Colonialism Past and Present

Description

This collection of essays offers alternative readings of historical and literary texts produced during Latin America's colonial period. By considering the political and ideological implications of the texts' interpretation yesterday and today, it attempts to "decolonize" the field of Latin American studies and promote an ethical, interdisciplinary practice that does not falsify or appropriate knowledge produced by both the colonial subjects of the past and the oppressed subjects of the present.

Using recent developments in postcolonial theory, the contributors challenge traditional approaches to Hispanism. The colonial situation under which these texts were composed, with all its injustices and prejudices, still lingers, and most studies have consistently avoided the connection between this colonial legacy and the situation of disenfranchised groups today. Colonialism Past and Present challenges discursive strategies that celebrate only European cultural traits, dismiss non-European cultural legacies, and solidify constructions of national projects considered natural extensions of European civilization since independence from Spain.
1. Colonialism Now and Then: Colonial Latin American Studies in the Light of the Predicament of Latin Americanism.
Gustavo Verdesio

2. On the issues of Academic Colonization and Responsibility when Reading and Writing about Colonial Latin America today.
Alvaro Lelix Bolanos

3. Pre-Columbian Pasts and Indian Presents in Mexican History.
Jose Rabasa

4. Confronting Imaginations: Towards an alternative reading of the Codice Mendoza.
Cora Lagos

5. Narrating Colonial Interventions: Dom Diego de Torres, Cacique of Turmeque in the New Kingdom of Granada.
Luis Fernando Restrepo

6. (Post-)colonial Sublime: Order and Indeterminacy in Eighteenth-century Spanish American Poetics and Aesthetics.
Antony Higgins

7. Gendered Crime and Punishment in New Spain: Inquisitional Cases Against Ilusas.
Stacey Schlau

8. Representing Gender, Deviance, and Heterogeneity in the Eighteenth-century Peruvian Newspaper Mercurio Peruano.
Mariselle Melendez

9. The Dragon and the Seashell: British Corsairs, Epic Poetry, and Creole Nation in Viceregal Peru.
Jose Antonio Mazzotti

11. History and Plunder in El Carnero: Writing, among Indians, a History of Spaniards and Euro-Americans in Colonial Spanish America.
Alvaro Felix Bolanos

10. The Literary Appropriation of the American Landscape: The Historical Novels of Abel Posse and Juan Jose Saei and Their Critics.
Gustavo Verdersio

Afterword
Sara Castro-Klaren

Sujets

• América del Sur
• South America
• History of the Americas
• Central America
• SS Central America

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780791489765
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Colonialism Past and Present

SUNY series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture

Jorge J.E. Gracia and Rosemary Geisdorfer Feal, Editors

Colonialism Past and Presen

t

Reading and Writing about Colonial Latin America Today

Edited by Alvaro Félix Bolaños and Gustavo Verdesio

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2002 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, N.Y. 12207

Production by Michael Haggett Marketing by Anne M. Valentine

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Colonialism past and present : reading and writing about colonial Latin America today / edited by Alvaro F. Bolaños and Gustavo Verdesio. p. cm.— (SUNY series in Latin American and Iberian thought and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5145-3 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-7914-5146-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Latin America—Civilization. 2. Latin America—History—To 1830— Historiography. 3. Latin America—Social conditions. 4. Latin America—In literature. 5. Spanish American literature—Social aspects. 6. Spanish American literature—History and criticism. I. Bolaños, Alvaro Félix, 1955- II. Verdesio, Gustavo. III. Series.

F1412 .C643 2001 980—dc21 2001042008

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To Lisa M. Schuhmacher and Pamela K. Gilbert

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Contents

Colonialism Now and Then: Colonial Latin American Studies in the Light of the Predicament of Latin Americanism Gustavo Verdesio

On the Issues of Academic Colonization and Responsibility when Reading and Writing about Colonial Latin America today Alvaro Félix Bolaños Pre-Columbian Pasts and Indian Presents in Mexican History José Rabasa Confronting Imaginations: Towards an alternative reading of theCodex Mendoza Cora Lagos Narrating Colonial Interventions: Don Diego de Torres,Caciqueof Turmequé in the New Kingdom of Granada Luis Fernando Restrepo (Post-)Colonial Sublime: Order and Indeterminacy in Eighteenth-century Spanish American Poetics and Aesthetics Antony Higgins Gendered Crime and Punishment in New Spain: Inquisitional Cases AgainstIlusas Stacey Schlau Representing Gender, Deviance, and Heterogeneity in the Eighteenth-Century Peruvian NewspaperMercurio Peruano Mariselle Meléndez

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The Dragon and the Seashell: British Corsairs, Epic Poetry and Creole Nation in Viceregal Peru José Antonio Mazzotti History and Plunder inEl carnero: Writing, among Indians, a History of Spaniards and Euro-Americans in Colonial Spanish America Alvaro Félix Bolaños The Literary Appropriation of the American Landscape: The Historical Novels of Abel Posse and Juan José Saer and Their Critics Gustavo Verdesio Afterword: “Writing with his thumb in the air”: Coloniality, Past and Present Sara Castro-Klarén Index

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Colonialism Now and Then

Colonial Latin American Studies in the Light of the Predicament of Latin Americanism

Gustavo Verdesio

The need for a study of colonial Latin America may not require, in this day and age, a whole lot of justification. However, it may still be important to emphasize the connections between the colonial past (that is, the object of Latin American colonial studies) and the present. The idea behind this project is, then, to pre- sent the reader with studies of colonial topics and issues that, at the same time, pay attention to the consequences the colonial situation being analyzed has for the different Latin American peoples and ethnic groups of present-day inde- 1 pendent republics. In other words, what this volume is proposing is, following the ideas advanced by José Rabasa in the article included here, to establish a nexus between the “antiquities” we study and the current situation of the de- scendants of the human contingents who shared the colonial experience, be- 2 tween the colonial situations of the past and the colonial legacies of the present. In this book, then, the concept “colonial legacies” plays an important role. However, in a recent article, Ricardo Kaliman has questioned the utility of the notion of colonial legacies for an understanding of the present. In his opinion, that concept, “though it is used in the desire to reveal and condemn, is in fact limited to emphasizing the analogy that can be established between cultural elements in the past and in the present, and generally ignoring the specific form that these elements assume in practical contemporary consciousness” (1998, 263). In other words, what Kaliman sees as a flaw in the notion is that it suggests that “the colonial structures were passed on to subsequent society in a compact and stable block” (263). I am persuaded that Kaliman misinterprets the meaning the expression “colonial legacies” has in Walter Mignolo’s work, for whom the relationship between past and present is not a self-evident one: scholars need to dig in the past in order to see the connection between it and

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