Description
In this original study, Gabriel Horowitz examines the work of select nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American writers through the lens of contemporary theoretical debates about nature, postcoloniality, and national identity. In the work of José Martí, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Jorge Luis Borges, Augusto Roa Bastos, Cesar Aira, and others, he traces historical constructions of nature in regional intellectual traditions and texts as they inform political culture on the broader global stage. By investigating national literary discourses from Cuba, Argentina, and Paraguay, he identifies a common narrative thread that imagines the utopian wilderness of the New World as a symbolic site of independence from Spain. In these texts, Horowitz argues, an expressed desire to return to the nation's foundational nature contributed to a movement away from political and social engagement and toward a "biopolitical state," in which nature, traditionally seen as pre-political, conversely becomes its center.
Author: Gabriel Horowitz
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Published: 10/13/2023
Pages: 176
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
ISBN13: 9781684484997
ISBN10: 1684484995
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Caribbean & Latin American
- Political Science | Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | Caribbean & Latin American Studies
About the Author
Gabriel Horowitz is an assistant professor of Spanish at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.