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Postmodernity in Latin America
Santiago Colás
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Description for Postmodernity in Latin America
Paperback. Contests the prevailing understanding of the relationship between postmodernity and Latin America by focusing on developments in Latin American, and particularly Argentine, political and literary culture. Series: Post-Contemporary Interventions. Num Pages: 240 pages. BIC Classification: 1KLC; 1KLS; JFC; JHM. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 5817 x 3887 x 18. Weight in Grams: 404.
Postmodernity in Latin America contests the prevailing understanding of the relationship between postmodernity and Latin America by focusing on recent developments in Latin American, and particularly Argentine, political and literary culture. While European and North American theorists of postmodernity generally view Latin American fiction without regard for its political and cultural context, Latin Americanists often either uncritically apply the concept of postmodernity to Latin American literature and society or reject it in an equally uncritical fashion. The result has been both a limited understanding of the literature and an impoverished notion of postmodernity. Santiago Colás challenges both of these approaches and corrects their consequent distortions by locating Argentine postmodernity in the cultural dynamics of resistance as it operates within and against local expressions of late capitalism.
Focusing on literature, Colás uses Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch to characterize modernity for Latin America as a whole, Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman to identify the transition to a more localized postmodernity, and Ricardo Piglia’s Artificial Respiration to exemplify the cultural coordinates of postmodernity in Argentina. Informed by the cycle of political transformation beginning with the Cuban Revolution, including its effects on Peronism, to the period of dictatorship, and finally to redemocratization, Colás’s examination of this literary progression leads to the reconstruction of three significant moments in the history of Argentina. His analysis provokes both a revised understanding of that history and the recognition that multiple meanings of postmodernity must be understood in ways that incorporate the complexity of regional differences.
Offering a new voice in the debate over postmodernity, one that challenges that debate’s leading thinkers, Postmodernity in Latin America will be of particular interest to students of Latin American literature and to scholars in all disciplines concerned with theories of the postmodern.
Focusing on literature, Colás uses Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch to characterize modernity for Latin America as a whole, Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman to identify the transition to a more localized postmodernity, and Ricardo Piglia’s Artificial Respiration to exemplify the cultural coordinates of postmodernity in Argentina. Informed by the cycle of political transformation beginning with the Cuban Revolution, including its effects on Peronism, to the period of dictatorship, and finally to redemocratization, Colás’s examination of this literary progression leads to the reconstruction of three significant moments in the history of Argentina. His analysis provokes both a revised understanding of that history and the recognition that multiple meanings of postmodernity must be understood in ways that incorporate the complexity of regional differences.
Offering a new voice in the debate over postmodernity, one that challenges that debate’s leading thinkers, Postmodernity in Latin America will be of particular interest to students of Latin American literature and to scholars in all disciplines concerned with theories of the postmodern.
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
1994
Publisher
Duke University Press United States
Number of pages
240
Condition
New
Series
Post-Contemporary Interventions
Number of Pages
240
Place of Publication
North Carolina, United States
ISBN
9780822315209
SKU
V9780822315209
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About Santiago Colás
Santiago Colás is Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Reviews for Postmodernity in Latin America
"Colás dares enter the postmodernism debate and ably takes on its leading thinkers. Not only literary critics and theoreticians, but historians, political scientists, and sociologists, too, will have to cite this study as an informed and solidly grounded foray into their respective disciplines."—Jonathan Tittler, Cornell University "Santiago Colás’s book is one of the most richly nuanced contributions to the ‘postmodernism in Latin America’ debate yet to appear."—Neil Larsen, Northeastern University