I’m right: race is at the center (of the colonial drama). Of course one knows this but my questions all started out with these novels being taught as examples of literary movements, the issues they raise not addressed at all, and with the fact that I assumed, from my education, that racism was something we’d … More More Mbembe
The transnationalization of the Black condition was a constitutive moment for modernity, with the Atlantic serving as its incubator. After Independence, a class of Creole Whites asserted and consolidated their influence. Oldquestions of heterogeneity, difference, and liberty were once again posed, with new elites using the ideology of mestizaje to deny and disqualify the racial … More Reading Mbembe
Orwell, George, Animal Farm. I wanted to reread this, although it is very depressing. Perhaps I didn’t like the format of this edition, the pages were quite narrow. But mostly I cannot reread this because I cannot handle animal stories, they are always too sad. Granados, Pedro, Inkarrí. All right, I had bought this to … More Books destroyed in a small flood
That was a title of an old student paper, the first page of one copy of which I came across while cleaning the office files. It’s intriguing. They said that Mignolo was ultimately reinscribing a Western view of things, although he intends otherwise. I forget which Mignolo text I had assigned, but the title is … More Mignolo, el orientalista
Years ago I was to write an article on Veloso and I could not finish it, partly because of what my work responsibilities were here and partly because of the emotions I have attached to that music (it was used to advertise Bahia as paradisiacal when I was there and miserable, and it agitates me). … More My BRASA paper
His critique of Bourdieu and Wacquant in Nepantla (2003) is key, although his other article, where he defends Hanchard against their accusation that he has “imposed” a U.S. model on Brazilian scholars, is fierier and more fun. Here Bourdieu and Wacquant have again claimed that intellectual exchange from the U.S. to Brazil “flows in one … More John D. French
The notes are fragmentary, but the question was, what do these novels mean? I was suggesting these novels present state projects that do not resolve the questions of race and slavery, and are in fact designed not to do so. The Latin American subject is the one who is going to remain in this limbo; … More Continuing with that paper I had sketched out in longhand
And I won’t reproduce it all here. Point 1 was that Sommer says romance makes nation, but the families in the novels she discusses aren’t stable; they’re unhappy, disintegrating, and so on. Family is not peace and conciliation. Examples: Ma.: ella muere y Efraín se va a la nada; C.V.: los personajes mueren y las … More A paper on Sommer and da Silva I had sketched out in longhand
Important things today: I had some progress on the MLA panel, and then started working on an abstract for the MLA that is based on what I need to figure out for C19. In both cases, I seemed to crack something. I also got the flights for California ready, and the hotels. I was too … More Mestizo Self-Fashioning
Amo escrever. To plan the March presentation I should perhaps think in terms of pages like a few disparate slides. I can write them separately, starting anywhere, and give each one bullet points, with quotations. Something like: We will see. But I love to do research and to write, and I love theory. I want … More Intentions for the new year
coldhearted scientist وداد 