Resistance as Shapeshifter: A Posthumanist Reading of Subjectivity and Death in the Fiction of Gloria Anzaldúa and Clarice Lispector

This article explores posthumanist dimensions of subjectivity in the fiction of Gloria Anzaldúa and Clarice Lispector by way of Anzaldúa’s concept of la naguala/“the shapeshifter” and Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman subject and posthuman death theory. By taking up and engaging with shapeshifting forms, the protagonists in Anzaldúa’s and Lispector’s stories challenge and resist the oppressive conditions that haunt their daily lives. Also offered in this article is a posthumanist reading of the peculiar treatment of death in Anzaldúa’s “Sleepwalker” and Lispector’s The Hour of the Star, one in which death is portrayed as a transformative rather than transcendent state. Last, the article calls for more work on subjectivities that emerge from the relationship between readers and texts.