Orientalism And Identity In Latin America

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Orientalism and Identity in Latin America

Author : Erik Camayd-Freixas
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816545979
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis Orientalism and Identity in Latin America by : Erik Camayd-Freixas

Download or read book Orientalism and Identity in Latin America written by Erik Camayd-Freixas and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on the pioneering work of Edward Said in fresh and useful ways, contributors to this volume consider both historical contacts and literary influences in the formation of Latin American constructs of the “Orient” and the “Self” from colonial times to the present. In the process, they unveil wide-ranging manifestations of Orientalism. Contributors scrutinize the “other” great encounter, not with Europeans but with Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese cultures, as they marked Latin American societies from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean to Peru, Argentina, and Brazil. The perspectives, experiences, and theories presented in these examples offer a comprehensive framework for understanding wide-ranging manifestations of Orientalism in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world. Orientalism and Identity in Latin America expands current theoretical frameworks, juxtaposing historical, biographical, and literary depictions of Middle Eastern and Asian migrations, both of people and cultural elements, as they have been received, perceived, refashioned, and integrated into Latin American discourses of identity and difference. Underlying this intercultural dialogue is the hypothesis that the discourse of Orientalism and the process of Orientalization apply equally to Near Eastern and Far Eastern subjects as well as to immigrants, regardless of provenance—and indeed to any individual or group who might be construed as “Other” by a particular dominant culture.

Alternative Orientalisms in Latin America and Beyond

Author : Ignacio López-Calvo
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Alternative Orientalisms in Latin America and Beyond by : Ignacio López-Calvo

Download or read book Alternative Orientalisms in Latin America and Beyond written by Ignacio López-Calvo and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orientalism is widely known as the study of Eastern cultures by Western intellectuals. Yet most people would associate this term with scholars from France, England, Germany, and the United States. This book presents, along with new essays dealing with the United States, the Islamic world and the Far East, alternative views on Orientalism, this time also coming from Latin America and other regions. While still dealing, in some cases, with interpretations of the East by Western outsiders, the fact that the cultural production analyzed (as well as many of the critics) comes from an area, Latin America, that has also been affected by European and U.S. imperialism and colonialism brings new light to the traditionally negative connotations ascribed to the term. These essays reveal that, though prejudice and racism are still prevalent in many Orientalist aesthetic practices coming from Latin America and other world regions, the perspective can also be radically different. From this perspective, rather than constructing the Orient as the Westâ (TM)s alien and inferior other, the mirror image that appears in this book constitutes an attempt at understanding the Asian within us (within the Western world). The postcolonial approach of many of these essays is the theoretical framework that prevents (or, at least, tries to prevent) paternalistic or hegemonic representations of the Asian subject. As a result, the emphasis is often placed on transculturation, hybridity, liminality, double consciousness, and cultural identity.

Orientalism and Identity in Latin America

Author : Erik Camayd-Freixas
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816529531
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis Orientalism and Identity in Latin America by : Erik Camayd-Freixas

Transnational Orientalisms in Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Cinema

Author : Michele C. Dávila Gonçalves
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443888729
Total Pages : 150 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

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Book Synopsis Transnational Orientalisms in Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Cinema by : Michele C. Dávila Gonçalves

Download or read book Transnational Orientalisms in Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Cinema written by Michele C. Dávila Gonçalves and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-08 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades in Spain and Latin America, transnational voices, typically stereotyped, alienated or co-opted in the Western world, have been gaining increasing presence in cultural texts. The transnational representation of the “Oriental” subject, namely Arabs and Jews, Chinese and other ethnic groups that have migrated to Spain and Latin America either voluntarily or forcefully, is now being seen anew in both literature and cinema. This book explores Orientalism beyond literature, in which it has already garnered attention, to examine the new ways of seeing and interpreting both the Middle East and the East in contemporary films, in which many of the immigrants traditionally omitted from the dominant narratives are able to present the trauma, memories and violence of their exile and migration. As such, this volume explores the representation of those single and doubly marginalized groups in contemporary Spanish and Latin American cinema, analysing how films from Spain, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Argentina portray transnational subjects from a wide spectrum of the “Orient” world, including Maghrebs from North Africa, and Palestinian, Jewish, Chinese, and Korean peoples. Once vulnerable to the dominant culture of their adopted homes, facing ostracism and marginalisation, these groups are now entering into the popular imagination and revised history of their new countries. This volume explores the following questions as starting points for its analysis: Are these manifestations the new orientalist normative, or are there other characterizations? Are new cinematic scopes and understandings being created? The old stereotypical orientalist ways of seeing these vulnerable groups are beginning to change to a more authentic representation, although, in some cases, they may still reside in the subtext of films.

