Mexican Literature in Theory

by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado (Editor)

Overview

Mexican Literature in Theory is the first book in any language to engage post-independence Mexican literature from the perspective of current debates in literary and cultural theory. It brings together scholars whose work is defined both by their innovations in the study of Mexican literature and by the theoretical sophistication of their scholarship.

Mexican Literature in Theory provides the reader with two contributions. First, it is one of the most complete accounts of Mexican literature available, covering both canonical texts as well as the most important works in contemporary production. Second, each one of the essays is in itself an important contribution to the elucidation of specific texts. Scholars and students in fields such as Latin American studies, comparative literature and literary theory will find in this book compelling readings of literature from a theoretical perspective, methodological suggestions as to how to use current theory in the study of literature, and important debates and revisions of major theoretical works through the lens of Mexican literary works.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501355769
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/25/2019
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado is Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Washington University in Saint Louis, USA. He is the author of El canon y sus formas: La reinvención de Harold Bloom y sus lecturas hispanoamericanas (2002), Naciones intelectuales: Las fundaciones de la modernidad literaria mexicana 1917-1959 (2009, winner of the LASA Mexico 2010 Humanities Book Award), Intermitencias americanistas: Ensayos académico y literarios 2004-2009 (2012), Screening Neoliberalism: Transforming Mexican Cinema 1988-2012 (2014), and Strategic Occidentalism: "World Literature," Mexican Fiction and the Neoliberalization of the Book Market (forthcoming).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
2. Into the 'Oriental' Zone: Edward Said and Mexican Literature
Laura Torres-Rodríguez (New York University, USA)
3. The Perils of Ownership: Property and Literature in 19th-Century Mexico
Ana Sabau (University of Michigan, USA)
4. Pale Theory: Amado Nervo and the Absential
José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra (University of Houston, USA)
5. Mexican Revolution and Literary Form: Reflections on Nellie Campobello's Cartucho
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
6. The Nature of Revolution in Rafael F. Muñoz's Se llevaron el cañon para Bachimba
Carolyn Fornoff (Lycoming College, USA)
7. Reading Rulfo between Benjamin and Derrida: End of Story
Bruno Bosteels (Cornell University, USA)
8. Rosario Castellanos' Southern Gothic: Indigenous Labor, Land Reform and the Production of Ladina Subjectivity
Ericka Beckman (University of Illinois, USA)
9. Beginnings of José Emilio Pacheco
Christina Soto van der Plas (Cornell University / University of California Riverside, USA)
10. A Theory of Trauma and the Historical Novel: A Small Theoretical Treaty on Fernando del Paso's Noticias del Imperio
Pedro Ángel Palou (Tufts University, USA)
11. Embodiment Envy: Love, Sex and Death in Pedro Ángel Palou's Con la muerte en los puños
Rebecca Janzen (University of South Carolina, USA)
12. Visualizing the Nonnormative Body in Guadalupe Nettel's El cuerpo en que nací
Lilia Adriana Pérez Limón (University of Oklahoma-Norman, USA)
13. Fictions of Sovereignty: The Narconovel, National Security and Mexico's Criminal Governmentality
Oswaldo Zavala (The College of Staten Island & The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA)
14. Writing and the Body: Interfaces of Violence in Neoliberal Mexico
Roberto Cruz Arzabal (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico)
15. The Politics of Infrastructure in Contemporary Mexican Writing
Brian Whitener (University of South Alabama, USA)
16. 'Dickens + MP3 ÷ Balzac + JPEG' or, Art and the Value of Innovation in the Contemporary Mexican Novel
Emilio Sauri (University of Massachusetts-Boston, USA)

Notes on Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Mexican Literature in Theory assembles some of the best contemporary scholarship in the field to produce a collection that is remarkable in both quality and scope, informed by theories of Orientalism, ecocriticism, state sovereignty and the political, neoliberal violence, and the politics of infrastructure, among many others. By refusing to be constrained by a programmatic definition of 'theory, ' the essays in this volume together offer innovative and timely articulations of the processes through which Mexican literature becomes a site for the unfolding and evolution of critical methodologies." --Susan Antebi, Associate Professor of Latin American Literature, University of Toronto, Canada

"Sánchez Prado has gathered an exciting range of critical essays by (mostly) US-based Mexicanists, many of whom are young and vital scholars establishing a foothold in the academy. Their lively critical interventions are important engagements with the literary texts that interrogate and build upon the existing scholarship. In his introduction, Sánchez Prado's ability to synthesise and situate the essays within a national and global intellectual and political context provides both a broad and deep understanding of the significance of these essays. This collection should be a mainstay on university reading lists as well as an important new resource for researchers in the field." --Niamh Thornton, Reader in Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool, UK

"Mexican Literature in Theory manages to seamlessly combine rich textual analysis, theoretical sophistication and contextual depth in a series of brilliant essays, many of which are by young and emerging scholars. These essays range from an illuminating re-reading of Amado Nervo, through a nuanced analysis of the disabled body in the work of Guadalupe Nettel, to a challenging re-appraisal of racial subjectivities in Rosario Castellanos's novel, Balún-Canán. These are but some of the many highlights from a collection that provides a snapshot of a seam of deeply challenging thinking within Mexican literary criticism in the current moment." --Nuala Finnegan, Professor in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies and Director of the Centre for Mexican Studies, University College Cork, Ireland

"A rich sample of contemporary criticism that presents Mexican literature as a fruitful source of theoretical knowledge, from the early nineteenth century to the present. In their readings of canonical and unorthodox texts, the critics gathered in this volume successfully explore Mexican literature's subversive undertones in a neoliberal era of polemical theories." --Oswaldo Estrada, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, and author of Ser mujer y estar presente: Disidencias de género en la literatura mexicana contemporánea (2014)

"The 15 essays offer readings of a wide range of texts-some familiar, some newer-through theoretical lenses that are often surprising. For example, there is a compelling essay on Rosario Castellanos's Balún Canán and its connections to the Southern gothic; Guadalupe Nettel's El cuerpo en que nací is read with disability theory; and José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra's theory of the "absential" is used in reading the work of Amado Nervo. The collection also offers essays on the literature of the Mexican Revolution, violence in contemporary Mexico, and the cartonera publishing scene in Mexico. Summing Up: Highly recommended." --CHOICE

From the Publisher