Sor Juana's gender transgressions in the works of Ana Clavel and Cristina Rivera Garza

Although the Sor Juana archetype seems to be a constant in recent works by Mexican women writers, this essay examines the works of Ana Clavel and Cristina Rivera Garza, for their engaging discussion on gender matters. In their writings, Sor Juana behaves like a man or becomes one, explores the world of masculinity, and places women and men on the same continuum, regardless of sex, sexual orientation and behavior. Under their fictional scope, Sor Juana stops being a rara avis and “presents” herself with the worries of any and every woman and man, disconnected for an instant from her intellectual quests. By virtue of these intertextual dialogues, we can successfully revive Sor Juana today, even if every study of her life and works is, to a certain degree, a creation of our own, inevitably influenced by the world we live in, the books we read and the theories that shape our imagination.