Okinawan Peruvian Poetâs Gender Performativity: On âDiario de la mujer es ponjaâ by Doris Moromisato Shigeko Mato (bio) Shigeko Mato Waseda University, Tokyo Shigeko Mato Shigeko Mato received her Ph.D in Spanish American literature from the University of New Mexico. She is Associate Porfessor of Latin American Literature and Culture and Spanish Language at School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo. Her articles on contemporary Japanese Peruvian literature and Mexican literature have appeared in HispanĂłfila, Confluencia, and other journals. She is also the author of Cooptation, Complicity, and Representation: Desire and Limits for Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Mexican Fiction (2010). Endnotes 1. The painting on which Juan Kanashiro Iparraguirre bases his could be one of Utamaroâs many that depict a woman sitting in front of a mirror, either putting white powder to her neck or fixing her hair or makeup (Asano). As in Utamaroâs paintings, in Moromisatoâs Diarioâs covers, the viewer also sees the womanâs face reflected in the mirror and her long neck from the back. 2. âEsponjaâ in Spanish (sponge in English) has the connotation of a person who has a great faculty for absorbing information, according to Real Academia Española. Debbie Lee-DiStefano also interprets the meaning of sponge as a woman âcapable of soaking up her surroundings, of absorbing any informationâ (48) 3. Derrida, elaborating on J. L. Austinâs concept of âperformative utterances,â delineates that it is the citationality and iterability of every sign (spoken or written) that first âdo thingsâ or make it possible for a sign to produce certain effects and actions (by repeating), yet it is also the citationality and iterability that make the effects and actions of a sign unidentifiable, incomprehensible, and invalid within any given context (by altering), âengendering] infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashionâ (320). Butler, also adapting Austinâs concept of âperformative utterances,â applies this notion of citationality and iterability of performativity to her study of the construction of gender and sex. For her more detailed analysis of Austinâs performativity of speech acts, see the introduction of Bulterâs Excitable Speech, in which she examines how âinjurious speechâ (âhate speechâ) functions both as âthe deed that [utterance] effectsâ and âcertain effects that are not the same as the speech act itselfâ (3). 4. Butler states âthe question is no longer, How is gender constituted as and through a certain interpretation of sex? (a question that leaves the âmatterâ of sex untheorized), but rather, Through what regulatory norms is sex itself materialized? And how is it that treating the materiality of sex as a given presupposes and consolidates that normative conditions of its own emergence?â (xviiiâxix). 5. Paracelsus (1493â1541 b. in Einsiedeln, Switzerland) was a 16th century physician, alchemist, and botanist who invented new chemical treatments for illnesses and wounds (such as use of laudanum and mercury for syphilis) (Norden). 6. See p. 1â2 of this study. 7. I first found this quote in Carmen Tisnadoâs study on four South American short stories with lesbian themes (278) and then examined Butlerâs original study. Works Cited Asano, Shugo. Kitagawa Utamaro. Tokyo: Shincho Nippon Bijutsu Bunko, 1997. Google Scholar Balderston, Daniel and JosĂ© Maristany. âThe Lesbian and Gay Novel in Latin America.â The Cambridge Companion to the Latin American Novel. ed. EfraĂn Kristal. Cambrdige, England: Cambridge UP, 2005. 200â16. Google Scholar Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge Classics, 2006. Google Scholar Butler, Judith. âImitation and Gender Insubordination.â The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry Abelove, MichĂšle Anina Barale, and David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge, 1993.307â20. Google Scholar Butler, Judith. âIntroduction.â Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of âSex.â London: Routledge Classics, 2011. xiâxxx. Google Scholar Butler, Judith. âIntroduction: On Linguistic Vulnerability.â Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997.1â41. Google Scholar Derrida, Jacques. âSignature Event Context.â Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982.307â30. Google Scholar âEsponja.â Diccionario de la lengua española. 22 ed. 2001. Real Academia Española. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. Google...