Late Book Culture in Argentina

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Modern literary culture depended on the medium of the print book. Today, with the advent of digital technologies, it is far from apparent that print is, or should be, the vehicle of choice for contemporary writers. Print has been placed in relief, as the book becomes a site of experimentation with new platforms for writing. Among Latin American countries, none has been as crucial player in the world of print as Argentina. Argentine presses were the channel for many of the great modern literary experiments in Latin America. As such, it comes as no surprise that today, when those same presses have been gobbled up by transnational media conglomerates and digital technologies abound, Argentine writers would be attentive to the shifting media of literature. Late Book Culture in Argentina chronicles that shift. Epplin offers readings of some of the most innovative Argentine writers and collective projects of recent years: Osvaldo Lamborghini, Csar Aira, the cardboard publishing house Elosa Cartonera, the poetry project Estacin Pringles, Sergio Chejfec, and Pablo Katchadjian. This corpus provides a lens through which to understand the numerous experiments with literary formats in Argentina today. These experiments take on a number of formsdigital, artisanal, and collectiveand they provide the ferment for some of Argentinas most audacious contemporary literature. As such they deserve critical attention and theoretical examination.

Reviews

From the very first pages, Epplin fights against the tendency to view literary production as coterminous with the book. He has accumulated a set of stimulating and compelling examples of literature, of which have in common the problematization or the outright rejection of the book-object as the neutral form in which literary content is disseminated. ... Epplins study presents a deep, engaged interpretation of one particular local manifestation of late book culture ... Epplins monograph will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Argentine literature, and it will surely provide an important reference point for future comparative studies of global book culture and media-specific analysis. * Hispanfila *
Epplins ... focused study analyz[es] the ways in which the book has experienced transformations as both subject and object in contemporary Argentina and Cala Buendias examining cultural products' in Bogota, Peru, and Argentina and the strategies by which these acts of cultural production contributed to social change. Epplin does an admirable job balancing textual and extra textual analysis, considering, one might say, the book from the outside and the inside. ... Epplin shows the vibrant intermingling of text, book, and digital media in contemporary Argentina. * Revista Hispanica Moderna *
[T]his is a very interesting, well-researched, timely book. It is a valuable contribution for Hispanists as well as for those interested in cultural theory and the changing trends of literary practice. * Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. 52, Issue 1, January 2016 *
Craig Epplin has written a great little book about other little books. Epplin repeats that his little book about other little books is not to be interpreted as a snapshot of the canary in the coal mine of the possibility of serious mainstream Argentine literature. But he argues that these little books are more significant. And he does leave open the question of to what extent this new literary landscape should change the way we should read and interpret the books themselvesespecially if the ones that matter are merely the residue of the experience of writing. ... I am also excited to try to expand his ideas and paradigms to authors he did not make room forFresn, Chitarroni, Pauls, Kohan, Cabezn Cmara, and to other spaces that seem relevant to late book culture ... Late Book Culture in Argentina can help reshape many of the debates about Argentine, and possibly all Latin American, literature in the twenty-first century. -- Patrick J. OConnor, Oberlin College, USA * Revista de Estudios Hispnicos, Vol. 50, No. 1, March 2016 *
Epplins work, at least in theoretical terms, is the most ambitious of the volumes under consideration. Its title, Late Book Culture in Argentina, reveals immediately the intention to comment on writing and publishing in a way that transcends national boundaries, even if his corpus stays within them. Epplins is a far-reaching and smart book, and he maintains comparisons and connections that may not seem at first obvious to many readers. * "Recent Works on Poetry, Publishing and Performance in the Southern Cone," Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (Ben Bollig, University of Oxford, UK) *
Craig Epplin's Late Book Culture in Argentina is a superbly engaging, precisely written analysis of Argentine culture's grappling with the inevitable changes brought about by the advent of digital technologies. The expected account of digital platforms is put aside, and the reader is instead surprised by Epplin's masterful and novel perception of Osvaldo Lamborghini's obsession with the hand-made, artisanal as ready-made, as the degree zero of the paradigm shift in book culture. That is, Epplin does not go and give us the lineage of the rise of digital works in Argentina per se, but of the return (because Macedonio Fernadez emerges as the forerunner) of an 'uncreative' kernel that has re-emerged with renewed strength in the last couple decades and that is at the heart of what many media theorists have termed 'remixing'. The last chapter on Katchadjian is a real tour de force. Epplin's book opens a new chapter in the historiography of Argentine literature. Late Book Culture will soon be a must read. -- Natalia Brizuela, Associate Professor of Spanish & Portuguese, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Epplin provides a timely and thoroughly-researched critical ethnography of avant-garde literary practices in Argentina. Late Book Culture in Argentina will be of interest to specialists and general readers alike. -- Hctor Hoyos, Assistant Professor of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, Stanford University, USA, and author of Beyond Bolao: The Global Latin American Novel
Late Book Culture in Argentina offers the reader an impeccable balance between close reading, cultural theory, and socio-historical contextualization. Scholars working on contemporary Argentina and academics interested in material culture or book history will find in this study illuminating discussions of some of the major theoretical debates in these fields. -- Vernica Garibotto, Assistant Professor of Spanish, University of Kansas, USA
This book is a subtle exploration of the limits of the literary practice. Epplin reflects on the intersections of literature, aesthetics, material production, and distribution of books, where he finds the possibilities for contemporary experimentation. In a brilliant counterpoint, his arguments highlight local works in a global media context. -- Graciela Montaldo, Professor of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University, USA

Author Bio

Craig Epplin is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Portland State University, USA. He has published articles on Latin American literature, film, and media culture.