I’m going to Tulane and I will read this old book by Sara Castro-Klarén. Everyone was interested in the Latin American subject back then, and Borges is much better at thinking about these things than people give him credit for. I will find out what I was thinking, what I might have thought. I would … More Escritura, sujeto y transgresión
This is important to read. In my words: faux-anarchical anti-formations like hybridity, dissolution, and so on are part of the language of neoliberalism, not of something “subversive.” This was always my view, but it was not a permitted view when I was in formation myself, and not being allowed to say it was a large … More Anna Kornbluh
Notes toward my next piece of public writing (this was the last). People think Spanish in Mexico is a separate and inferior language and that “Castilian” is a rarefied, literary thing. Really, what we call “Spanish” is all Castilian, and it can be spoken in different dialects and speech registers, like English. It became “Spanish” … More On “Castilian”
Axé.
I have one and it sits. I have to get rid of paper and activate some energy, and of course I also want to procrastinate on SERVICE by looking at research. So let us see. FERREIRA DA SILVA — her ideas on race can help us read Latin American literature (in part because they are … More A folder full of notes
Objective: read these texts and problematize the term. Put these in a useful order. Flores’ 1955 article El reino de este mundo El acoso Borges, El arte narrativo y la magia Bioy Casares, La invención de Morel Fuentes, Chac Mool Rulfo, Pedro Páramo How to deal with 100 años de soledad — will we have … More The magical realism course
I will put something like this back in later. Ironically enough, the enthusiasm for magical realism was fueled not only by the fact that the “Boom” novels associated with it were so widely circulated, but by the vicissitudes of Hispanism in the United States. After Angel Flores’ 1955 article “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction,” … More Newly cut from the magical realism piece
This post has to do with the magical realism piece, and in it is a link to a very nice piece on Morel–a novel(la) I will read and teach. Axé.
But there will be a longer version. Magical Realism The resolution of contradiction, or the apparent conciliation of dissonant epistemologies, that we know as magical realism has been celebrated, especially in the English-speaking world, as a decolonizing strategy that affirms realities beyond Western knowledge. In the Hispanic world and among Hispanists, on the other hand, … More CUT from the magical realism piece
In the course I am calling my “Bolshevik mega-class” we are reading Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation.” This is good for Vallejo, and for my alleged paper that criticizes the biographical interpretations of him. Lorca, Borges, Vallejo, there is so much to work on. Axé.
I have to teach the modern Peninsular survey and I am redesigning it entirely. This isn’t exactly what I am doing now but I’d like to do it again, keep working on this. One could start with Unamuno, Niebla. I am starting with the vanguardia: the idea of the new, and the Peter Bürger idea … More My Bolshevik megaclass
