Elías J. Palti - Böcker

Is there a Latin American thought? What distinguishes it from the thought of other regions, particularly from European thought? What are its main expressions in political, cultural, and social life? How has it evolved historically? As the Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea Aguilar stated: "hardly any other society has so zealously sought for the features of its own identity."In Misplaced Ideas?, Elías J. Palti examines how Latin American identity has been conceived across different epochs and diverse conceptual contexts. Palti approaches these ideas from a historical-intellectual perspective, unraveling the theoretical foundations on which the very interrogation on Latin American identity has been forumulated and re-formulated. While he does not endorse or refute any particular perspective, Palti discloses the historical and contingent nature of their foundations. Ultimately, Misplaced Ideas? highlights the problematic dynamics of the circulation of ideas in peripheral regions of Western culture, which raises, in turn, broader theoretical questions regarding the ways of approaching complex historical-intellectual processes.

Is there a Latin American thought? What distinguishes it from the thought of other regions, particularly from European thought? What are its main expressions in political, cultural, and social life? How has it evolved historically? As the Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea Aguilar stated: "hardly any other society has so zealously sought for the features of its own identity."In Misplaced Ideas?, Elías J. Palti examines how Latin American identity has been conceived across different epochs and diverse conceptual contexts. Palti approaches these ideas from a historical-intellectual perspective, unraveling the theoretical foundations on which the very interrogation on Latin American identity has been forumulated and re-formulated. While he does not endorse or refute any particular perspective, Palti discloses the historical and contingent nature of their foundations. Ultimately, Misplaced Ideas? highlights the problematic dynamics of the circulation of ideas in peripheral regions of Western culture, which raises, in turn, broader theoretical questions regarding the ways of approaching complex historical-intellectual processes.

In this book, Elías J. Palti analyzes the writings of key thinkers who have theorized the present situation of Marxism: Perry Anderson, Fredric Jameson, Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, and Jacques Derrida. His aim is to interrogate what appears to be the final crisis of Marxist political tradition from a historical-intellectual point of view, placing it within a broader framework, which is the present crisis of politics, at large. Yet, it also reveals why we cannot, even then, avoid confronting it, stubbornly trying to think of what seems to be unthinkable today, namely, the idea of an emancipatory horizon.Unlike traditional works of political philosophy, The Crisis of Marxism: A Historical-Intellectual Problem does not intend to provide political or philosophical answers to today’s dislocation of politics. Instead, it aspires to clarify the nature of the questions that such a situation raises and demonstrates why the current crisis of Marxism contains some fundamental clues for it.

In this book, Elías J. Palti analyzes the writings of key thinkers who have theorized the present situation of Marxism: Perry Anderson, Fredric Jameson, Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, and Jacques Derrida. His aim is to interrogate what appears to be the final crisis of Marxist political tradition from a historical-intellectual point of view, placing it within a broader framework, which is the present crisis of politics, at large. Yet, it also reveals why we cannot, even then, avoid confronting it, stubbornly trying to think of what seems to be unthinkable today, namely, the idea of an emancipatory horizon.Unlike traditional works of political philosophy, The Crisis of Marxism: A Historical-Intellectual Problem does not intend to provide political or philosophical answers to today’s dislocation of politics. Instead, it aspires to clarify the nature of the questions that such a situation raises and demonstrates why the current crisis of Marxism contains some fundamental clues for it.

How did nineteenth-century Latin American novelists respond to moments when history itself seemed to come undone? Rather than treating dystopia as a futuristic genre, Palti traces its emergence from concrete political crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, as writers confronted national defeat, dictatorship, and revolutionary uncertainty. Reading Mexican fiction written after the U.S. occupation; Argentine texts produced under Juan Manuel de Rosas, including works by Esteban Echeverría, Domingo F. Sarmiento, and José Mármol; and Brazilian novels from the transition from Empire to Republic, with particular attention to Machado de Assis, the book shows how narrative form begins to falter. Plots stall, identities fragment, and stories resist closure. These breakdowns constitute early dystopian modes—atopia-atropia, heterotopia, and transtopia—through which literature registers the collapse of historical intelligibility. By locating dystopia in narrative form rather than theme, Palti offers a rich new account of literature under political catastrophe.Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.