- Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese - MS34 | Rice University
PO BOX 1892 | Houston, TX 77251-1892 - 713-348-2709
Gisela Heffes
Rice University, Spanish and Portuguese, Faculty Member
- Latin American literature, Comparative Literature, Literary Theory, Literatura argentina, Latin America, Latin American Studies, and 73 moreCultural Studies, Literary Criticism, Estudios Culturales, Literatura Latinoamericana, Literature, Cultural History, Latinoamerica, Argentine Literature, Literatura, History, Humanities, Culture, Philosophy, América Latina, History Portuguese and Spanish, Cultural Theory, Sociology, Social Sciences, Identity (Culture), Media Arts, Latin American History, Anthropology, Historia, Political Violence, Anthropocene, Ecocriticism, Nineteenth Century Studies, Social and Political Philosophy, Politics and International relations, Literacy, Gender, Digital Art, Latin American and Caribbean History, Aesthetics and Politics, Critical Theory, Bernard Stiegler, Continental Philosophy, Women and Gender Studies, Deconstruction, Derrida, Interface, Ideology, War Studies, Political Theory, Friendship, Post-Colonialism, Postcolonial Studies, Memory Studies, Latin American Cinema, Political Violence and Terrorism, Latin-American Film, Literatura brasileira, Politics, Art History, Pueblos indígenas, Animal Studies, Jean-Luc Nancy, Politics and Friendship, Marxism, Literatura chilena, Ethics, Literatura Comparada (Comparative Literature), Postmodern Latin American Women Writers, Social Theory, Political Science, Jacques Derrida, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Southern Cone (Area Studies), Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Studies, Indigenous or Aboriginal Studies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Aesthetics and Ethicsedit
The Latin American Ecocultural Reader is a comprehensive anthology of literary and cultural texts about the natural world. The selections, drawn from throughout the Spanish-speaking countries and Brazil, span from the early colonial... more
The Latin American Ecocultural Reader is a comprehensive anthology of literary and cultural texts about the natural world. The selections, drawn from throughout the Spanish-speaking countries and Brazil, span from the early colonial period to the present. Editors Jennifer French and Gisela Heffes present work by canonical figures, including José Martí, Bartolomé de las Casas, Rubén Darío, and Alfonsina Storni, in the context of our current state of environmental crisis, prompting new interpretations of their celebrated writings. They also present contemporary work that illuminates the marginalized environmental cultures of women, indigenous, and Afro-Latin American populations. Each selection is introduced with a short essay on the author and the salience of their work; the selections are arranged into eight parts, each of which begins with an introductory essay that speaks to the political, economic, and environmental history of the time and provides interpretative cues for the selections that follow.
The editors also include a general introduction with a concise overview of the field of ecocriticism as it has developed since the 1990s. They argue that various strands of environmental thought—recognizable today as extractivism, eco-feminism, Amerindian ontologies, and so forth—can be traced back through the centuries to the earliest colonial period, when Europeans first described the Americas as an edenic “New World” and appropriated the bodies of enslaved Indians and Africans to exploit its natural bounty.
The editors also include a general introduction with a concise overview of the field of ecocriticism as it has developed since the 1990s. They argue that various strands of environmental thought—recognizable today as extractivism, eco-feminism, Amerindian ontologies, and so forth—can be traced back through the centuries to the earliest colonial period, when Europeans first described the Americas as an edenic “New World” and appropriated the bodies of enslaved Indians and Africans to exploit its natural bounty.
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This work examines the relationship between the representation of the imaginary city in a number of political and cultural texts, and argued that the imaginary city represents a privileged laboratory through which one may assess the... more
This work examines the relationship between the representation of the imaginary city in a number of political and cultural texts, and argued that the imaginary city represents a privileged laboratory through which one may assess the varied cultural, political and economic transformations associated with Latin American modernity. These literary representations of non-existent urban spaces and their significance in the wider political and cultural framework of Latin America constitute a crucial intellectual inquiry into modernity and its aftermath.
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Este libro realizado en conjunto entre los departamentos de Arte y Literatura, reúne artículos y trabajos de artistas que trazan en conjunto un recorrido crítico y estético por nuevos imaginarios y conceptualizaciones del espacio natural.... more
Este libro realizado en conjunto entre los departamentos de Arte y Literatura, reúne artículos y trabajos de artistas que trazan en conjunto un recorrido crítico y estético por nuevos imaginarios y conceptualizaciones del espacio natural. En este recorrido, nociones como “geografía”, “territorio”, “paisaje”, “cartografía” e “itinerario”, entre otras, son vueltas a pensar y a tornar significantes en relación a una diversidad de prácticas culturales. Se estudian nuevos desplazamientos entre los distintos medios de las artes contemporáneas, lo que permite pensar no solo en los sentidos geográficos del espacio, sino también en espacios como el de la lectura, de la novela y del poema, y de sus redefiniciones en términos visuales y sonoros.
http://ediciones.uahurtado.cl/libro/mas-alla-la-naturaleza/
http://ediciones.uahurtado.cl/libro/mas-alla-la-naturaleza/
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This study analyzes Latin American literary, cinematic, performative and aesthetic representations through the scope of three distinctive environmental tropes: “destruction,” “sustainability” and “preservation.” While informed by current... more
This study analyzes Latin American literary, cinematic, performative and aesthetic representations through the scope of three distinctive environmental tropes: “destruction,” “sustainability” and “preservation.” While informed by current concerns that originated in recent debates within American and English ecocriticism, my book shows how this critical apparatus cannot accurately operate vis-à-vis the specificity of Latin American literary and cultural productions.
Grounded in an interdisciplinary approach towards the exploitation of both natural and human resources, this project focuses on new attempts to formulate and analyze how Latin American representations are imbued with a rhetoric of waste and disposal in relationship to both the conservation and destruction of nature.
Grounded in an interdisciplinary approach towards the exploitation of both natural and human resources, this project focuses on new attempts to formulate and analyze how Latin American representations are imbued with a rhetoric of waste and disposal in relationship to both the conservation and destruction of nature.
Research Interests:
Recent studies have shown that the world's freshwater supply is being used faster than it is being replenished. Dwindling water resources have been compounded by recent and ongoing issues such as the lead-contaminated water supply in... more
Recent studies have shown that the world's freshwater supply is being used faster than it is being replenished. Dwindling water resources have been compounded by recent and ongoing issues such as the lead-contaminated water supply in Flint, Michigan; unprecedented drought in the US Southwest and central India; the increased privatization of water; and social and environmental justice movements to protect the integrity of water resources, such as the fight led by Water Protectors at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota protesting the construction of an oil pipeline beneath Lake Oahe on the Missouri River. The urgency of such struggles has been confirmed by socio-environmental tragedies due to industrial malpractices causing extreme pollution on rivers such as the Animas in Colorado and the Rio Doce in Brazil as well as farms and fields just miles from the site of peaceful protests at Standing Rock. These ecological disasters have been shown to affect poor and marginalized communities most in the form of what Rob Nixon has called "slow violence," a form of environmental catastrophe that unfolds over time and often goes undetected or ignored by spectacle-driven media. Such crises expose the corrosion of water/environmental management systems, and of legislative structures and their implementation, and often result in a breakdown in trust between affected communities and those concerned with the well-being of the environment on the one hand, and governmental and bureaucratic entities on the other.
