The Avant-Garde and Geopolitics in Latin America examines the canonical Latin American avant-garde texts of the 1920s and 1930s in novels, travel writing, journalism, and poetry, and presents them in a new light as formulators of modern Western culture and precursors of global culture. Particular focus is placed on the work of Roberto Arlt and Mario de Andrade as exemplars of the movement. Fernando J. Rosenberg provides a theoretical historiography of Latin American literature and the role that modernity and avant-gardism played in it. He finds significant parallels between the cultural battles of the interwar years in Latin America and current debates over the role of the peripheral nation-state within the culture of globalization. Rosenberg establishes that the Latin American avant-garde evolved on its own terms, in polemic dialogue with the European movements, critiquing modernity itself and developing a global geopolitical awareness. In the process these writers created a bridge between postcolonial and postmodern culture, forming a distinct movement that continues its influence today.

A Companion to Latin American Literature offers a lively and informative introduction to the most significant literary works produced in Latin America from the fifteenth century until the present day. It shows how the press, and its product the printed word, functioned as the common denominator binding together, in different ways over time, the complex and variable relationship between the writer, the reader and the state. The meandering story of the evolution of Latin American literature - from the letters of discovery written by Christopher Columbus and Vaz de Caminha, via the Republican era at the end of the nineteenth century when writers in Rio de Janeiro as much as in Buenos Aires were beginning to live off their pens as journalists and serial novelists, until the 1960s when writers of the quality of Clarice Lispector in Brazil and García Márquez in Colombia suddenly burst onto the world stage - is traced chronologically in six chapters which introduce the main writers in the main genres of poetry, prose, the novel, drama, and the essay. A final chapter evaluates the post-boom novel, testimonio, Latino and Brazuca literature, gay, Afro-Hispanic and Afro-Brazilian literature, along with the Novel of the New Millennium. This study also offers suggestions for further reading. STEPHEN M. HART is Professor of Hispanic Studies, University College London, and Profesor Honorario, Universidad de San Marcos, Lima.

This Companion provides a chronological survey of Latin American poetry, analysis of modern trends and six succinct essays on the major figures.

This book is in the Cambria Studies in Latin American Literatures and Cultures Series (General editor: Román de la Campa, University of Pennsylvania). "Central American Avant-Garde Narrative is an exemplary work of literary criticism that re-envisions the canon of Central American literature and is destined to set a new standard for ethical, comprehensive research. Specialists and students, after reading this work, will have a clear understanding as to why prose fiction by certain lesser-known writers (Max Jiménez, Flavio Herrera and Rogelio Sinán) from this region needs to be rescued from oblivion and, concomitantly, why stories and novels by one of Hispanic America's most accomplished authors (Miguel Ángel Asturias) should be reexamined with an innovative, interdisciplinary perspective. It also elucidates very effectively the aesthetic divergences of literary works of the Latin American and European avant-garde. Most importantly, readers will appreciate the author's carefully crafted definitions of the basic terminology (positivism, modernismo, Surrealism, etc.) necessary for analyzing Central American avant-garde narrative and for coming to a fuller understanding (the best I have ever read!) of how and why Vanguardists rejected positivism's racist, oligarchical values and incorporated surrealist techniques (in the case of Asturias) 'as a form of cultural exploration and continued resistance to the effects of colonialism' necessary 'to conjure complex realities of Guatemalan culture', especially with regard to this country's indigenous population." - Steven White, Lewis Professor of Modern Languages, St. Lawrence University; and editor of El consumo de lo que somos: muestra de poesía ecológica hispánica contemporánea "This is the first book study on Vanguardia narrative of Central America in the early twentieth century, and an important addition to Latin American scholarship. Literary production in the 1920s is greatly overlooked due to international fanfare around the "Boom" of the 1960s, but in fact, avant-garde novelists influenced writers throughout the twentieth century. The chapters are very readable, and the introduction is an excellent critical guide for those unacquainted with this era." - Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez, Professor and Director, Center for Latino Research, Depaul University; and author of Before the Boom: Latin American Revolutionary Novels of the 1920s

This collection of essays reappraises the contributions made by modernist movements from regions generally regarded as peripheral or semi-peripheral to a global aesthetic of Modernism. It particularly focuses on European semi-peripheries, combining theoretical chapters and individual case studies to examine the cultural and aesthetic complexities of so-called peripheral modernisms. Contributing to research on the ‘transnational turn’ in New Modernist Studies, the volume takes recent scholarship on postcolonial modernisms one step further by exploring a broader geopolitical expanse than the (formerly) colonised regions under global capitalism. It highlights the local and translocal specificities of modernist movements from regions such as Eastern and Central Europe and the Mediterranean to offer new insights into the concept of global modernism.