Latin American Identity and Constructions of Difference

Author : Amaryll Beatrice Chanady
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 9780816624096
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Latin American Identity and Constructions of Difference by : Amaryll Beatrice Chanady

Download or read book Latin American Identity and Constructions of Difference written by Amaryll Beatrice Chanady and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Required reading for those interested in Latin American identity. Authors recognize difficulty of the pregnancy of the moment - globalization and diaspora - in which the topic is being discussed. In the introduction, Chanady offers an excellent historical review of the topic. Essays by Enrique Dussel, Josâe Rabasa (see item #bi 98003988#), Franðcois Perus, and Iris Zavala are especially noteworthy"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

National Identities and Socio-Political Changes in Latin America

Author : Antonio Gomez-Moriana
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113566773X
Total Pages : 506 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (356 download)

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Book Synopsis National Identities and Socio-Political Changes in Latin America by : Antonio Gomez-Moriana

Download or read book National Identities and Socio-Political Changes in Latin America written by Antonio Gomez-Moriana and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study frames the social dynamics of Latin American in terms of two types of cultural momentum: foundational momentum and the momentum of global order in contemporary Latin America.

Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions

Author : Henri Gooren
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9783319270777
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions by : Henri Gooren

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions written by Henri Gooren and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-10-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This encyclopedia provides an overview of the main religions of Latin America and the Caribbean, both its centralized transnational expressions and its local variants and schisms. These main religions include (but are not limited to) the major expressions of Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Pentecostalism, Mormonism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses), indigenous religions (Native American, Maya religion), syncretic Christianity (including Afro-Brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé and Afro-Caribbean religions like Vodun and Santería), other world religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam), transnational New Religious Movements (Scientology, Unification Church, Hare Krishna, New Age, etc.), and new local religions (Brazil’s Igreja Universal, La Luz del Mundo from Mexico, etc.).

Between Argentines and Arabs

Author : Christina Civantos
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 0791482464
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis Between Argentines and Arabs by : Christina Civantos

Download or read book Between Argentines and Arabs written by Christina Civantos and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the presence of Arabs and the Arab world in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Argentine literature by juxtaposing works by Argentines of European descent and those written by Arab immigrants in Argentina. Between Argentines and Arabs is a groundbreaking contribution to two growing fields: the study of immigrants and minorities in Latin America and the study of the Arab diaspora. As a literary and cultural study, this book examines the textual dialogue between Argentines of European descent and Arab immigrants to Argentina from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. Using methods drawn from literary analysis and cultural studies, Christina Civantos shows that the Arab presence is twofold: “the Arab” and “the Orient” are an imagined figure and space within the texts produced by Euro-Argentine intellectuals; and immigrants from the Arab world are an actual community, producing their own texts within the multiethnic Argentine nation. This book is both a literary history—of Argentine Orientalist literature and Arab-Argentine immigrant literature—and a critical analysis of how the formation of identities in these two bodies of work is interconnected. Christina Civantos is Assistant Professor of Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami.