This panel explores the ways in which literature, film, photography, museum exhibits, and other forms of contemporary media work to uncover and diagnose the (mal)practices and (mis)management causing contemporary water crises. Ultimately, the texts and cultural forms examined in this panel offer novel ways to imaginatively engage with the catastrophic effects of water (mis)management; materialize the hidden social and ecological effects of water crises; make forceful environmental justice claims; and propose alternative, non-corrosive approaches to water management and use in the 21st century
This panel explores the ways in which literature, film, photography, museum exhibits, and other forms of contemporary media work to uncover and diagnose the (mal)practices and (mis)management causing contemporary water crises. Ultimately, the texts and cultural forms examined in this panel offer novel ways to imaginatively engage with the catastrophic effects of water (mis)management; materialize the hidden social and ecological effects of water crises; make forceful environmental justice claims; and propose alternative, non-corrosive approaches to water management and use in the 21st century
Research Interests:
In this essay, I discuss the convergence of toxic matters and matters of toxicity at the intersections of space and time, politics and history, and violence and affect through the conceptual framework of recurrence in its dual meanings of... more
In this essay, I discuss the convergence of toxic matters and matters of toxicity at the intersections of space and time, politics and history, and violence and affect through the conceptual framework of recurrence in its dual meanings of “happening again,” as well as of “return” and “repetition.” Drawing on the work of Mexican visual artist and writer Verónica Gerber Bicceci, specifically her two works, Conjunto vacío (2015) and La compañía (2019), I argue that toxicity, as any other matter with agentic properties, expands, contracts, disrupts, and ignites interactions among relational subjects and objects, constituting collective forms of social and cultural networking.
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This chapter discusses the emergence of ecocriticism as both a critical and theoretical tool of cultural and literary inquiry in the context of Latin American studies. Ecocriticism originally developed in departments of English in the US... more
This chapter discusses the emergence of ecocriticism as both a critical and theoretical tool of cultural and literary inquiry in the context of Latin American studies. Ecocriticism originally developed in departments of English in the US and Britain, and has only recently begun to consider literatures of the Global South, which constitutes part of the postcolonial or so-called “developing” world. This chapter address the question of what it means to “do” ecocriticism in Latin American contexts by drawing on some examples of the scholarship that has been most productive in thinking about the relationship between nature and Latin American cultural production. In addition, this chapter considers the works of established and contemporary critical theorists that have had the greatest impact among current Latin American scholars, and highlight these theorists’ engagements with key analytical concepts such as “nature,” “culture,” “the human,” and “the nonhuman.” Ultimately, it is the goal of this chapter to draw on the works of the scholars who have been central in articulating a model of ecocritical practice that focuses on the relations of power that are represented in Latin America’s environmental literature.
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This book is the result of an ecocritical reading of a wide range of texts—from brief tales and short stories to chronicles, plays, and novels—as well as documentaries and feature films, works of art and urban performances. Despite this... more
This book is the result of an ecocritical reading of a wide range of texts—from brief tales and short stories to chronicles, plays, and novels—as well as documentaries and feature films, works of art and urban performances. Despite this broad range of source materials, they are all anchored in a specific territory: the space of the Latin American city from the early twentieth century to the present. Through an interdisciplinary analytical methodology, the proposed reading draws from ecocriticism as a tool of literary and cultural inquiry all the while interrogating the extent to which this critical apparatus—originating and circulating in Anglo-American scholarship—can account for a Latin American phenomenon. This sweeping introduction proposes the conditions for a specifically Latin American ecocriticism that distances itself, through its singular characteristics, from those proposals principally formulated in the disciplinary field coming from English-speaking studies. It argues that the aesthetic productions analyzed in this book operate at the intersections of biopolitics and ecocriticism, placing Latin American figurations within a bioecocritical paradigm that defines the material conditions of human and non-human relational networks while constituting different meanings and enabling new forms of understanding.
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En este artículo parto de la idea de anacronismo postulada por Didi-Huberman en Ante el tiempo como modelo de interrogación de la historia, y en conexión con la propuesta dialéctica de Benjamin y la noción de “discontinuidades” y... more
En este artículo parto de la idea de anacronismo postulada por Didi-Huberman en Ante el tiempo como modelo de interrogación de la historia, y en conexión con la propuesta dialéctica de Benjamin y la noción de “discontinuidades” y “anacronismos del tiempo” (2011: 154) para formular que las estratificaciones geológicas del Antropoceno forman capas que pueden leerse como archivos. Pienso el archivo en este ensayo a partir de dos coordenadas teóricas: por una parte, necropolítica y necropoder (Achilles Mbembe); y por el otro, la de Walter Benjamin con relación al acto de recolectar, especialmente aquello que atesora un valor que escapa los dispositivos de mercantilización y por lo tanto es capaz de registrar restos, detritus, y todo aquello que fluctúa en el umbral de la extinción. Propongo, en un sentido más amplio, un necroespacio antropogénico que, alterado e intervenido por capas materiales de formas vivientes e inorgánicas, irá forjando archivos anacrónicos. Las figuraciones estéticas aquí analizadas son la novela El Rey del Agua (2016), de la argentina Claudia Aboaf, el relato “Agua” (1935) del peruano José María Arguedas, y “Los pescadores de vigas” (1913), del uruguayo Horacio Quiroga. Leo estas figuraciones estéticas desde un ejercicio crítico que potencia una propuesta est(ética) antropocénica en sí misma y que, en su fluir conceptual las enlaza junto a capas terrestres, hídricas y atmosféricas. Este gesto no sólo intenta tensionar una lectura formateada sino también una forma de análisis que se funda en la erosión de un texto y por lo tanto cierra toda posible capa de sentido.
This article stems from the idea of anachronism postulated by Didi-Huberman in Before Time, as a model of questioning of history, and in connection with Benjamin’s dialectical model and the notion of “discontinuities” and “anachronisms of time” (2011: 154) to propose that the geological stratifications of the Anthropocene form layers that can be read as archives. I conceive the archive in this essay through two theoretical coordinates: on the one hand, necropolitics and necropower (Achilles
Mbembe); on the other, Walter Benjamin’s notion in relation to the act of collecting, especially that which treasures a value that escapes commodification devices and therefore it is capable of registering
remains, detritus, and everything that fluctuates on the threshold of extinction. I propose, in a broader sense, an anthropogenic necrospace that, altered and intervened by material layers of living and inorganic forms, will go on forging anachronistic archives. The aesthetic figurations analyzed here
are the novel El Rey del Agua (2016) by the Argentine Claudia Aboaf, the short stories “Agua” (1935) by Peruvian José María Arguedas, and “Los pescadores de vigas” (1913), by Uruguayan Horacio Quiroga. I read these aesthetic figurations from a critical exercise that bolster an anthropogenic
aesthetic/ethical proposal and that, through its conceptual flow, links them together with terrestrial, hydric and atmospheric layers. This gesture not only seeks to stress a formatted reading but also a form of analysis that is based on the erosion of a text and that therefore closes any possible layer of
meaning.
