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Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel

 Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Associate Professor of Romance Languages.

(B.A. University of Puerto Rico, 1989; M.A. Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley 1991, 1996). Her areas of research include: Colonial Latin American discourses and contemporary Caribbean and Latino narratives; colonial and postcolonial theory, migration and cultural studies. Professor Martínez-San Miguel is author of two books. Saberes americanos: subalternidad y epistemología en los escritos de Sor Juana (Pittsburgh: Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 1999) is the first book-length analysis of the constitution of an epistemological subjectivity in the works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. This critical reading explores three specific dimensions in the constitution of a cognitive subject: her feminine condition, the colonial context in which knowledge was produced, and the emergence of a “Creole” perspective during the second half of the seventeenth century. Caribe Two Ways: cultura de la migración en el Caribe insular hispánico (Ediciones Callejón, 2003) focuses on the representation of displacement and the reconfiguration of a contemporary Caribbean identity in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Caribbean enclaves in New York City. This study is an attempt to assess what impact this displacement of the “national” has had on the reformulation of those subjectivities that are not “migrating subjects” themselves, but are experiencing both massive emigration and immigration to and from their places of origin. Another objective of this project is to identify some of the most significant cultural manifestations —such as literature, cinema, graffiti, music, and graphic arts— that incorporate migration into their definition of national and Caribbean identities, to explore the limits of some of the theoretical categories produced within Regional, Migration and Cultural Studies here in the United States. Professor Martínez-San Miguel has also edited with Mabel Mora–a the compilation of essays “Nictimene sacrílega”: homenaje a Georgina Sabat de Rivers (México: Iberoamericana and Claustro de Sor Juana 2003).

Martínez-San Miguel is currently working on her third book project entitled “From Lack to Excess: ‘Minor’ Readings of Latin American Colonial Discourse.”This book analyzes the narrative and rhetorical structures of Latin American colonial texts by establishing a dialogue with studies on minority discourse, minor literatures, and colonial and postcolonial theory. The manuscript includes analysis of texts by Hernán Cortés, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. She is also working on a fourth book manuscript entitled Coloniality of Diasporas: Rethinking Ethnic Minorities in a Comparative Context. This project proposes a comparative study of Martinique and Puerto Rico to explore two cases of internal migration between former/actual metropolis and colonies. Using Aníbal Quijano’s notion of the “coloniality of power,” Mart’nez-San Miguel proposes “coloniality of diasporas” as a theoretical framework to study literary works by Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Luis Muñoz Marín and Piri Thomas.