Reinventing Modernity In Latin America

This is an exploration of how Latin America developed an alternative modernity during the early twentieth century, one that challenges the key assumptions of the Western dominant model.

An enlightening account of the entwined histories of knowledge and nationhood in Latin America—and beyond The rise of nation-states is a hallmark of the modern age, yet we are still untangling how the phenomenon unfolded across the globe. Here, Nicola Miller offers new insights into the process of nation-making through an account of nineteenth-century Latin America, where, she argues, the identity of nascent republics was molded through previously underappreciated means: the creation and sharing of knowledge. Drawing evidence from Argentina, Chile, and Peru, Republics of Knowledge traces the histories of these countries from the early 1800s, as they gained independence, to their centennial celebrations in the twentieth century. Miller identifies how public exchange of ideas affected policymaking, the emergence of a collective identity, and more. She finds that instead of defining themselves through language or culture, these new nations united citizens under the promise of widespread access to modern information. Miller challenges the narrative that modernization was a strictly North Atlantic affair, demonstrating that knowledge traveled both ways between Latin America and Europe. And she looks at how certain forms of knowledge came to be seen as more legitimate and valuable than others, both locally and globally. Miller ultimately suggests that all modern nations can be viewed as communities of shared knowledge, a perspective with the power to reshape our conception of the very basis of nationhood. With its transnational framework and cross-disciplinary approach, Republics of Knowledge opens new avenues for understanding the histories of modern nations—and the foundations of modernity—the world over.

In this important new book Jorge Larrain examines the trajectories of modernity and identity in Latin America and their reciprocal relationships. Drawing on a large body of work across a vast historical and geographical range, he offers an innovative and wide-ranging account of the cultural transformations and processes of modernization that have occurred in Latin America since colonial times. The book begins with a theoretical discussion of the concepts of modernity and identity. In contrast to theories which present modernity and identity in Latin America as mutually excluding phenomena, the book shows their continuity and interconnection. It also traces historically the respects in which the Latin American trajectory to modernity differs from or converges with other trajectories, using this as a basis to explore specific elements of Latin America's culture and modernity today. The originality of Larrain's approach lies in the wide coverage and combination of sources drawn from the social sciences, history and literature. The volume relates social commentaries, literary works and media developments to the periods covered, to the changing social end economic structure, and to changes in the prevailing ideologies. This book will appeal to second and third-year undergraduates and Masters level students doing courses in sociology, cultural studies and Latin American history, politics and literature. .

Modernity in Latin America is defined above all by its multi-layered, kaleidoscopic quality. Reminiscent of Octavio Paz's labyrinth, it is a modernity which has accommodated a piling-on of new traditions to old, a blending of external cultures with local, and of high cultures with more popular ones—mixes which allowed a rich and celebratory avant-garde movement, for example, to emerge in the 1920s, and prompted the explosive growth of cities like Rio de Janeiro. Many such cultural (as well as technological) innovations have occurred without equivalent changes in social and political life, however, and so the region has also been at the mercy of what might be termed an uneven development in many of its civic institutions. In this prestigious volume of original essays, many of the best writers on the region are brought together to examine the nature and manifestations of a specifically Latin American modernity. Beatriz Sarlo and Nicolau Sevcenko write about Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo in an exploration of twentieth century urban experience and shifting patterns of migration and immigration; Renato Ortiz and Ana Lopez look at mass media and the ways in which radio, television and cinema have shaped modernity; Jose Jorge de Carvalho, Jose de Souza Martins and Nelson Manrique address questions of religion, politics, ideology and social movements; Gwen Kirkpatrick and Beatriz Rezende explore the intricacies of artistic and literary modernism; and Nestor Canclini and Ruben Oliven open the collection with essays which unravel the many forces – the legacy of slavery, the freedom from an unquestioning faith in development and 'progress', the impact of globalisation – that have given rise to a characteristically hybrid modernity.

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.

Why is it that Japan, with few natural resources, has become one of the world's leading economies but not Latin America, which is so rich in natural resources? This anthropological essay questions the Euro-centric notion of modernity and modernization and argues that Latin America has to find its own form of modernity, one which accepts and reflects its owntraditions. As long as a Western Model is grafted on to Latin American societies, modernization is bound to fail. After examining the history and peculiarities of these societies and their cultures, from the pre-Colombian era to the present, the author develops what could become the framework for a future, "indigenous" model.

Restructured to offer a more thematic approach Designed to be more student friendly, with new features including chapter summaries, a glossary of Spanish phrases and acronyms All the chapters have been substantially revised and a new chapter on livelihoods and place, as well as a concluding chapter, have been added. All the chapters have been substantially revised and a new chapter on livlihoods and place, as well as a concluding chapter, have been added.

With a Foreword by José David Saldívar Since its first publication in Spanish nearly a decade ago, Julio Ramos’s Desenucuentros de la modernidad en America Latina por el siglo XIX has been recognized as one of the most important studies of modernity in the western hemisphere. Available for the first time in English—and now published with new material—Ramos’s study not only offers an analysis of the complex relationships between history, literature, and nation-building in the modern Latin American context but also takes crucial steps toward the development of a truly comparative inter-American cultural criticism. With his focus on the nineteenth century, Ramos begins his genealogy of an emerging Latin Americanism with an examination of Argentinean Domingo Sarmiento and Chilean Andrés Bello, representing the “enlightened letrados” of tradition. In contrast to these “lettered men,” he turns to Cuban journalist, revolutionary, and poet José Martí, who, Ramos suggests, inaugurated a new kind of intellectual subject for the Americas. Though tracing Latin American modernity in general, it is the analysis of Martí—particularly his work in the United States—that becomes the focal point of Ramos’s study. Martí’s confrontation with the unequal modernization of the New World, the dependent status of Latin America, and the contrast between Latin America’s culture of elites and the northern mass culture of commodification are, for Ramos, key elements in understanding the complex Latin American experience of modernity. Including two new chapters written for this edition, as well as translations of three of Martí’s most important works, Divergent Modernities will be indispensable for anyone seeking to understand development and modernity across the Americas.

Samba and carnival, radio soaps and telenovelas, oral poetry, popular drama, Amerindian art. This illustrated overview of Latin America’s popular culture considers the broad spectrum of cultural forms in the various countries of the subcontinent. Exploring the ways in which daily life and ritual have resisted and been influenced by Western mass culture, Memory and Modernity traces the main anthropological, sociological and political debates about the nature of popular culture. Rowe and Schelling use their analysis of the development of a culture industry in Latin America to engage with wider debates about modernity, drawing out the contrast between Latin America’s cultural wealth and its widespread material poverty. In challenging the assumptions of much Western cultural criticism, this book will be essential reading for students of Latin American society, while offering the general reader a concise and accessible overview of an exciting and varied popular culture.