Caliban and Coney Island: Spanish American Narratives of Corporeal Difference and Performance

Abstract

In recent years, Disability Studies scholarship in the humanities has frequently focused on histories of the freak show and on theoretical problems stemming from the limits of cultural discourse with respect to the materiality of the body. In contrast, corporeality and difference in the context of recent work in Spanish American Cultural Studies and related disciplines often appear as metaphorical constructs, grounded in the trope of monstrosity as nexus of identity and alterity. Through readings of José Martí's and José Juan Tablada's literary encounters with Coney Island, this article proposes the critical productivity of intersecting models of Spanish American literary discourse and live corporeal spectacle.