Dystopian Images/Economic Realities in Their Dogs Came with Them

Talk with Edén Torres

Title: Dystopian Images and Economic Realities in the Barrios of Their Dogs Came with Them
Who: Associate Professor Edén Torres, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, Chicano & Latino Studies
When: 1:30-3:00 PM
Where: Ford Hall 400

Description: This talk is a critical analysis of Helena María Viramontes' novel, Their Dogs Came with Them. While “dystopia” has often been used to describe a post-apocalyptic society, Torres argues that Viramontes has constructed a similar fictional representation of dehumanization, misery, and containment set in Los Angeles in the late 1960's and 70’s. This sometimes fantastical account of the barrio predicts some of the outcomes of neoliberalism as the conditions of inequality under global capitalism have expanded in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Viramontes shows us the daily terror, environmental degradation, and sociopolitical punishments that many racialized residents must endure. Raising questions about the function of arbitrary boundaries, she illustrates how vilified, heavily policed and controlled this world is, leaving it well outside the social and political consciousness of the middle and upper class residents outside its borders. In like fashion, her myriad characters are kept fundamentally oblivious to the larger society and its political structuring. Such mystification thus helps to maintain the illusion of a meritocratic system that actually traps people within dystopian-like economic enclaves.

Author Bio: Edén Torres is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies as well as Chicano and Latino Studies, with adjunct status in American Studies. Beginning college at the age of thirty-five, she received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota and has been teaching since 1990. A specialist in Chicana feminist and Chicana/o cultural studies Torres focuses on the intersecting and overlapping nature of socially-constructed categories like race, class and gender. She maintains an interest in pedagogy and tries to inspire students to analyze and think critically about their own social locations so that they will be ready to function ethically and with purpose in a transnational context. Because she was nominated for these awards by her students, Torres is most appreciative and proud of winning the Arthur "Red" Motley Award for Exemplary Teaching 2003-2004, and the Council on Graduate Studies Outstanding Faculty Award, 2013. Torres is the author of Chicana Without Apology/Chicana sin vergüenza: The New Chicana Cultural Studies. Torres served as the Chair of the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies from 2013-2017.