This article stems from the idea of anachronism postulated by Didi-Huberman in Before Time, as a model of questioning of history, and in connection with Benjamin’s dialectical model and the notion of “discontinuities” and “anachronisms of time” (2011: 154) to propose that the geological stratifications of the Anthropocene form layers that can be read as archives. I conceive the archive in this essay through two theoretical coordinates: on the one hand, necropolitics and necropower (Achilles
Mbembe); on the other, Walter Benjamin’s notion in relation to the act of collecting, especially that which treasures a value that escapes commodification devices and therefore it is capable of registering
remains, detritus, and everything that fluctuates on the threshold of extinction. I propose, in a broader sense, an anthropogenic necrospace that, altered and intervened by material layers of living and inorganic forms, will go on forging anachronistic archives. The aesthetic figurations analyzed here
are the novel El Rey del Agua (2016) by the Argentine Claudia Aboaf, the short stories “Agua” (1935) by Peruvian José María Arguedas, and “Los pescadores de vigas” (1913), by Uruguayan Horacio Quiroga. I read these aesthetic figurations from a critical exercise that bolster an anthropogenic
aesthetic/ethical proposal and that, through its conceptual flow, links them together with terrestrial, hydric and atmospheric layers. This gesture not only seeks to stress a formatted reading but also a form of analysis that is based on the erosion of a text and that therefore closes any possible layer of
meaning.
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La tecnología, es posible argumentar, crea "milagros." ¿Quién podría imaginarse que las montañas pueden transformarse, sustituirse o incluso desaparecer? Debido a los modernos mecanismos de extracción, así como al uso actual de una... more
La tecnología, es posible argumentar, crea "milagros." ¿Quién podría imaginarse que las montañas pueden transformarse, sustituirse o incluso desaparecer? Debido a los modernos mecanismos de extracción, así como al uso actual de una tecnología innovadora y de avanzada, somos testigos de este considerable espectáculo de eliminación. Un paisaje de montañas decapitadas que, en las últimas dos décadas, el cine latinoamericano comenzó a visualizar. Montañas sin cabeza, cuyos picos rebanados, pelados, desnudos, semejan la cabeza de un fraile dominico.
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El presente dossier reúne cuatro artículos que demuestran cómo un número de estudios recientes, junto a prácticas de arte y de diseño se encuentran reconfigurando el campo emergente de las humanidades ambientales latinoamericanas —una... more
El presente dossier reúne cuatro artículos que demuestran cómo un número de estudios recientes, junto a prácticas de arte y de diseño se encuentran reconfigurando el campo emergente de las humanidades ambientales latinoamericanas —una disciplina en rápida consolidación que nutre métodos y perspectivas derivados de las ciencias sociales, las artes y las humanidades; las ciencias naturales y el pensamiento indígena— con el fin de interrogar críticamente las historias ambientales y enfrentar los desafíos contemporáneos. Juntos, los artículos reunidos en estas páginas mapean una renovación crítica de los estudios culturales que está ocurriendo a través de publicaciones teórico-analíticas recientes, trabajos etnográficos, prácticas artísticas y colaboraciones de arte y diseño en territorios específicos. Más aún, trazamos rutas a través de un corpus diverso de estudios ambientales emergentes, investigación de prácticas artísticas situadas, y actividades de participación pública, para destacar cómo responden al desafío urgente de «pensar en presencia de hechos de destrucción vigentes» (Stengers 2013, p.186). Las investigaciones
académicas, las obras de arte y los proyectos de trabajo de campo colaborativo reseñados aquí problematizan la dicotomía cultura/naturaleza como constitutiva de las actuales crisis ecológica y climática, reconsideran las premisas de la metafísica occidental ontológica y semiótica, y siembran experimentos simpoéticos y formas alternativas de conocimiento
que trascienden las divisiones disciplinarias.
This dossier brings together four essays that show how recent scholarship, art, and design practice are shaping the emergent field of Latin American Environmental Humanities — a rapidly consolidating discipline that cross-fertilises methods and perspectives stemming from the social sciences, arts and humanities, natural sciences, and Indigenous thought, to critically interrogate environmental histories and confront contemporary challenges.
Together, these review essays map a critical renewal of cultural studies that is currently unfolding through recent theoretical-analytical publications, ethnographic work, art practice, and site-specific art and design collaborations. We trace routes through a diverse corpus of emerging environmental scholarship, artistic and situated practice research, and
public engagement activities, to show how they respond to the urgent challenge “to think in the presence of ongoing facts of destruction”. The books, artworks, and collaborative fieldwork projects reviewed here problematise the culture/nature dichotomy as constitutive of the current ecological and climate crises, rethink the Western metaphysics of ontology
and semiotics, and seed sympoetic experiments and alternate ways of knowing that reach across disciplinary divides.
O presente dossiê reúne quatro ensaios que demonstram como um número de estudos recentes, junto com práticas de arte e design, estão reconfigurando o campo emergente das humanidades ambientais latino americanas — uma disciplina em rápida consolidação que nutre métodos e perspectivas derivados das ciências sociais, das artes e das humanidades;
das ciências naturais e do pensamento indígena — com o fim de interrogar criticamente as histórias ambientais e enfrentar os desafios contemporâneos. Os ensaios reunidos neste dossiê mapeiam uma renovação crítica dos estudos culturais que está tendo lugar por
meio de publicações teórico-analíticas recentes, trabalhos etnográficos, práticas artísticas e colaborações de arte e design em territórios específicos. Traçamos rotas por meio de um corpus diverso de estudos ambientais emergentes, pesquisa de práticas artísticas situadas
e atividades de participação pública, para destacar como respondem ao desafio urgente de “pensar en presencia de hechos de destrucción vigentes” (Stengers 2013, p. 186). As pesquisas acadêmicas, as obras de arte e os projetos de trabalho de campo colaborativo aqui resenhados problematizam a dicotomia cultura/natureza como constitutiva das atuais crises ecológica e climática, reconsideram as premissas da metafísica ocidental ontológica
e semiótica e semeiam experimentos simpoiéticos e formas alternativas de conhecimento que transcendem as divisões disciplinares.
académicas, las obras de arte y los proyectos de trabajo de campo colaborativo reseñados aquí problematizan la dicotomía cultura/naturaleza como constitutiva de las actuales crisis ecológica y climática, reconsideran las premisas de la metafísica occidental ontológica y semiótica, y siembran experimentos simpoéticos y formas alternativas de conocimiento
que trascienden las divisiones disciplinarias.
This dossier brings together four essays that show how recent scholarship, art, and design practice are shaping the emergent field of Latin American Environmental Humanities — a rapidly consolidating discipline that cross-fertilises methods and perspectives stemming from the social sciences, arts and humanities, natural sciences, and Indigenous thought, to critically interrogate environmental histories and confront contemporary challenges.
Together, these review essays map a critical renewal of cultural studies that is currently unfolding through recent theoretical-analytical publications, ethnographic work, art practice, and site-specific art and design collaborations. We trace routes through a diverse corpus of emerging environmental scholarship, artistic and situated practice research, and
public engagement activities, to show how they respond to the urgent challenge “to think in the presence of ongoing facts of destruction”. The books, artworks, and collaborative fieldwork projects reviewed here problematise the culture/nature dichotomy as constitutive of the current ecological and climate crises, rethink the Western metaphysics of ontology
and semiotics, and seed sympoetic experiments and alternate ways of knowing that reach across disciplinary divides.