Primitivism and Identity in Latin America

Author : Erik Camayd-Freixas
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816547262
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis Primitivism and Identity in Latin America by : Erik Camayd-Freixas

Download or read book Primitivism and Identity in Latin America written by Erik Camayd-Freixas and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although primitivism has received renewed attention in recent years, studies linking it with Latin America have been rare. This volume examines primitivism and its implications for contemporary debates on Latin American culture, literature, and arts, showing how Latin American subjects employ a Western construct to "return the gaze" of the outside world and redefine themselves in relation to modernity. Examining such subjects as Julio Cortázar and Frida Kahlo and such topics as folk art and cinema, the volume brings together for the first time the views of scholars who are currently engaging the task of cultural studies from the standpoint of primitivism. These varied contributions include analyses of Latin American art in relation to social issues, popular culture, and official cultural policy; essays in cultural criticism touching on ethnic identity, racial politics, women's issues, and conflictive modernity; and analytical studies of primitivism's impact on narrative theory and practice, film, theater, and poetry. This collection contributes offers a new perspective on a variety of significant debates in Latin American cultural studies and shows that the term primitive does not apply to these cultures as much as to our understanding of them. CONTENTS Paradise Subverted: The Invention of the Mexican Character / Roger Bartra Between Sade and the Savage: Octavio Paz’s Aztecs / Amaryll Chanady Under the Shadow of God: Roots of Primitivism in Early Colonial Mexico / Delia Annunziata Cosentino Of Alebrijes and Ocumichos: Some Myths about Folk Art and Mexican Identity / Eli Bartra Primitive Borders: Cultural Identity and Ethnic Cleansing in the Dominican Republic / Fernando Valerio-Holguín Dialectics of Archaism and Modernity: Technique and Primitivism in Angel Rama’s Transculturación narrativa en América Latina / José Eduardo González Narrative Primitivism: Theory and Practice in Latin America / Erik Camayd-Freixas Narrating the Other: Julio Cortázar’s "Axolotl" as Ethnographic Allegory / R. Lane Kauffmann Jungle Fever: Primitivism in Environmentalism; Rómulo Gallegos’s Canaima and the Romance of the Jungle / Jorge Marcone Primitivism and Cultural Production: Future’s Memory; Native Peoples’ Voices in Latin American Society / Ivete Lara Camargos Walty Primitive Bodies in Latin American Cinema: Nicolás Echevarría’s Cabeza de Vaca / Luis Fernando Restrepo Subliminal Body: Shamanism, Ancient Theater, and Ethnodrama / Gabriel Weisz Primitivist Construction of Identity in the Work of Frida Kahlo / Wendy B. Faris Mi andina y dulce Rita: Women, Indigenism, and the Avant-Garde in César Vallejo / Tace Megan Hedrick

Divergent Modernities

Author : Julio Ramos
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822381095
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis Divergent Modernities by : Julio Ramos

Download or read book Divergent Modernities written by Julio Ramos and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2001-06-22 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a Foreword by José David Saldívar Since its first publication in Spanish nearly a decade ago, Julio Ramos’s Desenucuentros de la modernidad en America Latina por el siglo XIX has been recognized as one of the most important studies of modernity in the western hemisphere. Available for the first time in English—and now published with new material—Ramos’s study not only offers an analysis of the complex relationships between history, literature, and nation-building in the modern Latin American context but also takes crucial steps toward the development of a truly comparative inter-American cultural criticism. With his focus on the nineteenth century, Ramos begins his genealogy of an emerging Latin Americanism with an examination of Argentinean Domingo Sarmiento and Chilean Andrés Bello, representing the “enlightened letrados” of tradition. In contrast to these “lettered men,” he turns to Cuban journalist, revolutionary, and poet José Martí, who, Ramos suggests, inaugurated a new kind of intellectual subject for the Americas. Though tracing Latin American modernity in general, it is the analysis of Martí—particularly his work in the United States—that becomes the focal point of Ramos’s study. Martí’s confrontation with the unequal modernization of the New World, the dependent status of Latin America, and the contrast between Latin America’s culture of elites and the northern mass culture of commodification are, for Ramos, key elements in understanding the complex Latin American experience of modernity. Including two new chapters written for this edition, as well as translations of three of Martí’s most important works, Divergent Modernities will be indispensable for anyone seeking to understand development and modernity across the Americas.

