Forensic Fictions

Latin American Culture and the Limits of the Human ◽

10.5744/florida/9781683401490.003.0002 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 37-55

Author(s):

Carlos Fonseca

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Cultural Production ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

Object Oriented ◽

Point Of Departure ◽

The Way

Taking as its point of departure the contemporary crisis of testimonio and the recent works by Eyal Weizman, who has suggested in his book Mengele’s Skull that we have now entered an era where subjective testimony has been supplanted by object-oriented modes of witnessing, this chapter introduces the category of forensic fictions as a way of categorizing and thinking through recent Latin American literature, art, and film. Analyzing how the figure of the archive and its ruins is represented as well as presented throughout recent Latin American cultural production—in a series of works ranging from Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 all the way to the forensic sculptures of Teresa Margolles—the article explores the possibility of a mode of witnessing that goes beyond the humanist notion of the subjective voice of the witness. In dialogue with contemporary debates concerning post-memory, it proposes that the image of the ruinous archive as a metonym for thinking through the possibility historicity in a world devoid of the foundational myths which had until then functioned as the basis of historical meaning.

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Modelos de espacialidade na obra de Rafael Courtoisie

Aletria Revista de Estudos de Literatura ◽

10.17851/2317-2096.17.1.43-50 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 43-50

Author(s):

Luis Alberto Brandão Santos

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Contemporary Literature ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

Literary Text ◽

Starting Point ◽

Contrary Direction ◽

The Way

Resumo: A obra do escritor uruguaio Rafael Courtoisie é tomada como ponto de partida para uma reflexão sobre alguns modelos por meio dos quais a literatura contemporânea exercita o que se pode designar, genericamente, de “espacialidade”. Esse termo não diz respeito ao modo como o texto literário representa espaços extratextuais. Na verdade, atua na direção contrária, tornando viável que, no âmbito da literatura, se problematize o que é entendido como espaço. Os três modelos de espacialidade que abordamos são: a visão, o tato e o movimento. Da obra de Courtoisie, foram selecionados os seguintes livros: Estado sólido (1996), Umbría (1999) e Música para sordos (2002).Palavras-chave: espaço; espacialidade; Rafael Courtoisie; literatura contemporânea; literatura latino-americana.Abstract: The work of the uruguayan writer Rafael Courtoisie is taken as starting point for a reflection on some models by which contemporary literature exercises what we consider to assign, generically, as “spatiality”. This term does not concern to the way that literary text represents extraliterary spaces. Actually, it goes on the contrary direction, making possible that, in the scope of literature, one might deeply question what is understood as space. The three models of spatiality that we approach are: sight, touch and movement. The following books of Courtoisie have been selected: Estado sólido (1996), Umbría (1999) and Música para sordos (2002).Keywords: space; spatiality; Rafael Courtoisie; contemporary literature; Latin American literature.

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From Interethnic Alliances to the “Magical Negro”: Afro-Asian Interactions in Asian Latin American Literature

Humanities ◽

10.3390/h7040110 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 110

Author(s):

Ignacio López-Calvo

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Cultural Production ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

Black And White ◽

Official Discourse ◽

Andean Countries ◽

History Of ◽

The Caribbean ◽

Sociocultural Interactions

This essay studies Afro-Asian sociocultural interactions in cultural production by or about Asian Latin Americans, with an emphasis on Cuba and Brazil. Among the recurrent characters are the black slave, the china mulata, or the black ally who expresses sympathy or even marries the Asian character. This reflects a common history of bondage shared by black slaves, Chinese coolies, and Japanese indentured workers, as well as a common history of marronage. These conflicts and alliances between Asians and blacks contest the official discourse of mestizaje (Spanish-indigenous dichotomies in Mexico and Andean countries, for example, or black and white binaries in Brazil and the Caribbean) that, under the guise of incorporating the other, favored whiteness while attempting to silence, ignore, or ultimately erase their worldviews and cultures.