O presente dossiê reúne quatro ensaios que demonstram como um número de estudos recentes, junto com práticas de arte e design, estão reconfigurando o campo emergente das humanidades ambientais latino americanas — uma disciplina em rápida consolidação que nutre métodos e perspectivas derivados das ciências sociais, das artes e das humanidades;
das ciências naturais e do pensamento indígena — com o fim de interrogar criticamente as histórias ambientais e enfrentar os desafios contemporâneos. Os ensaios reunidos neste dossiê mapeiam uma renovação crítica dos estudos culturais que está tendo lugar por
meio de publicações teórico-analíticas recentes, trabalhos etnográficos, práticas artísticas e colaborações de arte e design em territórios específicos. Traçamos rotas por meio de um corpus diverso de estudos ambientais emergentes, pesquisa de práticas artísticas situadas
e atividades de participação pública, para destacar como respondem ao desafio urgente de “pensar en presencia de hechos de destrucción vigentes” (Stengers 2013, p. 186). As pesquisas acadêmicas, as obras de arte e os projetos de trabalho de campo colaborativo aqui resenhados problematizam a dicotomia cultura/natureza como constitutiva das atuais crises ecológica e climática, reconsideram as premissas da metafísica ocidental ontológica
e semiótica e semeiam experimentos simpoiéticos e formas alternativas de conhecimento que transcendem as divisões disciplinares.
Research Interests:
Este artículo rastrea la reciente emergencia de nuevas investigaciones en el campo de las humanidades ambientales, y evalúa dos importantes contribuciones a los debates que están marcando actualmente el rumbo de los estudios culturales en... more
Este artículo rastrea la reciente emergencia de nuevas investigaciones en el campo de las humanidades ambientales, y evalúa dos importantes contribuciones a los debates que están marcando actualmente el rumbo de los estudios culturales en América Latina y el Caribe. En 2019 se publican Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, de Héctor Hoyos, y Allegories
of the Anthropocene, de Elizabeth DeLoughrey. Si bien el alcance de estos dos trabajos varía en términos de las geografías regionales y/o nacionales que abarcan, como así también los autores y artistas que se analizan, ambas investigaciones cuestionan el binomio naturaleza/cultura —junto a otras dicotomías modernas— desde posturas y ángulos diferentes (y quizás hasta opuestos). Mientras Hoyos apela a una desalegorización (es decir, a una «literalización») de un número de obras importantes dentro del canon
latinoamericano, DeLoughrey invita a reconsiderar la alegoría como una manera de simbolizar la «disyunción percibida entre los humanos y el planeta, entre nuestra “especie” y una “naturaleza” que es externa y dinámica».
The objective of this essay is to map the growing number of works that focus on the environmental humanities and to review two important contributions to the ongoing debates that are defining the direction of Latin American and Caribbean cultural studies. In 2019, Héctor Hoyos published Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, as Elizabeth DeLoughrey published Allegories of the Anthropocene. While the scope of these two works varies in
terms of the regional and/or national geographies they cover, as well as the authors and artists they analyzes, both books attempt to contest the nature/culture binary — along with other Modern dichotomies — from very different (perhaps even opposite) positions and angles: while Hoyos calls for a de-allegorization (namely, a “literalization”) of several important Latin American works, DeLoughrey, on the other hand, invites us to reconsider allegory as a way of symbolizing the “perceived disjunction between humans
and the planet, between our ‘species’ and a dynamic external ‘nature.’”
Este ensaio rastreia o número crescente de pesquisas no campo das humanidades ambientais e avalia duas importantes contribuições para os debates que atualmente marcam o rumo dos estudos culturais na América Latina e no Caribe. Em 2019, Héctor Hoyos publicou Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, e Elizabeth DeLoughrey publicou Allegories of the Anthropocene. Mesmo que o alcance dos dois livros varie em termos das geografias regionais e/ou nacionais que abrangem, assim como dos autores e artistas que analisam, ambos os dois tentam questionar o binômio natureza/cultura — junto com outras dicotomias modernas — desde posturas e ângulos muito diferentes (talvez opostos). Enquanto Hoyos apela a uma desalegorização (isto é, a uma «literalização») de várias obras importantes do cânone latino-americano, DeLoughrey, convida a reconsiderar a alegoria como uma maneira de simbolizar a “disyunción percibida entre los humanos y el planeta, entre nuestra ‘especie’ y una ‘naturaleza’ que es externa y dinámica”.
of the Anthropocene, de Elizabeth DeLoughrey. Si bien el alcance de estos dos trabajos varía en términos de las geografías regionales y/o nacionales que abarcan, como así también los autores y artistas que se analizan, ambas investigaciones cuestionan el binomio naturaleza/cultura —junto a otras dicotomías modernas— desde posturas y ángulos diferentes (y quizás hasta opuestos). Mientras Hoyos apela a una desalegorización (es decir, a una «literalización») de un número de obras importantes dentro del canon
latinoamericano, DeLoughrey invita a reconsiderar la alegoría como una manera de simbolizar la «disyunción percibida entre los humanos y el planeta, entre nuestra “especie” y una “naturaleza” que es externa y dinámica».
The objective of this essay is to map the growing number of works that focus on the environmental humanities and to review two important contributions to the ongoing debates that are defining the direction of Latin American and Caribbean cultural studies. In 2019, Héctor Hoyos published Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, as Elizabeth DeLoughrey published Allegories of the Anthropocene. While the scope of these two works varies in
terms of the regional and/or national geographies they cover, as well as the authors and artists they analyzes, both books attempt to contest the nature/culture binary — along with other Modern dichotomies — from very different (perhaps even opposite) positions and angles: while Hoyos calls for a de-allegorization (namely, a “literalization”) of several important Latin American works, DeLoughrey, on the other hand, invites us to reconsider allegory as a way of symbolizing the “perceived disjunction between humans
and the planet, between our ‘species’ and a dynamic external ‘nature.’”
Este ensaio rastreia o número crescente de pesquisas no campo das humanidades ambientais e avalia duas importantes contribuições para os debates que atualmente marcam o rumo dos estudos culturais na América Latina e no Caribe. Em 2019, Héctor Hoyos publicou Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, e Elizabeth DeLoughrey publicou Allegories of the Anthropocene. Mesmo que o alcance dos dois livros varie em termos das geografias regionais e/ou nacionais que abrangem, assim como dos autores e artistas que analisam, ambos os dois tentam questionar o binômio natureza/cultura — junto com outras dicotomias modernas — desde posturas e ângulos muito diferentes (talvez opostos). Enquanto Hoyos apela a uma desalegorização (isto é, a uma «literalização») de várias obras importantes do cânone latino-americano, DeLoughrey, convida a reconsiderar a alegoria como uma maneira de simbolizar a “disyunción percibida entre los humanos y el planeta, entre nuestra ‘especie’ y una ‘naturaleza’ que es externa y dinámica”.
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The future lies neither behind nor in front of us. The future is everywhere as an unfinished patchwork, an intricate network of relations and connections, an integral pulsion towards movement and change, creativity and dissolution.... more
The future lies neither behind nor in front of us. The future is everywhere as an unfinished patchwork, an intricate network of relations and connections, an integral pulsion towards movement and change, creativity and dissolution. Environmental humanists, writers, artists, and activists need to engage with and encourage undertakings that overlap and transpose in ways that counteract the notion of the individual and completed work. By decentering the teleological linearity of Western epistemologies, a geometrical way of conceiving the world, and contesting the monumental scale of the institutions that support them, we may then be able to render epistemes a collective, multilayer, and multiscalar process that is also just, participatory, and accessible. Only then will a future that embraces the multitude of non-Western epistemes and spares them from the growing menace of extinction be conceivable.
