Month: June 2013

I do not like this paragraph after all, and must improve the prose

11/06/2013

It is in the twentieth century that this racialized discourse becomes cultural, and mestizaje becomes a trope for the nation. The cultural identities consolidated by writers like José Vasconcelos, Fernando Ortiz, Nicolás Guillén, Gilberto Freyre, and Oswald de Andrade, and naturalized as national discourses from the 1920s through the 1960s and beyond, are derived from … More I do not like this paragraph after all, and must improve the prose

Total words today, 92 and continuing, as I procrastinate about taking the car to the shop…

11/06/2013

If mestizaje in the colonial period was a strategy supporting hispanization and European hegemony, the nineteenth century nation-states harnessed it to marginalize blackness and indigeneity yet more thoroughly than the colony had done (Mariátegui 1928, Lund). The mestizo as idealized citizen-subject supported, and did not contest elite hegemony; alliances were with the lighter, not the darker … More Total words today, 92 and continuing, as I procrastinate about taking the car to the shop…

30 additional words

11/06/2013

“If mestizaje in the colonial period was a strategy supporting hispanization and European hegemony, the nineteenth century nation-states harnessed it to marginalize blackness and indigeneity yet more thoroughly than the colony had done (Mariátegui 1928, Lund). The mestizo as idealized citizen-subject supported, and did not contest elite hegemony; Mestizo presence did not disturb racial hierarchies, … More 30 additional words

Words today: 80

10/06/2013

Yes, it is slow and not original, but I have a lot else going on and this moves my piece ahead. It could use further precision; the need for precision and concision is making me go slowly since I am about to argue that Doris Sommer misreads history and need to set a very clear … More Words today: 80

Revised

09/06/2013

When before the Congress of Angostura Bolívar proposes to shape nations by mixing the “diverse blood” of the new citizens (1819), he makes a double gesture. The new nations are conceived in racial terms and at the same time situate themselves, at least at the level of public discourse, beyond race and racialization. The mestizaje … More Revised

A lecture in my MOOC

07/06/2013

History shows that surviving cultures are not the ones that isolate themselves but are those that transform themselves according to changing circumstances. Even with this, even when this means abducting cultural limits from another society. Eventually all social structures are worn down and destroyed unless they consciously seek to engage with an emerging dominant culture … More A lecture in my MOOC

A somewhat decent handout now, with help from Dame Eleanor

07/06/2013

Notes on José Piedra, “Literary Whiteness and the Afro-Hispanic Difference,” part 2, and some strategies for reading critical essays: As you read, consider using a different color to highlight each of the following: → argument (logical inferences, grounds, warrants, examples) → new information → theoretical concepts What signals help you to identify these different threads … More A somewhat decent handout now, with help from Dame Eleanor

Continuing to break Piedra down further for the students — and to “touch work” for me

06/06/2013

Starting at page 306. A. Grammar and the Hispanic Text. Nebrija’s formulated a “grammatical contract of servitude.” Slavery was apprentice citizenship and was teaching people how to be Hispanic. On paper, but not in practice, differences were minimized as alliances were maximized. Nebrija provided the New World with the justification for a cohesive Hispanic Text. … More Continuing to break Piedra down further for the students — and to “touch work” for me