Synopses & Reviews
Modernity has been a key issue for Latin Americans and Latin Americanists for decades. Did Latin America come early or late to modernity? Was modernity imposed from outside the region, or has it been reinvented from within? Is modernity monolithic or multiple? The literature on the subject is rich, but--like Latin American modernity itself is often said to be--it is also fragmented, supplying contradictory answers to all these crucial questions. When Was Latin America Modern? is the first work to bring scholars from history, social science and cultural studies together in a fascinating series of debates about what it has meant to be modern in Latin America.
Review
"This collection of essays provides a very important contribution to the analysis of the discourse, practices and institutions of modernity in Latin America. Rather than agreeing on the usefulness of the analytical place of modernity, the authors--who come from various disciplines and are leading experts on different countries--disagree and debate implicitly with one another. This creates a collection that serves as a fascinating tool for learning about the ambiguous and tension-ridden connections of Latin American societies to some of the central ideas and institutions of Western modernity."
--Luis Roniger, Reynolds Professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies, Wake Forest University
Synopsis
Stemming from an interdisciplinary convention in 2005 at the Institute for the Studies of the Americas in London, this collection has a strong thematic integrity, but also illustrates the dramatic variety of approaches to the question of modernity. This volume fills the gaps in prior literature on Latin America's experience of modernity.
Synopsis
Modernity has been a key issue for Latin Americans and Latin Americanists for decades. Did Latin America come early or late to modernity? Was modernity imposed from outside the region, or has it been reinvented from within? Is modernity monolithic or multiple? The literature on the subject is rich, but--like Latin American modernity itself is often said to be--it is also fragmented, supplying contradictory answers to all these crucial questions. When Was Latin America Modern? is the first work to bring scholars from history, social science and cultural studies together in a fascinating series of debates about what it has meant to be modern in Latin America.
About the Author
Nicola Miller is Reader in Latin American History at University College London. Her previous books include
Soviet Relations with Latin America, 1959-1987 (1989) and
In the Shadow of the State: Intellectuals and the Quest for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Spanish America (1999). She is currently working on a history of intellectuals and modernity in Latin America.
Stephen Hart was educated at Downing College, Cambridge, and is Professor of Hispanic Studies at University College London, where he teaches courses on Latin American literature and film. He has published A Companion to Spanish American Literature (1999), A Companion to Latin American Film (2004) and co-edited Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies (2003). He holds an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, and has been awarded the Orden al Mérito by the Peruvian government for his work on César Vallejo.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Modernity in Latin America--Nicola Miller *
PART I: VIEWS FROM THE HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES * Geographies of Modernity in Latin America: Uneven and Contested Development--Sarah Radcliffe * Modernity and Tradition: Shifting Boundaries, Shifting Contexts--Peter Wade * Mid-Nineteenth-Century Modernities in the Hispanic World--Guy Thomson * Nationalism and History in Nineteenth-Century Spanish America--Rebecca Earle * When Was Latin America Modern?: A Historian's Response--Alan Knight *
PART II: VIEWS FROM LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES * When Was Peru Modern?: On Declarations of Modernity in Peru--William Rowe * Belatedness as Critical Project: Machado de Assis and the Author as Plagiarist--João Cézar de Castro Rocha * Cuban Cinema: A Long Journey Towards the Light--Julio García Espinosa * Culture and Communication in Inter-American Relations: The Current State of an Asymmetric Debate--Néstor García Canclini * Conclusion: When Was Latin America Modern?--Laurence Whitehead