Description
Since its first publication in Spanish nearly a decade ago, Julio Ramos's Desenucuentros de la modernidad en America Latina por el siglo XIX has been recognized as one of the most important studies of modernity in the western hemisphere. Available for the first time in English-and now published with new material-Ramos's study not only offers an analysis of the complex relationships between history, literature, and nation-building in the modern Latin American context but also takes crucial steps toward the development of a truly comparative inter-American cultural criticism.
With his focus on the nineteenth century, Ramos begins his genealogy of an emerging Latin Americanism with an examination of Argentinean Domingo Sarmiento and Chilean Andres Bello, representing the "enlightened letrados" of tradition. In contrast to these "lettered men," he turns to Cuban journalist, revolutionary, and poet Jose Marti, who, Ramos suggests, inaugurated a new kind of intellectual subject for the Americas. Though tracing Latin American modernity in general, it is the analysis of Marti-particularly his work in the United States-that becomes the focal point of Ramos's study. Marti's confrontation with the unequal modernization of the New World, the dependent status of Latin America, and the contrast between Latin America's culture of elites and the northern mass culture of commodification are, for Ramos, key elements in understanding the complex Latin American experience of modernity.
Including two new chapters written for this edition, as well as translations of three of Marti's most important works, Divergent Modernities will be indispensable for anyone seeking to understand development and modernity across the Americas.
Examines major intellectual figures including Sarmiento, Bello and Marti and the interrelations of literature, history, and nation-building in the origins of Latin American modernism in the 19th century.
About the Author
Julio Ramos is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, University of California at Berkeley.
Reviews
"What makes Divergent Modernities unique are not only its many subtle textual analyses, but also the effectiveness with which Ramos lends his unmatched mastery of the historical context of Latin America's encounter with modernity to illuminate in original and important ways the process of literary creation itself."-Tulio Halperin Donghi, author of The Contemporary History of Latin America
"With an innovative approach to the foundational intellectuals of Latin American modernity, Julio Ramos contributes to a rethinking of the intersections that constitute Latinoamericanismo of the twentieth century."-Nestor G. Canclini, author of Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity
Book Information
ISBN 9780822319900
Author Julio Ramos
Format Paperback
Page Count 376
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 630g
