Lorraine Leu

Ben Bollig

Rory O'Bryen

Jens Andermann

Daniel Mosquera

David M. J. Wood

Featuring twenty-five key essays from the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (Traves/sia), this book surveys the most influential themes and concepts, as well as scouring some of the polemics and controversies, which have marked the field over the last quarter of a century since the Journal's foundation in 1992. Emerging at a moment of crisis of revolutionary narratives, and at the onset of neoliberal economics and emergent narcopolitics, the cultural studies impetus in Latin America was part of an attempted intellectual reconstruction of the (centre-) left in terms of civil society, and the articulation of social movements and agencies, thinking beyond the verticalist constructions from previous decades. This collection maps these developments from the now classical discussions of the ‘cultural turn’ to more recent responses to the challenges of biopolitics, affect theory, posthegemony and ecocriticism. It also addresses novel political constellations including resurgent national-popular or eco-nativist and indigenous agencies. Framed by a critical introduction from the editors, this volume is both a celebration of influential essays published over twenty five years of the Journal and a representative overview of the field in its multiple ramifications, entrenchments and exchanges.

Latin American Cultural Studies: A Reader

What is the purpose of travel in an age when millions are displaced against their will or have no home to speak of in the first place? How can we travel without being tourists, without erasing the stories of those who live where we visit? These are some of the questions addressed in Cristian Aliaga’s compelling collection of prose poems, Music for Unknown Journeys. This collection contains Aliaga’s “travelling sketches,” in the tradition of Matsuo Bashō, John Berger, or W.G. Sebald. Each prose poem is geographically situated in his travels across Patagonia or his more recent journeys around the edge-lands of Europe. His work is politically acute, exploring struggles over territory, resources, and culture, in the places he visits. There is an intense emotional charge as he records the stories of those who globalization and contemporary capitalism have used and left behind. This volume brings together a generous selection of Aliaga’s prose poems, the majority previously unseen in English, as well as a substantial introduction to the author’s work and its context, both literary and political, by the editor and translator. Cristian Aliaga (b. 1962, Tres Cuervos, Province of Buenos Aires) is one of Argentina’s foremost contemporary poets. His work has been highly praised in the TLS and elsewhere.

New and Selected Prose Poems: Travels in Europe, Africa and the Americas

Music for Unknown Journeys by Cristian Aliaga

This book is the first to focus specifically on the exile-poetry link in the case of Argentina since the 1950s. Throughout Argentina's history, authors and important political figures have lived and written in exile. Thus exile is both a vital theme and a practical condition for Argentine letters, yet conversely, contemporary Argentina is a nation of immigrants from Europe and the rest of Latin America. Poetry is often perceived as the least directly political of genres, yet political and other forms of exile have impinged equally on the lives of poets as on any group. This study concentrates on writers who both regarded themselves as in some way exiled and who wrote about exile. This selection includes poets who are influential and recognised, but in general have not enjoyed the detailed study that they deserve: Alejandra Pizarnik, Juan Gelman, Osvaldo Lamborghini, Nestor Perlongher, Sergio Raimondi, Cristian Aliaga, and Washington Cucurto.

Exile, Displacement, Migration

Modern Argentine Poetry

This book addresses the connection between political themes and literary form in the most recent Argentine poetry. Ben Bollig uses the concepts of “lyric” and “state” as twin coordinates for both an assessment of how Argentinian poets have conceived a political role for their work and how poems come to speak to us about politics. Drawing on concepts from contemporary literary theory, this striking study combines textual analysis with historical research to shed light on the ways in which new modes of circulation help to shape poetry today.

Ben Bollig

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