Comparative Cultural Studies and Latin America

by Earl E. Fitz (Editor), Sophia A. McClennen (Editor)

Overview

The genesis of Comparative Cultural Studies and Latin America stems from the contributors' conviction that, given its vitality and excellence, Latin American literature deserves a more prominent place in comparative literature publications, curricula, and disciplinary discussions. The editors introduce the volume by first arguing that there still exists, in some quarters, a lingering bias against literature written in Spanish and Portuguese. Secondly, the authors assert that by embracing Latin American literature and culture more enthusiastically, comparative literature would find itself reinvigorated, placed into productive discourse with a host of issues, languages, literatures, and cultures that have too long been paid scant academic attention.

Following an introduction by the editors, the volume contains papers by Gene H. Bell-Villada on the question of canon, by Gordon Brotherston and Lúcia de Sá on the First Peoples of the Americas and their literature, by Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez on the Latin American novel of the 1920s, by Román de la Campa on Latin American Studies, by Earl E. Fitz on Spanish American and Brazilian literature, by Roberto González Echevarría on Latin American and comparative literature, by Sophia A. McClennen on comparative literature and Latin American Studies, by Alberto Moreiras on Borges, by Julio Ortega on the critical debate about Latin American cultural studies, by Christina Marie Tourino on Cuban Americas in New York City, by Mario J. Valdés on the comparative history of literary cultures in Latin America, and by Lois Parkinson Zamora on comparative literature and globalization. The volume also contains a bibliography of scholarship in comparative Latin American culture and literature and biographical abstracts of the contributors to the volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557533586
Publisher:	Purdue University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2003
Series:	Comparative Cultural Studies , #4
Pages:	217
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Earl E. Fitz has published extensively on comparative approaches to the study of Latin America, including Rediscovering the New World: Inter American Literature in a Comparative Context and Ambiguity and Gender in the New Novel of Spanish America and Brazil.

Sophia A. McClennen studied philosophy as an undergraduate at Harvard University and received her Ph.D. in Spanish and Latin American Literature from Duke University. She works in comparative cultural studies with special emphasis on Latin America and has published on media culture, gender studies, and cultural theory. McClennen's interests and publications are in comparative cultural studies and Latin America, and she has published articles in journals such as Revista de estudios hispánicos, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Cultural Logic, Media-tions, and CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Recent books include The Dialectics of Exile: Nation, Time, Language, and Space in Hispanic Literatures and Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
	The Canon is el Boom, et al., or the Hispanic Difference	1
	First Peoples of the Americas and Their Literature	8
	The Latin American Innovative Novel of the 1920s: A Comparative Reassessment	34
	Comparative Latin American Studies: Literary and Cultural Theory	56
	Spanish American and Brazilian Literature in an Inter-American Perspective: The Comparative Approach	69
	Latin American and Comparative Literatures	89
	Comparative Literature and Latin American Studies: From Disarticulation to Dialogue	105
	The Villain at the Center: Infrapolitical Borges	131
	Towards a Map of the Current Critical Debate	149
	Anxieties of Impotence: Cubans in New York City	159
	A Historical Account of Difference: A Comparative History of the Literary Cultures of Latin America	178
	Comparative Literature in an Age of "Globalization"	198
	Bibliography of Scholarship in Comparative Latin American Culture and Literature	211
	Contributors	257
	Index	263