Jose Eduardo Gonzalez - Böcker

Jorge Luis Borges-one of the most important Latin American writers-has also attained considerable international stature, and his work is commonly cited in a wide array of scholarship on contemporary fiction. Partly as a consequence of Borges' international identity, and partly because of a long-standing view in Borges criticism that his writing is principally concerned with abstract ideas, critics have been reluctant to address the question of politics in his writingFilling this critical gap, Gonzalez begins by rejecting the proposition that Borges withdraws from the real, and provides a detailed analysis of the various political issues that Borges takes up in his essays and short stories. The author places particular emphasis on the turbulent questions that shaped Argentine social history during the period of Borges' output.

Although primitivism has received renewed attention in recent years, studies linking it with Latin America have been rare. This volume examines primitivism and its implications for contemporary debates on Latin American culture, literature, and arts, showing how Latin American subjects employ a Western construct to "return the gaze" of the outside world and redefine themselves in relation to modernity.Examining such subjects as Julio CortÁzar and Frida Kahlo and such topics as folk art and cinema, the volume brings together for the first time the views of scholars who are currently engaging the task of cultural studies from the standpoint of primitivism. These varied contributions include analyses of Latin American art in relation to social issues, popular culture, and official cultural policy; essays in cultural criticism touching on ethnic identity, racial politics, women's issues, and conflictive modernity; and analytical studies of primitivism's impact on narrative theory and practice, film, theater, and poetry.This collection contributes offers a new perspective on a variety of significant debates in Latin American cultural studies and shows that the term primitive does not apply to these cultures as much as to our understanding of them.CONTENTSParadise Subverted: The Invention of the Mexican Character / Roger BartraBetween Sade and the Savage: Octavio Paz’s Aztecs / Amaryll ChanadyUnder the Shadow of God: Roots of Primitivism in Early Colonial Mexico / Delia Annunziata CosentinoOf Alebrijes and Ocumichos: Some Myths about Folk Art and Mexican Identity / Eli BartraPrimitive Borders: Cultural Identity and Ethnic Cleansing in the Dominican Republic / Fernando Valerio-HolguÍnDialectics of Archaism and Modernity: Technique and Primitivism in Angel Rama’s TransculturaciÓn narrativa en AmÉrica Latina / JosÉ Eduardo GonzÁlezNarrative Primitivism: Theory and Practice in Latin America / Erik Camayd-FreixasNarrating the Other: Julio CortÁzar’s "Axolotl" as Ethnographic Allegory / R. Lane KauffmannJungle Fever: Primitivism in Environmentalism; RÓmulo Gallegos’s Canaima and the Romance of the Jungle / Jorge MarconePrimitivism and Cultural Production: Future’s Memory; Native Peoples’ Voices in Latin American Society / Ivete Lara Camargos WaltyPrimitive Bodies in Latin American Cinema: NicolÁs EchevarrÍa’s Cabeza de Vaca / Luis Fernando RestrepoSubliminal Body: Shamanism, Ancient Theater, and Ethnodrama / Gabriel WeiszPrimitivist Construction of Identity in the Work of Frida Kahlo / Wendy B. FarisMi andina y dulce Rita: Women, Indigenism, and the Avant-Garde in CÉsar Vallejo / Tace Megan Hedrick

Angel Rama (1926-1983) is a major figure in Latin American literary and cultural studies, but little has been published on his critical work. In this study, José Eduardo González focuses on Rama's response to and appropriation of European critics like Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Georg Lukács. González argues that Rama realized the inapplicability of many of their theories and descriptions of cultural modernization to Latin America, and thus reworked them to produce his own discourse that challenged prevailing notions of social and cultural modernization.

Jorge Luis Borges-one of the most important Latin American writers-has also attained considerable international stature, and his work is commonly cited in a wide array of scholarship on contemporary fiction. Partly as a consequence of Borges' international identity, and partly because of a long-standing view in Borges criticism that his writing is principally concerned with abstract ideas, critics have been reluctant to address the question of politics in his writingFilling this critical gap, Gonzalez begins by rejecting the proposition that Borges withdraws from the "real," and provides a detailed analysis of the various political issues that Borges takes up in his essays and short stories. The author places particular emphasis on the turbulent questions that shaped Argentine social history during the period of Borges' output.

Essays on teaching a major Latin American writerOften considered a writer who transcends national borders, Jorge Luis Borges also aimed to reinvent the history and traditions of his own country, Argentina. His unconventional works appeal to students, who nonetheless can find his richly intertextual prose challenging. Addressing courses in Spanish and in English, this volume offers innovative approaches that help students navigate the texts, engage with them emotionally and creatively, and understand the time and place of their production while connecting them to the present.Part 1, "Materials," provides detailed biographical information about Borges as well as print and digital resources. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," offer strategies for discussing his writing process, his manuscripts, and the material history and translation of his texts. Contributors also examine Borges's influences, which include film, mythology, history, and ideas of Islam and Judaism; the author's interest in humor and games; and resonances with other literary works.This volume also contains discussion of the following authors and works: Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street, A House of My Own, Loose Woman; Aelius Lampridus, Scriptores Historiae Augustae; Christopher Nolan, Interstellar; Pliny, Naturalis Historia; William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Tempest; Josef von Sternberg, Underworld; S-Town; Orson Welles, Citizen Kane; Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad; The Wizard of Oz.

Essays on teaching a major Latin American writerOften considered a writer who transcends national borders, Jorge Luis Borges also aimed to reinvent the history and traditions of his own country, Argentina. His unconventional works appeal to students, who nonetheless can find his richly intertextual prose challenging. Addressing courses in Spanish and in English, this volume offers innovative approaches that help students navigate the texts, engage with them emotionally and creatively, and understand the time and place of their production while connecting them to the present.Part 1, "Materials," provides detailed biographical information about Borges as well as print and digital resources. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," offer strategies for discussing his writing process, his manuscripts, and the material history and translation of his texts. Contributors also examine Borges's influences, which include film, mythology, history, and ideas of Islam and Judaism; the author's interest in humor and games; and resonances with other literary works.This volume also contains discussion of the following authors and works: Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street, A House of My Own, Loose Woman; Aelius Lampridus, Scriptores Historiae Augustae; Christopher Nolan, Interstellar; Pliny, Naturalis Historia; William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Tempest; Josef von Sternberg, Underworld; S-Town; Orson Welles, Citizen Kane; Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad; The Wizard of Oz.

This collection of essays studies the depiction of contemporary urban space in twenty-first century Latin American fiction. Twenty-first century authors share an interest for images of ruins and dystopian landscapes and their view of the damaging effects of the global market in Latin America tends to be pessimistic.