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Hemos resuelto invitar y entrevistar a Gisela Heffes en el marco de la publicación del presente número de Humanidades: Revista de la Universidad de Montevideo. Tanto por su trayectoria académica como por su preocupación por los estudios... more
Hemos resuelto invitar y entrevistar a Gisela Heffes en el marco de la publicación del presente número de Humanidades: Revista de la Universidad de Montevideo. Tanto por su trayectoria académica como por su preocupación por los estudios latinoamericanos, queremos consultarle sobre el presente y el futuro de las humanidades ambientales en América Latina. Heffes, escritora y profesora de literatura latinoamericana en la Universidad de Rice (Texas), ha elaborado una prolífica producción en el campo de la ecocrítica, en la que se destacan sus libros Política de la destrucción/poéticas de la preservación (2013) y Las ciudades imaginarias en América Latina (2008), y ha sido coeditora del volumen The Latin American Ecocritical Reader (2021). Faro para los estudios ecocríticos, las presentes respuestas iluminan en parte la trayectoria de este volumen.
Research Interests:
This dossier brings together four essays that show how recent scholarship, art, and design practice are shaping the emergent field of Latin American Environmental Humanities – a rapidly consolidating discipline that cross-fertilises... more
This dossier brings together four essays that show how recent scholarship, art, and design practice are shaping the emergent field of Latin American Environmental Humanities – a rapidly consolidating discipline that cross-fertilises methods and perspectives stemming from the social sciences, arts and humanities, natural sciences, and Indigenous thought, to critically interrogate environmental histories and confront contemporary challenges. Together, these review essays map a critical renewal of cultural studies that is currently unfolding through recent theoretical-analytical publications, ethnographic work, art practice, and site-specific art and design
collaborations. We trace routes through a diverse corpus of emerging environmental scholarship, artistic and situated practice research, and public engagement activities, to show how they respond to the urgent challenge “to think in the presence of ongoing facts of destruction” . The books, artworks, and collaborative fieldwork projects reviewed here problematise the culture/nature dichotomy as constitutive of the current ecological
and climate crises, rethink the Western metaphysics of ontology and semiotics, and seed sympoetic experiments and alternate ways of knowing that reach across disciplinary divides.
collaborations. We trace routes through a diverse corpus of emerging environmental scholarship, artistic and situated practice research, and public engagement activities, to show how they respond to the urgent challenge “to think in the presence of ongoing facts of destruction” . The books, artworks, and collaborative fieldwork projects reviewed here problematise the culture/nature dichotomy as constitutive of the current ecological
and climate crises, rethink the Western metaphysics of ontology and semiotics, and seed sympoetic experiments and alternate ways of knowing that reach across disciplinary divides.
Research Interests:
The objective of this essay is to map the growing number of works that focus on the environmental humanities and to review two important contributions to the ongoing debates that are defining the direction of Latin American and Caribbean... more
The objective of this essay is to map the growing number of works that focus on the environmental humanities and to review two important contributions to the ongoing debates that are defining the direction of Latin American and Caribbean cultural studies. In 2019, Héctor Hoyos published Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, as Elizabeth DeLoughrey published Allegories of the Anthropocene. While the scope of these two works varies in terms of the regional and/or national geographies they cover, as well as the authors and artists they analyse, both books attempt to contest the nature/culture binary – along with other Modern dichotomies – from very different
(perhaps even opposite) positions and angles: while Hoyos calls for a de-allegorisation (namely, a “literalisation” ) of several important Latin American works, DeLoughrey, on the other hand, invites us to reconsider allegory as a way of symbolising the “perceived disjunction between humans and the planet, between our ‘species’ and a dynamic external ‘nature’”.
(perhaps even opposite) positions and angles: while Hoyos calls for a de-allegorisation (namely, a “literalisation” ) of several important Latin American works, DeLoughrey, on the other hand, invites us to reconsider allegory as a way of symbolising the “perceived disjunction between humans and the planet, between our ‘species’ and a dynamic external ‘nature’”.
Research Interests:
This dossier brings together four essays that show how recent scholarship, art, and design practice are shaping the emergent field of Latin American Environmental Humanities – a rapidly consolidating discipline that cross-fertilises... more
This dossier brings together four essays that show how recent scholarship, art, and design practice are shaping the emergent field of Latin American Environmental Humanities – a rapidly consolidating discipline that cross-fertilises methods and perspectives stemming from the social sciences, arts and humanities, natural sciences, and Indigenous thought, to critically interrogate environmental histories and confront contemporary challenges. Together, these review essays map a critical renewal of cultural studies that is currently unfolding through recent theoretical-analytical publications, ethnographic work, art practice, and site-specific art and design collaborations. We trace routes through a diverse corpus of emerging environmental scholarship, artistic and situated practice research, and public engagement activities, to show how they respond to the urgent challenge “to think in the presence of ongoing facts of destruction” . The books, artworks, and collaborative fieldwork projects reviewed here problematise the culture/nature dichotomy as constitutive of the current ecological
and climate crises, rethink the Western metaphysics of ontology and semiotics, and seed sympoetic experiments and alternate ways of knowing that reach across disciplinary divides.
and climate crises, rethink the Western metaphysics of ontology and semiotics, and seed sympoetic experiments and alternate ways of knowing that reach across disciplinary divides.
Research Interests: Literature, Contemporary Art, Latin American Art, Indigenous Knowledge, Latin American literature, and 12 moreSite-Specific Art, Environmental Sustainability, Sustainable Design, Contemporary Indigenous Arts, Sensory Ethnography, Contemporary Latin American Art, Latin American Cultural Studies, Estudios Culturales, Urban Design, Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano, Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos, and Brazilian Indigenous Art
El presente artículo se enfoca en el reciente giro rural que ha dado la producción literaria argentina contemporánea. Remite a la noción de discurso tóxico propuesta por Laurence Buell (1988) para analizar dos narrativas: Distancia de... more
El presente artículo se enfoca en el reciente giro rural que ha dado la producción literaria argentina contemporánea. Remite a la noción de discurso tóxico propuesta por Laurence Buell (1988) para analizar dos narrativas: Distancia de rescate (2014), de Samanta Schweblin, y Las estrellas federales (2016), de Juan Diego Incardona, junto al poemario Un pequeño mundo enfermo (2014), de Julián Joven [seudónimo de Cristian Molina]. Se argumenta que, en estas escrituras, la toxicidad discursiva se articula a partir de la emergencia, cada vez más frecuente, del uso de agroquímicos en el campo argentino. Se plantea que, en esta pampa transfigurada, el cultivo de la soja transgénica metamorfosea el espacio en un paisaje contaminado y contaminante cuyos agrotóxicos inoculan indiferenciadamente cuerpos humanos y no humanos. La representación tanto corporal como espacial se lee como una textualización que rediseña la relación entre sujeto y entorno natural (el campo) desplazando un discurso del “buen vivir” por una escritura de lo que propongo, tentativamente, como del “mal vivir”. La producción estética aquí examinada apela a una reflexión desde la justicia ambiental que considere el inminente perjuicio y deterioro del paisaje contaminado.