British Representations of Latin America

Author : Luz Elena Ramirez
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780813030814
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis British Representations of Latin America by : Luz Elena Ramirez

Download or read book British Representations of Latin America written by Luz Elena Ramirez and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Clear and well documented, this is a very important contribution to the rich, varied work on British imperial activities and to postcolonial studies."--Helen M. Cooper, Stony Brook University Ramirez examines British literary representations of Latin America from the 16th through the 20th centuries, with particular attention to travel writing and fiction published during and after Latin American independence. Locating these representations within the political and economic histories of the countries in which they are set, she places works by Sir Walter Ralegh, Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, Malcolm Lowry, and Graham Greene within a critical context that can best be called "Americanist" and surveys the prominent themes of these works. She also examines their imperialist impulses and their changing master cultural narratives, from Charles Gould's "idea" of empire and his faith in commercial development for Latin America in Conrad's Nostromo to Lowry's Under the Volcano, a story of a failed and alcoholic English Consul in 1930s Mexico. Americanist literature, as Ramirez sees it, manifests mostly informal aspects of imperialism, reflecting the British desire to invest, develop, map, and catalog in countries as varied as Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Brazil. Ramirez argues that British representations of Latin Americareveal an authorial freedom to advance imperial and commercial projects on one hand, while questioning the English self and sense of strangeness in the New World on the other. Especially in the 19th- and 20-century works under consideration, she reveals an acute sense of vulnerability, as British power worldwide had begun to crumble. Expanding on the critical conversation surrounding "Orientalism" and "New World Studies," Ramirez's examination of informal British imperialism and the struggle of motives represented in each of the selected narratives opens a fascinating new terrain of texts reflecting the historical relationship between Britain and Latin America.

One World Periphery Reads the Other

Author : Ignacio López-Calvo
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443817929
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

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Book Synopsis One World Periphery Reads the Other by : Ignacio López-Calvo

Download or read book One World Periphery Reads the Other written by Ignacio López-Calvo and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-12-14 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Said focused on the perceptions and stereotypes of the Near East “Oriental” in England, France and the United States, most of these essays study the decentering interplay between “peripheral” areas of the Third World, “semiperipheral” areas (Spain and Portugal since the second part of the seventeenth century), and marginalized social groups of the globe (Chicanos, African Americans, and Filipino Americans). They explore, for example, how China and the Far East in general are imagined and represented in Latin America and the Caribbean, or how ethnic minorities in the United States, such as Chicanos and African Americans, incorporate Filipino characters in their novels or creolize their music with Chinese influences. As the title of this book suggests, sometimes these “peripheral” areas and social groups talk back to the metropolitan centers of the former empires or look for their mediation, while others they avoid the interference of the First World or of hegemonic social groups altogether in order to address other “peripheral” peoples directly, thus creating rich “South-South” cross-cultural flows and exchanges. The main difference between the imperialistic orientalism studied by Said and this other type of global cultural interaction is that while, in their engagement with the “Orient,” they may be reproducing certain imperialistic fantasies and mental structures, typically there is not an ethnocentric process of self-idealization or an attempt to demonstrate cultural, ontological, or racial superiority in “South-South” intellectual and cultural exchanges. This way to de-center or to “provincialize” Europe—pace Dipesh Chakrabarty—disrupts the traditional center-periphery dichotomy, bringing about multiple and interchangeable centers and peripheries, whose cultures interact with one another without the mediation of the European and North American metropolitan centers.

Indigeneity in the Mexican Cultural Imagination

Author : Analisa Taylor
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 9780816527182
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (271 download)

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Book Synopsis Indigeneity in the Mexican Cultural Imagination by : Analisa Taylor

