U.S. multicultural critics have used postmodernism and cultural studies to proffer important critiques of the racist, sexist, and class-conscious American political and social structures portrayed in Chicana/o Literature. Critics have emphasized the social sciences---sociology, ethnography, anthropology, and psychoanalysis---in their analyses, but only recently have they ventured into more quantitative and experimental scientific fields, such as biology. Inspired by the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage series edited by Ramon Gutierrez and Genaro Padilla, this dissertation offers a critical analysis of the multi-genre literatures of Josefina (Josephina) Niggli and Oscar Zeta Acosta using biographical, historical, and scientific perspectives. Part A centers on Niggli's literary and theoretical debt to folk and behavioral psychology, The Carolina Playmakers, archetypalism, psychological characterization, Mark Twain, Henrik Ibsen, William Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud, Mediz Bolio, Jose Vasconcelos, and Leopoldo Zea. Other possible literary and theoretical influences are explored, such as George Bernard Shaw, Georg Mendel, and John B. Watson. Niggli's position as an early Chicana and feminist author is explored. The modern sciences of ethology, evolutionary and behavioral psychology, cognitive science, biochemistry, and neuroscience are employed to explicate further important psychological and behavioral issues raised by Niggli. Part B features Acosta's allegorical and satirical inter-textualization of the ethological views of Konrad Lorenz ( On Aggression) and Robert Ardrey (The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations) in his work. Again, using biographical, historical, and scientific perspectives, The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and The Revolt of the Cockroach People are critically examined in relation to individual and group aggression and violence in The United States, Vietnam, and Mexico.
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