| Summary: | This primarily theoretical study is situated within the field of Latin American Studies, since
it examines poetry written in Spanish by two contemporary Latin American women. The
approach develops concepts introduced by Derrida and Levinas to discuss their poems in
relation to feminist debates about identity and difference/alterity. Many feminists believe
that the struggle for the emancipation of women must orient itself toward a politics that
affirms their sexual identity as women or as lesbians. Others argue that such affirmations
are problematic, because they are posited within a masculinist, heteronormative context
and necessarily adopt the stereotypes and biases implicit in such a frame. This dissertation
supports the point of view of radical feminists, for whom maintaining a radical heterogeneity
and difference in relation to this normative binary framework is the only way to avoid (re-)
assimilation into phallocratic structures.
The first chapter provides a theoretical framework based on Derridean deconstruction and
notions of alterity and difference that enable the philosophical construction of a radical heterogeneity
called here hetdsrography. This invented concept gives rise to other inventions of
difference and multiple alterities, creating an alternative to essentialist concepts of identity
and otherness. The second chapter examines the Argentinian poet Diana Bellessi's Eroica
and proposes a reading based on the radical heterogeneity of "woman." Drawing on the
political reality of los desaparecidos in Argentina, the unidentified woman is construed as
"disappearance." The third chapter applies a similar approach to a reading of the Chilean
poet Soledad Farina's Albricia, developing the concept of impasse. The discussion focuses
on the deconstruction of Farina's homogeneous or essentialist category of lesbianism and
proposes an-other, more radical hyperlesbianism that is indeterminate and exceeds essentialist
definitions. Hyperfeminism/lesbianism link women's and lesbians' emancipation to
wider issues of democracy, justice and ethics, as discussed in the fourth and final chapter.
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