PUTINOIKA Headlines American Studies Association
Putinoika, an epic look at “Late-Stage American Empire”
American Studies Association (ASA), the oldest and largest scholarly association dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of U.S. culture and history, will feature iconic Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi as the Headline Event at their Annual Meeting in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico in November 2025. The theme of this year's ASA convention is LATE-STAGE AMERICAN EMPIRE.
In celebration of Public Humanities Day on November 19th, ASA will present a special session on Braschi’s epic works Putinoika (Brown Ink, FlowerSong) and United States of Banana (Latinographix), which provide an unflinching look at Late-Stage American Empire.
The special event entitled “RADICAL IMAGINATION AND THE TRANSCOLONIAL CONDITION: GIANNINA BRASCHI’S LITERARY DISPOSITIFS” will features renowned scholars Carmen H. Rivera, Nuria Morgado, and Elidio La Torre Lagares in conversation with Giannina Braschi.
This session invites attendees to an intimate and thought-provoking conversation with Braschi, one of the most radical voices in contemporary American and Latinx literature. Braschi’s work—spanning poetry, the novel, and theatrical performance—defies conventional literary forms, engaging in a transgressive critique of empire, coloniality, and capitalism. With United States of Banana, she not only reimagines Puerto Rico’s political fate through a blend of dystopian satire, allegory, and philosophy but also deploys the novel as dispositif—a mechanism of power, resistance, and disruption. With Putinoika, her recent work, Braschi continues this trajectory by engaging in a trenchant critique of autocracy, war, and the ideological machinery of authoritarianism, proving that the dispositif of literature remains a vital instrument of resistance.
Drawing on Michel Foucault's and Giorgio Agamben’s notion of the dispositif as an assemblage of discursive and non-discursive forces, this session will explore how Braschi weaponizes the novel as a site where literature, history, and performative politics collide. Her work operates beyond representation, functioning instead as an apparatus that magnifies the paradoxes of sovereignty, the violence of neoliberalism, and the fractures of national belonging. Attendees will engage in an open dialogue on themes such as:
• The Novel as Dispositif: How United States of Banana operates as an epistemic rupture that unsettles colonial logic and capitalist modernity
• Linguistic Insurrection and Cross-cultures: The role of multilingualism and Spanglish as forms of aesthetic and political resistance in her experience as diasporican.
• Dystopian Allegory and Liberation Narratives: How Braschi’s genre- defying approach challenges traditional understandings of citizenship, exile, and freedom.
This session is an opportunity for scholars, students, and fans of contemporary literature, political philosophy, and postcolonial studies to explore Giannina Braschi’s literary insurgency and the enduring power of the novel as a disruptive, liberatory force.
Order Your Copy of Putinoika Today
PUTINOIKA is a multi-genre epic about frenzy and plague in the era of Putin and Trump. Inspired by the ancient Greek tragedies, PUTINOIKA unfolds in three-parts: Palinode, Bacchae, and Putinoika. In a world flooding with collusion, delusion, and pollution, hope not only stands its ground in PUTINOIKA, but it also elevates us to higher realms with exhilarating new literary forms, poetic expressions, and a renewed faith in creativity. PUTINOIKA insists that poets, philosophers, and lovers have the capacity to create on a scale greater than society’s capacity to destroy. If Waiting for Godot is a threnody of hope in the atomic age, PUTINOIKA is the “Invictus” we didn’t know we were waiting for after the global pandemic.
Miguel-Angel Zapata reviews PUTiNOIKA: “Its light comes from an apparent chaos, a mirror of our time, written in a precise, profane, and sweetly convulsive language.” Latino Book Review
“Give me more Putinas, por favor: A Conversation with Giannina Braschi.” Sandra Guzmán interviews Giannina Braschi in World Literature Today
