Mexican Literature in Theory

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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.

Reviews

The 15 essays offer readings of a wide range of textssome familiar, some newerthrough theoretical lenses that are often surprising. For example, there is a compelling essay on Rosario Castellanos's Baln Cann and its connections to the Southern gothic; Guadalupe Nettel's El cuerpo en que nac is read with disability theory; and Jos Ramn Ruisnchez 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 *
The book serves as a good primer on recent theoretical approaches to Mexican literature, and it will be a valuable resource for graduate courses on Mexican literature as well as for critics looking to keep up to date with recent developments in the field. * Literary Research *
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 Castellanoss novel, Baln-Cann. 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 *
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 *
Snchez 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, Snchez 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 *
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 literatures 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 gnero en la literatura mexicana contempornea (2014) *

Author Bio

Ignacio M. Snchez 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 reinvencin 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 acadmico 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).