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- Title
Abject Failure and Utopian Longing in the Lower East Side: The Poetry and Performance of Miguel Piñero.
- Authors
GEYER, CHARLIE
- Abstract
This article explores the presence of utopian imaginaries in the poetry and performance of Miguel Piñero. Departing from the work of Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé on the colonial abjection of Puerto Ricans, I examine the manner in which Puerto Ricans exist as abject bodies in the cultural imaginary of late 20th-century New York, and the way in which a utopian politics arises out of the abject in Short Eyes and "A Lower East Side Poem." I read alongside José Esteban Muñoz, Jack Halberstam, Ernst Bloch, and Theodor Adorno in order to examine both the positivity and negativity of utopian longing in Piñero's work, in other words, the tension between future utopian possibility and its present inability to be realized. I ultimately argue that Piñero's writing straddles these two poles, locating radical utopian potential within sites of abject failure, while remaining open to the possibility that this potential may never be realized.
- Subjects
PINERO, Miguel, 1946-1988; ABJECTION; PUERTO Rican history; CRUZ-Malave, Arnaldo; HALBERSTAM, Jack, 1961-; BLOCH, Ernest, 1880-1959
- Publication
Centro Journal, 2021, Vol 33, Issue 2, p4
- ISSN
1538-6279
- Publication type
Article