Poetics of Race in Latin America: (Anthem Studies in Latin American Literature and Culture)

Poetics of Race constitutes a critically and theoretically innovative analysis of racial and ethnic dynamics in Latin America, and their symbolic artistic, ideological representation. The book illustrates the relevance of cultural and racial minorities in different national contexts (particularly in Mexico, Brazil, the Andean region and the Caribbean) through the study of literary, filmic and visual productions that depict otherness, marginalization and popular resistance. The book focuses on negritude,indigenous cultures, andinismo, performance and cinematic discourses in which racial issues are displayed, elaborated and symbolized. The various critical approaches utilized in this volume also contribute to expand methodological horizons in the field while contributing to widening the corpus of literary texts and cultural practices in this area of studies.

Table of Contents:
Notes on Contributors; Introduction The Poetics of Race and the “Color Line”; Mabel Moraña, Part I. PRISMS OF RACE: CARIBBEAN AND BRAZILIAN ENCOUNTERS; Chapter 1. Blackness, Postslavery, and What Never Ceases Not to Write Itself; Horacio Legrás, Chapter 2. Etched in Sugar, Soil, Metal and Blood: The Plantationocene and the Afterlives of Racialized Plantation in Contemporary Cuban Art; Elzbieta Sklodowska, Chapter 3. Policies of Repair in “Black” Female Poetics: Nancy Morejón and Astrid Roemer; Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger, Chapter 4. The Rise of the Black Hero: Heroic Imagination and Print Culture in Nineteenth-Century Brazil; María Alejandra Aguilar Dornelles, Part II. COLORING OTHERNESS IN MEXICO; Chapter 5. Phantasms of Our Deluded Eyes: Race in the Era of Cinematic Movement; Adela Pineda Franco, Chapter 6. Marking Race and Class Privilege in Contemporary Mexican Cinema; Mónica García Blizzard, Chapter 7. The Limits of Nihonjinron: Issei Immigrants’ Literary Representation of Japaneseness in Mexico; Ignacio López-Calvo, Part III. INDIGENOUS SUBJECTS: REPRESENTATION AND RESISTANCE; Chapter 8. What Indigenous Literatures Tell Us about Race; Arturo Arias, Chapter 9. Yuyachkani’s Andinismo: Performing (toward) a Poetics of Race; Anne Lambright, Chapter 10. Antiracist Spatial Narratives in Daniel Munduruku’s Crônicas De São Paulo: Indigenous Place-Names and Migration in the Paulista Capital City; Christian Elguera; Index

About the Author :
Mabel Moraa is William H Gass Professor of Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. She has published over 20 authored and more than 30 edited volumes on Latin American literature and cultural theory.

Review :
“This book offers a series of updated essays on how the concept of race is configured in peculiar ways in literature, cinema and other cultural expressions from Latin America during the modern period. It is a useful and recommendable compilation of outstanding authors in the international academy.” – José Antonio Mazzotti, Tufts University, USA. “The book is a highly innovative and valuable contribution to racial cultural studies in Latin America, based on several axes of reflection: the ethnic pluralities addressed, the social, political, and cultural issues dealt with. Articulated in three well-balanced parts, this is a book that enters fully into a very current debate, developed in other world cultures but not in the case of Latin American culture, whose historical and epistemic peculiarities make it very rich and profitable for the application of this approach. It will undoubtedly be a reference book in future studies of race in Latin American society, arts, and cultures.” – Dr Ana Gallego Cuiñas, Universidad de Granada, Spain. “The Poetics of Race is a groundbreaking book that focuses on the intricated notion of race in Latin America and the unjust distributions of power and the mechanics of exclusion and belonging. The essays analyze the different cultural contexts (Cuba, Mexico, etc.) and contribute to deconstructing racism and building avenues for decolonization and fairness. It comprises the vast countries of the Americas into one book and presents contemporary discussions and current research.” – Dr. Martín Camps, University of the Pacific, USA.