feminist, and queer of color discourses as it entertains the radical potential of biomedicine to reclaim bodies from stilted gendered and racialized systems.

Anna Castillo is a Ph.D. Candidate in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University. She received a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Latin American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied as a Morehead-Cain Scholar. At Stanford, Castillo’s research focuses on contemporary literature of the Americas, specifically novels and short stories from Chile, Argentina, and Brazil that forefront the materiality of sex. Central to her scholarship are intersections of posthumanism and studies of race, sex, and gender.

In preparation for the discussion, please read the short selection by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (for Spanish readers) and Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” (pgs. 117-123, for those pressed for time).

Contact Email:
pvalderr@stanford.edu, monicavb@stanford.edu