This article focuses on the recent rural turn in contemporary Argentine literature production. It draws from Laurence Buell’s notion of toxic discourse (1988) in order to analyze two narratives: Distancia de rescate (2014), by Samanta Schweblin, and Las estrellas federales (2016), by Juan Diego Incardona, along with the poetry collection Un pequeño mundo enfermo (2014), by Julián Joven [pseudonym of Cristian Molina]. With the emergence and more frequent use of agrochemicals on Argentine rural soil, I argue that these writings articulate a discursive toxicity anchored in a transfigured pampa. Furthermore, the cultivation of transgenic soy transforms the space into a contaminated and contaminating landscape, whose agrotoxicity inoculates indiscriminately both human and nonhuman bodies. I read these bodily and spatialrepresentations, in both the fictions and poetry, as a textualization that redesigns the relation between subject and the natural environment, specifically the rural space, displacing a discourse of “buen vivir” for a literary production of what I propose, tentatively, as of “mal vivir” (bad living). This aesthetic production appeals to a reflection on environmental justice that considers the imminent damage and degradation of the contaminated landscape.
This article focuses on the recent rural turn in contemporary Argentine literature production. It draws from Laurence Buell’s notion of toxic discourse (1988) in order to analyze two narratives: Distancia de rescate (2014), by Samanta Schweblin, and Las estrellas federales (2016), by Juan Diego Incardona, along with the poetry collection Un pequeño mundo enfermo (2014), by Julián Joven [pseudonym of Cristian Molina]. With the emergence and more frequent use of agrochemicals on Argentine rural soil, I argue that these writings articulate a discursive toxicity anchored in a transfigured pampa. Furthermore, the cultivation of transgenic soy transforms the space into a contaminated and contaminating landscape, whose agrotoxicity inoculates indiscriminately both human and nonhuman bodies. I read these bodily and spatialrepresentations, in both the fictions and poetry, as a textualization that redesigns the relation between subject and the natural environment, specifically the rural space, displacing a discourse of “buen vivir” for a literary production of what I propose, tentatively, as of “mal vivir” (bad living). This aesthetic production appeals to a reflection on environmental justice that considers the imminent damage and degradation of the contaminated landscape.
Research Interests:
In recent years, contemporary Latin American writings have privileged the city over any other space. The writers featured here propose a reconfiguration of the Latin American city in light of the postmodern theme of disenchantment as well... more
In recent years, contemporary Latin American writings have
privileged the city over any other space. The writers featured here
propose a reconfiguration of the Latin American city in light of the
postmodern theme of disenchantment as well as a preoccupation
with the “end of utopia.”
privileged the city over any other space. The writers featured here
propose a reconfiguration of the Latin American city in light of the
postmodern theme of disenchantment as well as a preoccupation
with the “end of utopia.”
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Research Interests:
This article addresses the concept of trash from both an environmental and biopolitical perspective. It underscores the importance of trash in our daily lives as a key component of modern technology, habits of consumption, and... more
This article addresses the concept of trash from both an environmental and biopolitical perspective. It underscores the importance of trash in our daily lives as a key component of modern technology, habits of consumption, and disposability. The article draws from three case studies in order to examine the different representations of aesthetic material where both the destruction and preservation of the environment is an important component. Focused on Latin American cultural production, it looks at literary and visual narratives through the scope of sustainability, addressing specifically the practice of recycling and reusing. It states that residual culture in Latin America is located at the intersections of trash production, globalization, and urban environments. If Latin American cities are the privileged spaces of modernity, they have also become sites of large-scale waste generation. Because of this, they represent critical spaces of environmental degradation, with large residual concentrations that pose a real health threat for the surrounding populations who are often among the underrepresented. The central thrust of this article is that trash matters because it is at the core of both the constitution and decomposition of modernity. The cases analyzed in this paper are the documentary Boca de Lixo (Mouth of garbage, 1993), by Eduardo Coutinho; the novel Única mirando al mar (Única gazing at the sea, 1994), by Costa Rican Fernando Contreras Castro; and Argentine painter Antonio Berni’s series on “Juanito Laguna” and “Ramona Montiel,” among others. This article calls for an interdisciplinary approach to environmental humanities that takes into account a new epistemology.
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Resumen: Entre finales del siglo XX y comienzos del XXI surge un corpus significativo de propuestas narrativas utópicas y urbanas donde la preservación de la naturaleza forma parte de una agenda "verde" específica. Estos imaginarios... more
Resumen: Entre finales del siglo XX y comienzos del XXI surge un corpus significativo de propuestas narrativas utópicas y urbanas donde la preservación de la naturaleza forma parte de una agenda "verde" específica. Estos imaginarios utópicos consisten en apuestas utópicas para sociedades privadas, en correspondencia con las políticas económicas neoliberales que se han implementado en América Latina desde finales de los años 80. De esta forma, el presente artículo aborda la reconfiguración de estos imaginarios espaciales, y el contraste drástico que estos nuevos modelos urbanos y utópicos representan tanto en la literatura como en el cine, indagando, específica-mente, el rol que ocupan la naturaleza y las preocupaciones medioambientales. Tomando como referentes literarios y cinematográficos el cuento "No Retiro da Figueira" (1984) del brasileño Moacyr Scliar, la novela La viuda de los jueves (2005) de la argentina Claudia Piñeiro, y la película La zona (2007) del mexicano Rodrigo Plá, se analizará cómo una retórica urbana y medioambiental puede ser apropiada por una discursividad mercantilista, contrastando, a su vez, con la representación de las ciudades abiertas e irrestrictas que conviven con aquellas, y en las que distopía y ecocidio conforman dos de sus rasgos más distintivos.
Abstract: By the end of the XXth century and the beginning of the XXIst it has emerged a significant corpus of urban utopian narrative proposals where the preservation of nature is part of a specific “green” agenda. These utopian imaginaries offer a utopian scheme for private societies, in correspondence with the neoliberal economic politics that have been implemented in Latin America since the end of 1980s. Thus, the present article addresses the reconfiguration of this spatial imaginaries and the drastic contrast that these new urban and utopian models represent both in literature and cinema. It inquires, specifically, the role that both nature and environmental concerns play in these representations. Drawing from literary and cinematographic narratives such as the short story “No Retiro da Figueira” (1984) by Brazilian Moacyr Scliar, the novel La viuda de los jueves (2005) by Argentine Claudia Piñeiro, and the film La zona (2007) by Mexican Rodrigo Plá, this article will analyze how an urban and environmental rhetoric can be appropriated by an economically profitable discourse that will contrast, consequently, with the representations of both open and non-exclusive urban spaces, which exist side-by-side with these mileux, underlining its dystopian and ecocidal quality.
Abstract: By the end of the XXth century and the beginning of the XXIst it has emerged a significant corpus of urban utopian narrative proposals where the preservation of nature is part of a specific “green” agenda. These utopian imaginaries offer a utopian scheme for private societies, in correspondence with the neoliberal economic politics that have been implemented in Latin America since the end of 1980s. Thus, the present article addresses the reconfiguration of this spatial imaginaries and the drastic contrast that these new urban and utopian models represent both in literature and cinema. It inquires, specifically, the role that both nature and environmental concerns play in these representations. Drawing from literary and cinematographic narratives such as the short story “No Retiro da Figueira” (1984) by Brazilian Moacyr Scliar, the novel La viuda de los jueves (2005) by Argentine Claudia Piñeiro, and the film La zona (2007) by Mexican Rodrigo Plá, this article will analyze how an urban and environmental rhetoric can be appropriated by an economically profitable discourse that will contrast, consequently, with the representations of both open and non-exclusive urban spaces, which exist side-by-side with these mileux, underlining its dystopian and ecocidal quality.
