Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Writing prison : women political prisoners and the power of telling / by Miren Edurne Portela.

Publication | Digitized | Library Call Number: HV8738 .P67 2003

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward

    Overview

    Summary
    This dissertation is a transatlantic study that engages accounts of carceral experiences lived by women under repressive regimes in Argentina (during the Proceso, or “Dirty War,” from 1976 to 1983) and Spain (under Franco's dictatorship, especially from 1972 to 1975). My study explores the prison texts of Lidia Falcón, Alicia Partnoy, and Alicia Kozameh. The first chapter focuses both on the historical contexts during which the narratives are produced as well as on the main theoretical debates that I embrace throughout the dissertation: discourses of space and power, representations of memory and trauma, testimonial writing, and historical representations from the perspective of women political prisoners. The second, third, and fourth chapters undertake the analysis of Lidia Falcón's En el infierno, Alicia Partnoy's The Little School and Alicia Kozameh's Pasos bajo el agua, respectively. The analysis of the three texts is based on the study of the strategies of representation used to retell the carceral experiences. Informed by poststructuralist theories of space, I focus on the study of how Falcón's En el infierno conveys the representational space of prison as a mechanism of repression against women as well as an instrument of resistance. I employ psychoanalytic theory and writings on the Holocaust to interpret Partnoy's The Little School as a text that problematizes the representation of a traumatized self while engaging in a debate about how theories of power relations can be revised through the analysis of narratives such as Partnoy's. The analysis of Kozameh's text focuses on how the act of remembering and writing becomes a conscious epistemological and ethical instrument, a way to interpret, reconstruct, and understand traumatic experiences such as prison and its survival. Through the analysis of these three narratives, this dissertation contributes to the understanding of power and gender relations under repressive conditions, the dynamics of memory when trying to recount traumatic experiences, and the act of writing as a practice of self-reconstruction, solidarity, defiance, and self-healing.
    Format
    Book
    Author/Creator
    Portela, M. Edurne, 1974-
    Published
    2003
    Notes
    Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2003.
    Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-160).
    Photocopy. Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Dissertation Services, 2004. 22 cm.
    Dissertations and Theses

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Additional Form
    Electronic version(s) available internally at USHMM.
    Physical Description
    xii, 160 p.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Record last modified:
    2018-04-24 16:01:00
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/bib93982

    Additional Resources

    Librarian View

    Download & Licensing

    • Terms of Use
    • This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.

    In-Person Research

    Availability

    Contact Us