1 Contemporary Women’s Writing. doi:10.1093/cwwrit/vpw034 Published by Oxford University Press 2016. Resistance as Shapeshifter: A Posthumanist Reading of Subjectivity and Death in the Fiction of Gloria Anzaldúa and Clarice Lispector KELLI ZAYTOUN Abstract This article explores posthumanist dimensions of subjectivity in the iction of Gloria Anzaldúa and Clarice Lispector by way of Anzaldúa’s concept of la naguala/“the shapeshifter” and Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman subject and posthuman death theory. By taking up and engaging with shapeshifting forms, the protagonists in Anzaldúa’s and Lispector’s stories challenge and resist the oppressive conditions that haunt their daily lives. Also offered in this article is a posthumanist reading of the peculiar treatment of death in Anzaldúa’s “Sleepwalker” and Lispector’s The Hour of the Star , one in which death is portrayed as a transformative rather than transcendent state. Last, the article calls for more work on subjectivities that emerge from the relationship between readers and texts. “But don’t grieve for the dead; they know what they are doing.” Clarice Lispector, A Hora da Estrela/The Hour of the Star (85) Clarice Lispector, one of Brazil’s most celebrated writers, is known for her philosophical iction, more speciically her ability to pull readers into the stream of consciousness of her characters. Also focused on, in her words, “the inner life of the Self” (preface to Borderlands), Gloria Anzaldúa, a seventh-generation Tejana, independent scholar, and activist, is most lauded for her theories and Contemporary Women's Writing Advance Access published September 23, 2016 by guest on September 24, 2016 http://cww.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from