This book is a mythology—not a history or a biography—inasmuch as the author’s interest is in tracing the myths Chavez created about himself and those told about him, paying particular attention to the variations of the story. Rather than weigh in on the differences, the author probes the meaning of the incongruity. The book moves theoretically from religious poetics to religious politics. It argues for Chavez as a religious border crosser—“nepantla spirituality”—and frames his movement as engaged with American civil religion.
Keywords: myth, body, politics, spirituality, borderlands, nepantla, assemblage, nonviolence, satyagraha, masculinity
Print publication date: 2014 | Print ISBN-13: 9780520283688 |
Published to California Scholarship Online: September 2016 | DOI:10.1525/california/9780520283688.001.0001 |