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Este volumen, coordinado por la Dra. Carmen Perilli está referido a la relación entre crónica y ciudad en América Latina. La crónica se hace eco de los imaginarios urbanos, se ha transformado en la narración por excelencia de la ciudad.... more
Este volumen, coordinado por la Dra. Carmen Perilli está referido a la relación entre crónica y ciudad en América Latina. La crónica se hace eco de los imaginarios urbanos, se ha transformado en la narración por excelencia de la ciudad. El cronista es el testigo de las modificaciones del tejido urbano en los tiempos modernos. Trata de mostrar la disgregación en tiempos en los que el consumo se apodera de la vida de los sujetos, atrapados en la cartografía de ciudades que de sueños de orden pueden transformarse en abrumadoras pesadillas. Las nuevas estructuras de sentimientos de fines del siglo XX se caracterizan por la presencia del miedo y el desconocimiento del otro.
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Los diferentes textos que le dan cuerpo a este dosier constituyen una apuesta colectiva orientada por el ímpetu de enfrentar algunos de los aspectos que caracterizan nuestro presente: las crisis ambientales, la domesticación de la... more
Los diferentes textos que le dan cuerpo a este dosier constituyen una apuesta colectiva orientada por el ímpetu de enfrentar algunos de los aspectos que caracterizan nuestro presente: las crisis ambientales, la domesticación de la percepción, la incapacidad del pensamiento científico para enunciar relaciones del mundo más allá de cálculos cortoplacistas e interesados, la fijeza desde la cual se da por hecho aquello que está todavía sucediendo, entre muchas otras preocupaciones. En este sentido, cada uno de los escritos se encuentra atravesado por gestos conceptuales y metodológicos que buscan, más que otorgar una respuesta tranquilizadora y definitiva, trazar líneas que sean capaces de expresar las trayectorias, los intervalos e interfaces mediante las cuales los fenómenos que abordan se van tornando problemáticos, subrayando de este modo el potencial permanentemente abierto y expansivo de los paisajes que estos despliegan. Es por ello que, a pesar de las diferencias temáticas, un elemento común presente en todos los textos es el de mostrar la importancia de visibilizar las potencias de transformación inherentes a toda práctica de un pensamiento que solo puede existir en un ejercicio de implicación con la realidad.
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Este artículo rastrea la reciente emergencia de nuevas investigaciones en el campo de las humanidades ambientales, y evalúa dos importantes contribuciones a los debates que están marcando actualmente el rumbo de los estudios culturales en... more
Este artículo rastrea la reciente emergencia de nuevas investigaciones en el campo de las humanidades ambientales, y evalúa dos importantes contribuciones a los debates que están marcando actualmente el rumbo de los estudios culturales en América Latina y el Caribe. En 2019 se publican Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, de Héctor Hoyos, y Allegories of the Anthropocene, de Elizabeth DeLoughrey. Si bien el alcance de estos dos trabajos varía en términos de las geografías regionales y/o nacionales que abarcan, como así también los autores y artistas que se analizan, ambas investigaciones cuestionan el binomio naturaleza/cultura —junto a otras dicotomías modernas— desde posturas y ángulos diferentes (y quizás hasta opuestos). Mientras Hoyos apela a una desalegorización (es decir, a una «literalización») de un número de obras importantes dentro del canon latinoamericano, DeLoughrey invita a reconsiderar la al...
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Hemos resuelto invitar y entrevistar a Gisela Heffes en el marco de la publicación del presente número de Humanidades: Revista de la Universidad de Montevideo. Tanto por su trayectoria académica como por su preocupación por los estudios... more
Hemos resuelto invitar y entrevistar a Gisela Heffes en el marco de la publicación del presente número de Humanidades: Revista de la Universidad de Montevideo. Tanto por su trayectoria académica como por su preocupación por los estudios latinoamericanos, queremos consultarle sobre el presente y el futuro de las humanidades ambientales en América Latina. Heffes, escritora y profesora de literatura latinoamericana en la Universidad de Rice (Texas), ha elaborado una prolífica producción en el campo de la ecocrítica, en la que se destacan sus libros Política de la destrucción/poéticas de la preservación (2013) y Las ciudades imaginarias en América Latina (2008), y ha sido coeditora del volumen The Latin American Ecocritical Reader (2021). Faro para los estudios ecocríticos, las presentes respuestas iluminan en parte la trayectoria de este volumen.
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Se trata del segundo número dedicado a Literatura y Revolución. Coordinado por las Dras. María del Pilar Ríos e Isabel Aráoz. Directora Carmen Perilli . Editora: María Jesús Benites
Research Interests: Literatura Latinoamericana, Estudios Culturales, Estudios sobre Violencia y Conflicto, Estudios Sociales, Estudios Latinoamericanos, and 6 moreEstudios Literarios, Lectura Y Escritura, Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos, Estudios De La Conquista Y Colonizacion Americana, Estudios de la Memoria, and Estudios bolivianos
En el prefacio a la segunda edición de The Anxiety of Influence, Bloom retoma su debate con Paul de Man y los deconstruccionistas, a quienes califica de "resentidos" (16). El objetivo de esta escuela, señala Bloom, consiste en... more
En el prefacio a la segunda edición de The Anxiety of Influence, Bloom retoma su debate con Paul de Man y los deconstruccionistas, a quienes califica de "resentidos" (16). El objetivo de esta escuela, señala Bloom, consiste en erradicar la originalidad única de Shakespeare, ...
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The objective of this essay is to map the growing number of works that focus on the environmental humanities and to review two important contributions to the ongoing debates that are defining the direction of Latin American and Caribbean... more
The objective of this essay is to map the growing number of works that focus on the environmental humanities and to review two important contributions to the ongoing debates that are defining the direction of Latin American and Caribbean cultural studies. In 2019, Héctor Hoyos published Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America, as Elizabeth DeLoughrey published Allegories of the Anthropocene. While the scope of these two works varies in terms of the regional and/or national geographies they cover, as well as the authors and artists they analyse, both books attempt to contest the nature/culture binary – along with other Modern dichotomies – from very different (perhaps even opposite) positions and angles: while Hoyos calls for a de-allegorisation (namely, a “literalisation” ) of several important Latin American works, DeLoughrey, on the other hand, invites us to reconsider allegory as a way of symbolising the “perceived disjunction between humans and the planet, between our ‘species’ and a dynamic external ‘nature’”.
Research Interests:
Entre finales del siglo XX y comienzos del XXI surge un corpus significativo de propuestas narrativas utópicas y urbanas donde la preservación de la naturaleza forma parte de una agenda "verde" específica. Estos imaginarios... more
Entre finales del siglo XX y comienzos del XXI surge un corpus significativo de propuestas narrativas utópicas y urbanas donde la preservación de la naturaleza forma parte de una agenda "verde" específica. Estos imaginarios utópicos consisten en apuestas utópicas para sociedades privadas, en correspondencia con las políticas económicas neoliberales que se han implementado en América Latina desde finales de los años 80. De esta forma, el presente artículo aborda la reconfiguración de estos imaginarios espaciales, y el contraste drástico que estos nuevos modelos urbanos y utópicos representan tanto en la literatura como en el cine, indagando, específicamente, el rol que ocupan la naturaleza y las preocupaciones medioambientales. Tomando como referentes literarios y cinematográficos el cuento "No Retiro da Figueira" (1984) del brasileño Moacyr Scliar, la novela La viuda de los jueves (2005) de la argentina Claudia Piñeiro, y la película La zona (2007) del mexicano R...