Decentring the Avant-Garde presents a collection of articles dealing with the topography of the avant-garde. The focus is on different responses to avant-garde aesthetics in regions traditionally depicted as cultural, geographical and linguistic peripheries. Avant-garde activities in the periphery have to date mostly been described in terms of a passive reception of new artistic trends and currents originating in cultural centres such as Paris or Berlin. Contesting this traditional view, Decentring the Avant-Garde highlights the importance of analysing the avant-garde in the periphery in terms of an active appropriation of avant-garde aesthetics within different cultural, ideological and historical settings. A broad collection of case studies discusses the activities of movements and artists in various regions in Europe and beyond. The result is a new topographical model of the international avant-garde and its cultural practices.

Latin America and Existentialism is a preliminary intellectual history, prioritising literature and contextualising Latin American philosophical contributions from the 1860s to the late 1930s, decades that coincide with the canon’s foundational years. This study takes a Pan-American approach to move the critical focus away from the River Plate, a region that has received some critical attention. In doing so, it focuses on existentially-neglected writers such as Brazil’s Machado de Assis and Graciliano Ramos, José Asunción Silva from Colombia, Cuba’s Enrique Labrador Ruiz, and the Chilean María Luisa Bombal. Underappreciated Latin American philosophical voices and existentialism’s canonical perspectives allow the author to discuss the many problems concerning the experiencing ‘I’ of these authors, and to consider such existential themes as ethical vacuity, forlornness, the crisis of insufficiency, the conundrum of choice, and the enigma of authentic being. The concentration on Latin America’s existentially-hued interest in the human condition is an invitation to the reader to reconsider the peripheral status in the existentialism canon.

Cutting-edge and insightful discussions of Latin American literature and culture In the newly revised second edition of A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture, Sara Castro-Klaren delivers an eclectic and revealing set of discussions on Latin American culture and literature by scholars at the cutting edge of their respective fields. The included essays—whether they're written from the perspective of historiography, affect theory, decolonial approaches, or human rights—introduce readers to topics like gaucho literature, postcolonial writing in the Andes, and baroque art while pointing to future work on the issues raised. This work engages with anthropology, history, individual memory, testimonio, and environmental studies. It also explores: A thorough introduction to topics of coloniality, including the mapping of the pre-Columbian Americas and colonial religiosity Comprehensive explorations of the emergence of national communities in New Imperial coordinates, including discussions of the Muisca and Mayan cultures Practical discussions of global and local perspectives in Latin American literature, including explorations of Latin American photography and cultural modalities and cross-cultural connections In-depth examinations of uncharted topics in Latin American literature and culture, including discussions of femicide and feminist performances and eco-perspectives Perfect for students in undergraduate and graduate courses tackling Latin American literature and culture topics, A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture, Second Edition will also earn a place in the libraries of members of the general public and PhD students interested in Latin American literature and culture.

This book is the first in-depth exploration of the relationship between Latin American and European modernisms during the long twentieth century. Drawing on comparative, historical, and postcolonial reading strategies (including archival research), it seeks to reenergize the study of modernism by putting the spotlight on the cultural networks and aesthetic dialogues that developed between European and non-European writers, including Pablo Neruda, James Joyce, Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf, Jorge Luis Borges, Victoria Ocampo, Roberto Bolaño, Julio Cortázar, Samuel Beckett, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, and Malcolm Lowry. The book explores a wide range of texts that reflect these writers’ complex concerns with questions of exile, space, empire, colonization, reception, translation, human subjectivity, and modernist experimentation. By rethinking modernism comparatively and by placing this intricate web of cultural interconnections within an expansive transnational (and transcontinental) framework, this unique study opens up new perspectives that delineate the construction of a polycentric geography of modernism. It will be of interest to those studying global modernisms, as well as Latin American literature, transatlantic studies, comparative literature, world literature, translation studies, and the global south.

The English Association of Pennsylvania State Universities held its annual meeting in 2006 at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania. The conference theme was “Literature, Writing, and the Natural World.” This collection grows out of the conference and indicates the desire to understand all aspects of our relationship with the natural world, the function of literature in clarifying that relationship (in ways science and politics cannot), and the role of the literature teacher-scholar wanting to respond to pressures of environmental change. In these times, interpretation is a vital task, not only for the way it educates us about our attitudes toward nature, but because it develops the crucial skills of looking closely, engaging, reflecting, and responding. One could argue that, as a culture, Americans are behind the curve in understanding the ways we depend upon a healthy relationship with nature, and one way (among many) depends upon examining it through texts and textual representation. When the writers here dig into The Main Woods, Jayber Crow, the poetry of Pablo Guevara, or the movie Crash, they are contributing to our understanding of the ways in which we view nature and how that view plays a role in the way we relate to nature. These days, many disciplines engage global warming and other environmental issues routinely, and the literature classroom should be no different. Just as we read a book and address fundamental themes such as “What does it mean to love?” or “How do we develop identity?” we should also be asking “What is my responsibility when I decide what resources to use?” If we understand literature as equipment for living in a warming world, we may be able to help students make some sense out of their world and some decisions about how to act.