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Pós-modernidade e pós-colonialidade na literatura latino-americana: o trágico na Crônica de uma morte anunciada, de Gabriel García Márquez

Caligrama Revista de Estudos Românicos ◽

10.17851/2238-3824.24.1.47-64 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 47

Author(s):

Fatima Sabrina Rosa ◽

Barbara Rosa

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Fixed Points ◽

Latin American ◽

Gabriel Garcia Marquez ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

American Fiction ◽

Latin American Fiction ◽

Literary Writing ◽

And Gender ◽

The Way

Resumo: Este ensaio tem por objetivo utilizar perspectivas discutidas em torno das teorias pós-modernas e pós-coloniais como aporte para estabelecer aproximações com a literatura latino-americana, especificamente, com a obra Crônica de uma morte anunciada, do colombiano Gabriel García Márquez. Essa proposta de aproximação surge da impressão causada pela obra no leitor, denotando traços do que poderia ser visto como uma perspectiva pós-moderna e pós-colonial sobre a história e sobre a própria escrita literária. Esses caminhos da questão “pós” podem ser percebidos em uma sensibilidade trágica, que alinha o texto aos debates pós-modernos, bem como na forma como o autor hibridiza a narrativa ao colocar na mesma “persona”, narrador, personagem e autor. As chamadas “histórias menores”, isto é, discussões acerca de temas importantes da crítica pós-colonial também estão presentes, em referências tangenciais à raça, territorialidade e gênero. Além dessas circunscrições mais visíveis sobre o “pós” na estrutura da crônica, este texto é uma tentativa de decodificar alguns símbolos utilizados pelo autor para ressignificar e deslocar certos pontos fixos da ficção e da história latino-americana.Palavras-chave: literatura latino-americana; trágico; pós-modernidade e pós-colonialidade.Abstract: This essay aims to use perspectives discussed on postmodern and postcolonial theories as a contribution to establish approximations with the Latin American literature, specifically with the Chronicle of a Death Foretold by the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez. This proposal of approximation arises from the impression that the García Márquez’ work provokes in the reader, denoting traces of what could be seen as a postmodern and postcolonial perspective on history and on literary writing itself. These paths of the “post” theory can be perceived in a tragic sensibility, which aligns the text to postmodern debates, as well as in the way the author hybridizes the narrative by placing the narrator, character and author in the same person. Also present in the book are the so-called “minor stories,” that is, discussions about the central postcolonial critique matters, such as issues about race, territoriality, and gender. In addition to these more visible circumscriptions about the “post” in the structure of the Chronicle, this text is an attempt to decode some symbols used by the author to resignify and dislocate certain fixed points of Latin American fiction and history.Keywords: Latin American literature; tragic; post-modernity and post-coloniality.

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Transvestism, Masculinity, and Latin American Literature

10.1057/9780230107281 ◽

2002 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Ben. Sifuentes-Jáuregui

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Latin American Literature

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Surrealism in Latin American Literature

10.1057/9781137317612 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Melanie Nicholson

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Latin American Literature

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Uncommon Grounds

10.1093/oso/9780190690205.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jeffrey Lawrence

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Historical Novel ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

Historical Account ◽

American Novel ◽

Song Of Solomon ◽

The Past ◽

The North ◽

The Us

This chapter turns from a historical account of the development of the US literature of experience and the Latin American literature of reading to a textual analysis of the US and Latin American historical novel. Hemispheric/inter-American scholars often cite William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977) as exemplifying instances of literary borrowing across the North–South divide. As I demonstrate, however, each of the later texts also realigns its predecessor’s historical imaginary according to the dominant logics of the US and Latin American literary fields. Whereas the American works foreground experiential models of reconstructing the past and conveying knowledge across generations, García Márquez’s Latin American novel presents reading as the fundamental mode of comprehending and transmitting history.

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Anxieties of Experience

10.1093/oso/9780190690205.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jeffrey Lawrence

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

World Literature ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

First Century ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Leaves Of Grass ◽

Literary Authority ◽

The Us ◽

New Interpretation

Anxieties of Experience: The Literatures of the Americas from Whitman to Bolaño offers a new interpretation of US and Latin American literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Revisiting longstanding debates in the hemisphere about whether the source of authority for New World literature derives from an author’s first-hand contact with American places and peoples or from a creative (mis)reading of existing traditions, the book charts a widening gap in how modern US and Latin American writers defined their literary authority. In the process, it traces the development of two distinct literary strains in the Americas: the “US literature of experience” and the “Latin American literature of the reader.” Reinterpreting a range of canonical works from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, Anxieties of Experience shows how this hemispheric literary divide fueled a series of anxieties, misunderstandings, and “misencounters” between US and Latin American authors. In the wake of recent calls to rethink the “common grounds” approach to literature across the Americas, the book advocates a comparative approach that highlights the distinct logics of production and legitimation in the US and Latin American literary fields. Anxieties of Experience closes by exploring the convergence of the literature of experience and the literature of the reader in the first decades of the twenty-first century, arguing that the post-Bolaño moment has produced the strongest signs of a truly reciprocal literature of the Americas in more than a hundred years.

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