Download or read book Indigeneity in the Mexican Cultural Imagination written by Analisa Taylor and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2009-03-19 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the end of the Mexican Revolution in 1917, the state has engaged in vigorous campaign to forge a unified national identity. Within the context of this effort, Indians are at once both denigrated and romanticized. Often marginalized, they are nonetheless subjects of constant national interest. Contradictory policies highlighting segregation, assimilation, modernization, and cultural preservation have alternately included and excluded MexicoÕs indigenous population from the stateÕs self-conscious efforts to shape its identity. Yet, until now, no single book has combined the various elements of this process to provide a comprehensive look at the Indian in MexicoÕs cultural imagination. Indigeneity in the Mexican Cultural Imagination offers a much-needed examination of this fickle relationship as it is seen through literature, ethnography, film and art. The book focuses on representations of indigenous peoples in post-revolutionary literary and intellectual history by examining key cultural texts. Using these analyses as a foundation, Analisa Taylor links her critique to national Indian policy, rights, and recent social movements in Southern Mexico. In addition, she moves beyond her analysis of indigenous peoples in general to take a gendered look at indigenous women ranging from the villainized Malinche to the highly romanticized and sexualized Zapotec women of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The contradictory treatment of the Indian in MexicoÕs cultural imagination is not unique to that country alone. Rather, the situation there is representative of a phenomenon seen throughout the world. Though this book addresses indigeneity in Mexico specifically, it has far-reaching implications for the study of indigenaety across Latin America and beyond. Much like the late Edward SaidÕs Orientalism, this book provides a glimpse at the very real effects of literary and intellectual discourse on those living in the margins of society. This bookÕs interdisciplinary approach makes it an essential foundation for research in the fields of anthropology, history, literary critique, sociology, and cultural studies. While the book is ideal for a scholarly audience, the accessible writing and scope of the analysis make it of interest to lay audiences as well. It is a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the politics of indigeneity in Mexico and beyond.

The Affinity of the Eye

Author : Ignacio L—pez-Calvo
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816525986
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis The Affinity of the Eye by : Ignacio L—pez-Calvo

Download or read book The Affinity of the Eye written by Ignacio L—pez-Calvo and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: López-Calvo uses contemporary Nikkei texts such as fiction, testimonies, and poetry to construct an account of the cultural formation of Japanese migrant communities, and in so doing challenges fixed notions of Japanese Peruvian identity.

Orientalism

Author : Edward W. Said
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0804153868
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Orientalism by : Edward W. Said

Download or read book Orientalism written by Edward W. Said and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than three decades after its first publication, Edward Said's groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East has become a modern classic. In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its position of power, defined "the orient" simply as "other than" the occident. This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world.

Orientalism in the Hispanic Literary Tradition

Author : Julia Alexis Kushigian
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Orientalism in the Hispanic Literary Tradition by : Julia Alexis Kushigian

Download or read book Orientalism in the Hispanic Literary Tradition written by Julia Alexis Kushigian and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Representations of China in Latin American Literature (1987-2016)

Author : Maria Montt Strabucchi
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
ISBN 13 : 1835535658
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (355 download)

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Book Synopsis Representations of China in Latin American Literature (1987-2016) by : Maria Montt Strabucchi

Download or read book Representations of China in Latin American Literature (1987-2016) written by Maria Montt Strabucchi and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library as part of the Opening the Future project with COPIM. Representations of China in Latin American Literature (1987-2016) analyses contemporary Latin American novels in which China is the main theme. Using ‘China’ as a multidimensional term, it explores how the novels both highlight and undermine assumptions about China that have shaped Latin America’s understanding of ‘China’ and shows ‘China’ to be a kind of literary/imaginary ‘third’ term which reframes Latin American discourses of alterity. On one level, it argues that these texts play with the way that ‘China’ stands in as a wandering signifier and as a metonym for Asia, a gesture that essentialises it as an unchanging other. On another level, it argues that the novels’ employment of ‘China’ resists essentialist constructions of identity. ‘China’ is thus shown to be serving as a concept which allows for criticism of the construction of fetishized otherness and of the exclusion inherent in essentialist discourses of identity. The book presents and analyses the depiction of an imaginary of China which is arguably performative, but which discloses the tropes and themes which may be both established and subverted, in the novels. Chapter One examines the way in which ‘China’ is represented and constructed in Latin American novels where this country is a setting for their stories. The novels studied in Chapter Two are linked to the presence of Chinese communities in Latin America. The final chapter examines novels whose main theme is travel to contemporary China. Ultimately, in the novels studied in this book ‘China’ serves as a concept through which essentialist notions of identity are critiqued.