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Magical/realism : essays on music, memory, fantasy, and borders / Vanessa Angélica Villarreal.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Tiny Reparations Books, [2024]Description: xi, 370 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780593187142
  • 0593187148
Other title:
  • Magical realism : essays on music, memory, fantasy, and borders
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
The migrant's journey -- About a girl -- All the Atreyus at the Sphinx Gate -- Encyclopedia of all the daughters I couldn't be -- Buen niña -- Americana -- After the World-Breaking, World Building -- Inteligente -- La Canción de la nena -- Bonita -- Curanderismo -- Mexicana -- En Útero -- Virgen -- Memory, a lacuna -- Doctora -- Alternative School: A Very Special Episode -- My boyfriend's maid: a reverse Cinderella sory -- Bien educada -- Good immigrant -- Volver, volver -- Magical Realism, or the objective correlative as the symbol of madness: a domestic realism vignette -- The fantasy of healing -- In the shadow of the wolf -- The final boss: a poetics of world-building in the apocalyptic imagination -- Magical realism, or the wolf is the land is the people is the border: an animal study -- When we all loved a show about a wall: ICE, borders, and the accidental revoutionary politcs of Game of Thrones -- Afterword
Summary: "In Magical/Realism, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal offers us an intimate mosaic of migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of her marriage and her experiences navigating American monoculture. As she attempts to recover the truth from the absences and silences within her life, her relationships, and those of her ancestors, Vanessa pieces together her story from the fragments of music, memory, and fantasy that have helped her make sense of it all. Each chapter is an attempt to reimagine and re-world what has been lost. In one essay, Vanessa examines the gender performativity of Nirvana and Selena; in another, she offers a radical but crucial racial reading of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones; and throughout the collection, she explores how fantasy can provide healing when grief feels insurmountable. She reflects on the moments of her life that are too painful to remember--her difficult adolescence, her role as the eldest daughter of Mexican immigrants, her divorce--and finds a new way to archive her history and map her future(s), one infused with the hope and joy of fantasy and magical thinking. By engaging readers in her project of rebuilding narrative, Vanessa broadens our understanding of what memoir and cultural criticism can be. Magical/Realism is a wise, tender, and essential collection that carves a path toward a new way of remembering and telling our stories." -- Goodreads.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library On Order Processing
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A brilliant, singular collection of essays that looks to music, fantasy, and pop culture-from Beyonce to Game of Thrones -to excavate and reimagine what has been disappeared by migration and colonialism.

Upon becoming a new mother, Vanessa Angelica Villarreal was called to Mexico to reconnect with her ancestors and recover her grandmother's story, only to return to the sudden loss of her marriage, home, and reality.

In Magical/Realism , Villarreal crosses into the erasure of memory and self, fragmented by migration, borders, and colonial and intimate violence, reconstructing her story with pieces of American pop culture, and the music, video games, and fantasy that have helped her make sense of it all.

The border between the real and imagined is a speculative space where we can remember, or re-world, what has been lost-and each chapter engages in this essential project of world-building. In one essay, Villarreal examines her own gender performativity through Nirvana and Selena; in another, she offers a radical but crucial racial reading of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones ; and throughout the collection, she explores how fantasy can help us interpret and heal when grief feels insurmountable. She reflects on the moments of her life that are too painful to remember-her difficult adolescence, her role as the eldest daughter of Mexican immigrants, her divorce-and finds a way to archive her history and map her future(s) with the hope and joy of fantasy and magical thinking.

Magical/Realism is a wise, tender, and essential collection that carves a path toward a new way of remembering and telling our stories-broadening our understanding of what memoir and cultural criticism can be.

Includes bibliographical references.

The migrant's journey -- About a girl -- All the Atreyus at the Sphinx Gate -- Encyclopedia of all the daughters I couldn't be -- Buen niña -- Americana -- After the World-Breaking, World Building -- Inteligente -- La Canción de la nena -- Bonita -- Curanderismo -- Mexicana -- En Útero -- Virgen -- Memory, a lacuna -- Doctora -- Alternative School: A Very Special Episode -- My boyfriend's maid: a reverse Cinderella sory -- Bien educada -- Good immigrant -- Volver, volver -- Magical Realism, or the objective correlative as the symbol of madness: a domestic realism vignette -- The fantasy of healing -- In the shadow of the wolf -- The final boss: a poetics of world-building in the apocalyptic imagination -- Magical realism, or the wolf is the land is the people is the border: an animal study -- When we all loved a show about a wall: ICE, borders, and the accidental revoutionary politcs of Game of Thrones -- Afterword

"In Magical/Realism, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal offers us an intimate mosaic of migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of her marriage and her experiences navigating American monoculture. As she attempts to recover the truth from the absences and silences within her life, her relationships, and those of her ancestors, Vanessa pieces together her story from the fragments of music, memory, and fantasy that have helped her make sense of it all. Each chapter is an attempt to reimagine and re-world what has been lost. In one essay, Vanessa examines the gender performativity of Nirvana and Selena; in another, she offers a radical but crucial racial reading of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones; and throughout the collection, she explores how fantasy can provide healing when grief feels insurmountable. She reflects on the moments of her life that are too painful to remember--her difficult adolescence, her role as the eldest daughter of Mexican immigrants, her divorce--and finds a new way to archive her history and map her future(s), one infused with the hope and joy of fantasy and magical thinking. By engaging readers in her project of rebuilding narrative, Vanessa broadens our understanding of what memoir and cultural criticism can be. Magical/Realism is a wise, tender, and essential collection that carves a path toward a new way of remembering and telling our stories." -- Goodreads.

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