The Failure of Latin America: Postcolonialism in Bad Times

Description

The Failure of Latin Americais a collection of John Beverley’s previously published essays and pairs them with new material that reflects on questions of postcolonialism and equality within the context of receding continental socialism. Beverley sees an impasse within both the academic postcolonial project and the Bolivarian idea of Latin America. The Pink Tide may have failed to permanently reshape Latin America, but in its failure there remains the possibility of an alternative modernity not bound to global capitalism. Beverley proposes that equality, modified by the postcolonial legacy, is a particularly Latin American possibility that can break the impasse and redefine Latinamericanism.   Contents Introduction: Latin America in Bad Times 1. Dependency Theory and the Aporias of Latin American Modernity 2. Before the Nation: Creole Imposture or Creole Interregnum? 3. Caliban after Communism: Thoughts on the Future of Cuba 4. Torture, the Waning of the American Empire, and the "Spanish Path" 5. Literature, Difference, and Equality: On an Episode in Don Quijote 6. Postcolonial Orientalism and Literature as Such 7. Can Criticism Be a Militant Practice? On Testimonio and Cartonera Literature 8. Subaltern Lives:On “La Parte de los Crímenes” in 2666, the Story of Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri, Two Films by Victor Gaviria, Fernando Mereilles’s City of God, and Lurgio Gavilán’s Memorias de un soldado desconocido 9. The Failure of Latin America Acknowledgements References Index