Review by Choice Review
Borrego (English and North American literature and culture, Univ. of Málaga, Spain) and Ruiz (social history and cultural studies, also Univ. of Málaga) have assembled a comprehensive and diverse collection of case studies, theoretical essays, and film, novel, and character analyses, all of which foreground cultural and literary approaches to understandings of identity. Contributors discuss topics such as migration and queerness; representations of anti-trafficking and prostitution; the trauma of incest; uses and transgressions of the physical body; (ab)uses of silence, power, and collective action; post-decolonialism and post-humanism; feminism, black feminism, and patriarchy; victimization and agency; and anti-essentialist, hybrid, and intersectional understandings of identity. Strengths of the collection include its focus on contemporary controversial issues tied to gender, sexuality, race, and location; its use of short, accessible, theoretically informed chapters; and its innovative, disruptive configurations of identity. These nuanced accounts consider how such configurations are constrained by, and may even perpetuate, stereotypical, dominant, and insidious understandings of identity. This book will appeal to multiple audiences and could be of great use in courses that focus primarily on personal and social identities. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Tony E. Adams, Northeastern Illinois University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
