I had not thought of him for some time but he would be a very interesting person to revisit, for historical reasons. Also, I must come back to that Andermann book: he discusses foundational violence that is simultaneously denied and evoked. I am constantly amazed and gratified to find that while I was absent, other … More Mariano Picón Salas
In graduate school there was a parodist who wrote a play called El ¿huh? de las niñas y el ¡ja! de Boy-oh-Boy and a tract called La rebelión de las personas non gratas. The personas non gratas were, as we knew from other parodies, the students. I cannot remember the Unamuno parody but there has … More F. L. de Moratín
Here, that is to say far below, is the abstract for one of the papers I gave when I was supposed to be working on Vallejo. I did not actually write it, but spoke from this abstract itself and a two-page handout of quotations. I could do this because I have excellent presentation skills. I … More An archaeological post
I am happy again. It is possible to be eficaz. Now I will start boiling LUND down. I want to point out that Freyre appears to have derived his theories of Brazilian exceptionalism from Unamuno and Ortega y Gasset. Also, it seems that following Guimarães’ categories, I believe in “historical races.” Key phrases from Lund, … More Lund boildown for my purposes
My fall class is extravagantly called States of Ruin: Violence and Identity in Latin American Literature 1810-1930 and I cannot find the abstract or the reading list, so must reconstruct. It is being given under a culture rubric and I think it is being cross listed with several programs, such that it has to be … More Háblenme
En medio de esta decadencia aparente del carácter nacional, se descubren de cuando en cuando ciertas señales de antiguo espíritu; ni puede ser de otro modo: querer que una nación se quede con solas sus propias virtudes y se despoje de sus defectos propios para adquirir en su lugar las virtudes de las extrañas, es … More Carta de Ben-Beley a Nuño
Here is some of something I said on e-mail today: I am trying to understand how two circuits of signification, despite disarticulation at some levels, connect (and connect they do): (a) different definitions of race and the racial, different formations of racial meaning in different places, and (b) race and the world system, where things … More El público
For the rain there is nothing like huaynos. If I were to be in Mexico City this summer, which I now apparently am not, I would go Sunday mornings to the market in Santa María la Ribera. I would have herbs and shrimp and wine and blast charango music through the courtyard while cooking, impressing … More La magia del vinyl
It is in the United States more than in Brazil that liberalism, or slavery, is a “misplaced idea.” Here the official national ideology was much more strongly liberal, and slavery was harder to buy one’s way out of. That is why the United States had to develop a much more hard-line form of racism in … More Cottrol
I am moving this post up to work on the things in it. (The Espejo enterrado uses the Castro paradigm. One knows this but does not always remember it, so I have made this note.) I am rereading David Theo Goldberg’s 2002 book and it is my claim that with this tome, Balibar’s, Winant’s, and da … More David Theo Goldberg, and Lyx
coldhearted scientist وداد 