Authoritarianism, Cultural History, and Political Resistance in Latin America: Exposing Paraguay

Description

This book takes on the challenge of conceptually thinking Paraguayan cultural history within the broader field of Latin American studies. It presents original contributions to the study of Paraguayan culture from a variety of perspectives that include visual, literary, and cultural studies; gender studies, sociology, and political theory. The essays compiled here focus on the different narratives and political processes that shaped a country decentered from, but also deeply connected to, the rest of Latin America. Structured in four thematic sections, the book reflects upon authoritarianism; the tensions between modern, indigenous, and popular artistic expressions; the legacies of the Stroessner Regime, political resistance, and the struggle for collective memory; as well as the literary framing of historical trauma, particularly in connection with the Roabastian notion of la realidad que delira [delirious reality]. Front Matter ....Pages i-xix Introduction: Exposing Paraguay (Federico Pous, Alejandro Quin, Marcelino Viera)....Pages 1-15 Front Matter ....Pages 17-17 Disintegrating Bodies: The Undoing of the Discourse of War in Palleja’s Diario (1865–66) (Javier Uriarte)....Pages 19-38 Poetry and Revisionism: Notes on Authority and Restoration in Postwar Paraguay (Alejandro Quin)....Pages 39-56 Writing the State: The Redistribution of Sovereignty and the Figure of the “Legislator” in I the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos (John Kraniauskas)....Pages 57-79 Front Matter ....Pages 81-81 Indigenous Art: The Challenge of the Universal (Ticio Escobar)....Pages 83-105 Inheritances of Carlos Colombino: Painting and the Making of a Democratic Paraguay (Horacio Legrás)....Pages 107-123 Interrupted Visions of History: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Newspapers and the History of (Popular) Art in Contemporary Paraguay (Sebastián J. Díaz-Duhalde)....Pages 125-148 The Wings of Carlos Colombino: Architect, Artist, Writer (an Interview) (Adriana Johnson, Horacio Legrás)....Pages 149-159 Front Matter ....Pages 161-161 Beyond Coercion: Social Legitimation and Conservative Modernization in the Stroessner Regime (1954–1989) (Lorena Soler)....Pages 163-179 108/Cuchillo de Palo (2010): Limits and Political Potentialities of Queer Countermemory (Eva Karene Romero)....Pages 181-198 De-Parting Paraguay: The Interruption of the Aesthetic Gaze in Siete Cajas (2012) (Federico Pous)....Pages 199-219 Front Matter ....Pages 221-221 Paraguayan Counterlives (Adriana Johnson)....Pages 223-245 Paraguayan Realism as Cruelty in Gabriel Casaccia’s El Guajhú (Gabriel Horowitz)....Pages 247-268 Rafael Barrett’s Haunted Letter (Marcelino Viera)....Pages 269-293 Back Matter ....Pages 295-301