Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s "art as a mode of research": Applications in feminist research methods and feminist rhetoric

My dissertation explores how Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s theories of creativity inform social-justice efforts, contribute to feminist research in feminist rhetoric, and operate as a tool to analyze her sketches. Despite Anzaldúa’s visual art training and prevalent use of images in her writing, few scholars have analyzed her artwork or her writings on creativity. Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and sketches in the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers, my project explores two questions. In my first question—How do Anzaldúa’s theories of creativity inform social-justice work?—I examine her writings on creativity that contribute to social-justice work. My second question—How do Anzaldúa’s theories of creativity contribute to feminist research?— applies Anzaldúa’s theories of creativity to feminist research in feminist rhetoric. Specifically, I expand three feminist research practices (reflexivity, flexibility, and a dialogic process) and develop an additional research practice (recursion). Blending these feminist research practices with textual analysis, I analyze Anzaldúa’s archived sketches to identify new connections among her theories on creativity, conocimiento, nepantla, and shamanism.