Judith Ortiz Cofer
Spotlight on the work of Judith Ortiz Cofer
Researching and writing about authors and their works
Literary analysis essays
Check the criteria given by your instructor and read over any assignment prompts first. Always defer to the directions from your instructor if they conflict with this guide.
Generally, literary analysis essays express an idea about the author and the text. This is usually the answer to a "what" or why" question. For example, why does the author chose certain symbols, language or topics? What Is the author trying to convey? Students can use those questions to form a defensible topic sentence.
- Remember that the text (short story, poem, etc.) is your main source material.
- Create a topic sentence that is defensible from your source material.
- Use databases and other resources to find articles and other sources to support and supplement your argument. (Don't attempt to find an article that makes your argument for you.)
- Be prepared to draw comparisons to different authors and works.
- Be prepared to adjust your position if new material causes you to see the text differently.
See the related guide for Multicultural American Literature (left column).
For guidance on setting up a database search strategy, see the strategy page of the Research Basics guide
Databases
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window
- Arte Publico Hispanic Historical Collections Series 1 This link opens in a new window
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Reference
Reference sources can help you better understand cultures, and the symbols and motifs related to cultures.They can also help you to understand the author, and their relationship to a time period or a location.
See Related Guides box (left column)
Reputable websites
- Georgia Writers Hall of Fame - Judith Ortiz Cofer biography
- New Georgia Encyclopedia - Judith Ortiz Cofer biography
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States by Call Number: E184.S75 O97 2005ISBN: 9780195156003Publication Date: 2005-08-25
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latina and Latino Literature by Call Number: PS153.H56 O94 2020ISBN: 9780190667597Publication Date: 2020-02-01
Books
Healing Memories by Call Number: PS153.P83 G37 2018ISBN: 9780822965640Publication Date: 2019-01-15Using an interdisciplinary approach, Healing Memories analyzes the ways that Puerto Rican women authors use their literary works to challenge historical methodologies that have silenced the historical experiences of Puerto Rican women in the United States. Following Aurora Levins Morales's alternative historical methodology she calls "curandera history," this work analyzes the literary work of authors, including Aurora Levins Morales, Nicholasa Mohr, Esmeralda Santiago, and Judith Ortiz Cofer, and the ways they create medicinal histories that not only document the experiences of migrant women but also heal the trauma of their erasure from mainstream national history. Each analytical chapter focuses on the various methods used by each author including using the literary space as an archive, reclaiming memory, and (re)writing cultural history, all through a feminist lens that centers the voices and experiences of Puerto Rican women.
Kissing the Mango Tree by Call Number: PS153 .P83 R48 2002ISBN: 9781558853775Publication Date: 2002-01-01Kissing the Mango Tree is the first and only book to examine the works of the most popular Puerto Rican women writers from the perspective of feminist literary criticism. Rivera reconstructs the ethno-feminist aesthetic of Judith Ortiz Cofer, Sandra Maria Esteves. Nicholasa Mohr, Aurora Levins Morales. Rosario Morales, Esmeralda Santiago, and Luz Maria Umpierre-Herrera. In separate chapters dedicated to each of the writers, the author locates their works within a framework of feminist thoery and literature, seeing them as "women with macho asserting their creative powers to record their own versions of their memories, to own their own bodies...They transform the way we look at the process of growing up and becoming a woman, at the relationship with our mothers and our daughters, at the fluidity of our lives, at our notions of nationhood..." This groundbreaking study is accompanied by a complete bibliography of the six writers' works and secondary sources of feminist, Latino and ethno-poetic criticism and theory.
Rituals of Movement in the Writing of Judith Ortiz Cofer by Call Number: PS3565.R7737 R588 2012ISBN: 9781584328629Publication Date: 2012-01-01Rituals of Movement in the Writing of Judith Ortiz Cofer is the first book-length collection of scholarship on her writing and establishes Ortiz Cofer as an important contemporary American author. Ten analytical essays and four interviews explore the complexity and originality of her work and her central themes of Puerto Rican identity, cross-cultural experience, and the female perspective in a shifting multicultural world. - publisher description
Writing off the Hyphen by Call Number: PS153 .P83 W75 2008ISBN: 9780295988139Publication Date: 2008-03-01The sixteen essays in Writing Off the Hyphen approach the literature of the Puerto Rican diaspora from current theoretical positions, with provocative and insightful results. The authors analyze how the diasporic experience of Puerto Ricans is played out in the context of class, race, gender, and sexuality and how other themes emerging from postcolonialism and postmodernism come into play. Their critical work also demonstrates an understanding of how the process of migration and the relations between Puerto Rico and the United States complicate notions of cultural and national identity as writers confront their bilingual, bicultural, and transnational realities. The collection has considerable breadth and depth. It covers earlier, undertheorized writers such as Luisa Capetillo, Pedro Juan Labarthe, Bernardo Vega, Pura Belpré, Arturo Schomburg, and Graciany Miranda Archilla. Prominent writers such as Rosario Ferré and Judith Ortiz Cofer are discussed alongside often-neglected writers such as Honolulu-based Rodney Morales and gay writer Manuel Ramos Otero. The essays cover all the genres and demonstrate that current theoretical ideas and approaches create exciting opportunities and possibilities for the study of Puerto Rican diasporic literature.
