Latin America Writes Back:

Postmodernity in the Periphery (An Interdisciplinary Perspective)

Ed. Emil Volek
After years of marginalization in the international debate on global change, Latin American scholars present their own response to the theories and practices of postmodernity in this collection of essays. The editor of this volume has assembled contributions across a range of interdisciplinary perspectives that illuminate contemporary Latin American culture by high-lighting from within many changes scarcely noticed in Europe and the U.S. Issues discussed in light of these recent changes include the notorious Latin American conflicts with modernity, the vexing problems of cultural identity, strategies of resistance to global trends, and the pervasive misconceptions about Latin American culture perpetuated within the United States and Europe. Together the essays clarify that Latin America is neither what is used to be nor what it is expected to be, but rather a new reality long overlooked by the world beyond.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Is Changing Reality, Changing Paradigm: Who Is Afraid of Postmodernity?

Emil Volek

Part I. Macondo or Death, But Not Exactly: The Case of Unrequited Modernity That Does Not Go Away

  1. Traditionalism and Modernity in Latin American Culture

    José Joaquín Brunner

  2. Modernity and Postmodernity in the Periphery

    Jesús Martín Barbero

  3. Communications: Decentering Modernity

    Jesús Martín Barbero

    Part II. Changing Identities, or “Where do we come from” and “Where we are going?”

  4. The Challenges of Postmodernity and Globalization: Multiple or Fragmented Identities?

    Fernando Ainsa

  5. Postmodernism and Latin American Identity

    Jorge Larraín

  6. Latin American Identity - Dramatized

    José Joaquín Brunner

    Part III. Changing Realities, Politics, Arts: Strategies of/for Resistance

  7. Autochthonous Cultures and the Global Market

    Mario Roberto Morales

  8. Post-Cities and Politics: New Urban Movements in the Two Americas

    Armando Silva

  9. Modern and Postmodern Aesthetics in Contemporary Argentine Theater (1985–1997)

    Osvaldo Pelletieri

  10. Polarized Modernity: Latin America at the Postmodern Juncture

    Raúl Bueno

  11. The Latin American Writer in These Postmodern Times

    Abelardo Castillo

    Part IV. Changing Cultural Dossier: Some Classic Texts from the 1990s

  12. Variations on Postmodernity, or, What Does the Latin American Postboom Mean?

    Mempo Giardinelli

  13. Latin America and Postmodernity

    Nelly Richards

  14. Critique of Global Philosophy, Five Hundred Years Later

    Rafael Ángel Herra

  15. Cultural Topologies

    Daniel Altamiranda and Hernán Thomas

Afterword: Postmodernity in the Periphery is Not What You Think

Horacio Machín