Hemispheric Imaginations: North American Fictions of Latin America

by Helmbrecht Breinig

Overview

What image of Latin America have North American fiction writers created, found, or echoed, and how has the prevailing discourse about the region shaped their work? How have their writings contributed to the discursive construction of our southern neighbors, and how has the literature undermined this construction and added layers of complexity that subvert any approach based on stereotypes? Combining American Studies, Canadian Studies, Latin American Studies, and Cultural Theory, Breinig relies on long scholarly experience to answer these and other questions. Hemispheric Imaginations, an ambitious interdisciplinary study of literary representations of Latin America as encounters with the other, is among the most extensive such studies to date. It will appeal to a broad range of scholars of American Studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611689907
Publisher:	Dartmouth College Press
Publication date:	12/06/2016
Series:	Re-Mapping the Transnational: A Dartmouth Series in American Studies Series
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

HELMBRECHT BREINIG is professor emeritus of American Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and founding director of the Bavarian American Academy, Munich. He is the author of numerous books and articles on US literature from the eighteenth century to the present, Inter-American studies, Native American studies, and cultural theory.

Table of Contents

Preface • PART I • Introduction • Alterity and Identity: Reflections on Approaching the Other • PART II • Foundational Narratives: Some Versions of Columbus • Invasive Methods: The Opening of Latin America in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century US Literature • Representations of the Mexican Revolution in US Literature • PART III • Nature and Civilization: Nineteenth-Century Travelers and Twentieth-Century Escapists • Gendered Perceptions of Latin America in Twentieth-Century US Literature • PART IV • The Post-Vietnam Era: Versions of Realism • The Postmodern Response: Magical Realism and Metafiction • Splintered Foundations: Postmodern and Native American Versions of Columbus • PART V • Canada and Latin America: Malcolm Lowry and the Other as Symbolic Field • Post-Vietnam and Twenty-First-Century Canadian Visitors • Postscript • Notes • Bibliography • Index

What People are Saying About This

Ralph Bauer

“Remarkable for the ambition of its historical scope and the incisiveness of its critical analyses, this book is a landmark study in Hemispheric American literary scholarship. Engaging with both ‘classic’ and popular literary texts about Latin America written in the United States and Canada from the eighteenth century to the present by a diverse array of authors, it will be indispensable for all future investigations of the Anglo-American literary imagination about Latin America.”

Editorial Reviews

“Breinig’s book opens an overdue trajectory. The kind of inquiry he embarks on is important, insightful, and thought provoking, and it resonates strongly beyond the materials analyzed (or the geographical scope targeted).”—Journal of Canadian Studies

From the Publisher