Tara Daly – författare

Decolonial Approaches to Latin American Literatures and Cultures engages and problematizes concepts such as “decolonial” and “coloniality” to question methodologies in literary and cultural scholarship. While the eleven contributions produce diverse approaches to literary and cultural texts ranging from Pre-Columbian to contemporary works, there is a collective questioning of the very idea of “Latin America,” what “Latin American” contains or leaves out, and the various practices and locations constituting Latinamericanism. This transdisciplinary study aims to open an evolving corpus of decolonial scholarship, providing a unique entry point into the literature and material culture produced from precolonial to contemporary times.

Decolonial Approaches to Latin American Literatures and Cultures engages and problematizes concepts such as “decolonial” and “coloniality” to question methodologies in literary and cultural scholarship. While the eleven contributions produce diverse approaches to literary and cultural texts ranging from Pre-Columbian to contemporary works, there is a collective questioning of the very idea of “Latin America,” what “Latin American” contains or leaves out, and the various practices and locations constituting Latinamericanism. This transdisciplinary study aims to open an evolving corpus of decolonial scholarship, providing a unique entry point into the literature and material culture produced from precolonial to contemporary times.

In the Andes, indigenous knowledge systems based on the relationships between different beings, both earthly and heavenly, animal and plant, have been central to the organization of knowledge since precolonial times. The legacies of colonialism and the continuance of indigenous cultures make the Andes a unique place from which to think about art and social change as ongoing, and as encompassing more than an exclusively human perspective. Beyond Human revises established readings of the avant-gardes in Peru and Bolivia as humanizing and historical. By presenting fresh readings of canonical authors like César Vallejo, José María Arguedas, and Magda Portal, and through analysis of newer artist-activists like Julieta Paredes, Mujeres Creando Comunidad, and Alejandra Dorado, Daly argues instead that avant-gardes complicate questions of agency and contribute to theoretical discussions on vital materialisms: the idea that life happens between animate and inanimate beings—human and non-human—and is made sensible through art. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.