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On April 7, 1833, Flora Tristan embarks on a voyage that will take her south. From Paris to Peru, she undertakes this transatlantic journey in order to claim the inheritance left to her father by her uncle, Don Pio de Tristan, an... more
On April 7, 1833, Flora Tristan embarks on a voyage that will take her south. From Paris to Peru, she undertakes this transatlantic journey in order to claim the inheritance left to her father by her uncle, Don Pio de Tristan, an important figure in Peru at the time. It should be clarified that Flora Tristan, Paul Gauguin’s grandmother, was the daughter of a French woman and a Peruvian man who had met in Spain, where her mother had taken refuge during the French Revolution. Her parents were married there by a French priest who had immigrated to Spain, but Flora’s father, Mariano Tristan, died four years later without regularizing his civil status. He thus left Flora as an illegitimate daughter. Her father’s brother refused to acknowledge her legally (although he did so affectionately) and to give her the portion of inheritance that was rightly hers.
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This article focuses on the recent rural turn in contemporary Argentine literature production. It draws from Laurence Buell’s notion of toxic discourse (1988) in order to analyze two narratives: Distancia de rescate (2014) by Samanta... more
This article focuses on the recent rural turn in contemporary Argentine literature production. It draws from Laurence Buell’s notion of toxic discourse (1988) in order to analyze two narratives: Distancia de rescate (2014) by Samanta Schweblin, and Las estrellas federales (2016), by Juan Diego Incardona, along with the poetry collection Un pequeno mundo enfermo (2014), by Julian Joven [pseudonym of Cristian Molina]. With the emergence and more frequent use of agrochemicals in the Argentine rural soil, I argue that these writings articulate a discursive toxicity anchored in a transfigured pampa. Furthermore, the cultivation of transgenic soy transforms the space into a contaminated and contaminating landscape, whose agrotoxics inoculate indiscriminately both human and nonhuman bodies. I read these bodily and spatial representations, in both the fictions and poetry, as a textualization that redesigns the relation between subject and the natural environmental, specifically the rural sp...
Research Interests:
En el prefacio a la segunda edición de The Anxiety of Influence, Bloom retoma su debate con Paul de Man y los deconstruccionistas, a quienes califica de "resentidos" (16). El objetivo de esta escuela, señala... more
En el prefacio a la segunda edición de The Anxiety of Influence, Bloom retoma su debate con Paul de Man y los deconstruccionistas, a quienes califica de "resentidos" (16). El objetivo de esta escuela, señala Bloom, consiste en erradicar la originalidad única de Shakespeare, ...
Research Interests: Art and Yale University
Este articulo analiza la relacion entre los vaciaderos de basura (o vertederos), los desechos toxicos y el reciclaje en Buenos Aires, a traves de representaciones visuales y narrativas de finales del siglo veinte y comienzos del... more
Este articulo analiza la relacion entre los vaciaderos de basura (o vertederos), los desechos toxicos y el reciclaje en Buenos Aires, a traves de representaciones visuales y narrativas de finales del siglo veinte y comienzos del veintiuno. estos relatos exploran la condicion de aquellos sujetos empobrecidos que utilizan la basura desechada por las clases mas altas en tanto mercancia preciada y redituable. en la novela "La villa" (2001) de Cesar Aira, por ejemplo, aparece una comunidad entera de sujetos empobrecidos que recorren las calles de Buenos aires con el objeto de proveerse tanto de material reciclaje como de otros despojos que conforman la basura de las clases mas pudientes. La emergencia de los “cartoneros” en las calles de Buenos aires ha generado un numero significativo de documentales, entre ellos Cartoneros(2006), de ernesto Livon-Grosman, a traves de los cuales se examina las nuevas formas en que los“cartoneros” son capaces de agrupar diversos recursos y esta...
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Este articulo examina un conjunto de narrativas y films latinoamericanos de las ultimas dos decadas, los cuales articulan la creciente desigualdad social, politica y economica en America Latina, en conjuncion con las practicas y... more
Este articulo examina un conjunto de narrativas y films latinoamericanos de las ultimas dos decadas, los cuales articulan la creciente desigualdad social, politica y economica en America Latina, en conjuncion con las practicas y experiencias culturales, desde una perspectiva urbana. Al tomar como eje la configuracion del espacio de la ciudad latinoamericana, el articulo explora como estas narrativas reformulan nociones clasicas del diseno urbano conel objeto de presentar, en su lugar, un espacio distintivo, con codigos especificos, los que operan como formas alternativas de sustraerse al poder de la globalizacion y las politicas del neoliberalismo.
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Research Interests:
In 1972 Italian writer Italo Calvino published Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a... more
In 1972 Italian writer Italo Calvino published Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a particular city and on all cities at once, for as Cal vino reminds us in his renowned work, cities are spaces where we exchange not only commodities but also words, desires, and memories. In recent years, contemporary Latin American cities have also become distinctive places where a wide range of exchanges has taken place. While a sense of dis belief and skepticism regarding the implementa tion of progress and modernization has called into question the most basic premises of its political and economic policies, Latin American cities have created a setting for the trading of both literal and metaphorical dreams. No longer are they a part of nations striving toward collective justice or some degree of egalitarianism; rather, over the last two decades, ...
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Entre finales del siglo XX y comienzos del XXI surge un corpus significativo de propuestas narrativas utopicas y urbanas donde la preservacion de la naturaleza forma parte de una agenda “verde” especifica. Estos imaginarios utopicos... more
Entre finales del siglo XX y comienzos del XXI surge un corpus significativo de propuestas narrativas utopicas y urbanas donde la preservacion de la naturaleza forma parte de una agenda “verde” especifica. Estos imaginarios utopicos consisten en apuestas utopicas para sociedades privadas, en correspondencia con las politicas economicas neoliberales que se han implementado en America Latina desde finales de los anos 80. De esta forma, el presente articulo aborda la reconfiguracion de estos imaginarios espaciales, y el contraste drastico que estos nuevos modelos urbanos y utopicos representan tanto en la literatura como en el cine, indagando, especificamente, el rol que ocupan la naturaleza y las preocupaciones medioambientales. Tomando como referentes literarios y cinematograficos el cuento “No Retiro da Figueira” (1984) del brasileno Moacyr Scliar, la novela La viuda de los jueves (2005) de la argentina Claudia Pineiro, y la pelicula La zona (2007) del mexicano Rodrigo Pla, se anali...
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En el prefacio a la segunda edición de The Anxiety of Influence, Bloom retoma su debate con Paul de Man y los deconstruccionistas, a quienes califica de "resentidos" (16). El objetivo de esta escuela, señala... more
En el prefacio a la segunda edición de The Anxiety of Influence, Bloom retoma su debate con Paul de Man y los deconstruccionistas, a quienes califica de "resentidos" (16). El objetivo de esta escuela, señala Bloom, consiste en erradicar la originalidad única de Shakespeare, ...
Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a particular city and on all cities at once, for... more
Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a particular city and on all cities at once, for as Cal-vino reminds us in his renowned work, cities are ...
Research Interests:
Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a particular city and on all cities at once, for... more
Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a particular city and on all cities at once, for as Cal-vino reminds us in his renowned work, cities are ...
Research Interests:
Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a particular city and on all cities at once, for... more
Invisible Cities, a catalog of imaginary cities that presents an archetype of the city from which all possible cities may be deduced. This model of the city can help us to reflect both on a particular city and on all cities at once, for as Cal-vino reminds us in his renowned work, cities are ...