Mexican Literature in Theory

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado is Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Washington University in Saint Louis, USA. He is the author of El canon y sus formas: La reinvención de Harold Bloom y sus lecturas hispanoamericanas (2002), Naciones intelectuales: Las fundaciones de la modernidad literaria mexicana 1917-1959 (2009, winner of the LASA Mexico 2010 Humanities Book Award), Intermitencias americanistas: Ensayos académico y literarios 2004-2009 (2012), Screening Neoliberalism: Transforming Mexican Cinema 1988-2012 (2014), and Strategic Occidentalism: “World Literature,” Mexican Fiction and the Neoliberalization of the Book Market (forthcoming).

• Acknowledgments1. IntroductionIgnacio M. Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)2. Into the ‘Oriental’ Zone: Edward Said and Mexican LiteratureLaura Torres-Rodríguez (New York University, USA)3. The Perils of Ownership: Property and Literature in 19th-Century MexicoAna Sabau (University of Michigan, USA)4. Pale Theory: Amado Nervo and the AbsentialJosé Ramón Ruisánchez Serra (University of Houston, USA)5. Mexican Revolution and Literary Form: Reflections on Nellie Campobello’s CartuchoIgnacio M. Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)6. The Nature of Revolution in Rafael F. Muñoz’s Se llevaron el cañon para BachimbaCarolyn Fornoff (Lycoming College, USA)7. Reading Rulfo between Benjamin and Derrida: End of StoryBruno Bosteels (Cornell University, USA)8. Rosario Castellanos’ Southern Gothic: Indigenous Labor, Land Reform and the Production of Ladina SubjectivityEricka Beckman (University of Illinois, USA)9. Beginnings of José Emilio PachecoChristina Soto van der Plas (Cornell University / University of California Riverside, USA)10. A Theory of Trauma and the Historical Novel: A Small Theoretical Treaty on Fernando del Paso’s Noticias del ImperioPedro Ángel Palou (Tufts University, USA)11. Embodiment Envy: Love, Sex and Death in Pedro Ángel Palou’s Con la muerte en los puñosRebecca Janzen (University of South Carolina, USA)12. Visualizing the Nonnormative Body in Guadalupe Nettel’s El cuerpo en que nacíLilia Adriana Pérez Limón (University of Oklahoma-Norman, USA)13. Fictions of Sovereignty: The Narconovel, National Security and Mexico’s Criminal GovernmentalityOswaldo Zavala (The College of Staten Island & The Graduate Center, CUNY, USA)14. Writing and the Body: Interfaces of Violence in Neoliberal MexicoRoberto Cruz Arzabal (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico)15. The Politics of Infrastructure in Contemporary Mexican WritingBrian Whitener (University of South Alabama, USA)16. ‘Dickens + MP3 ÷ Balzac + JPEG’ or, Art and the Value of Innovation in the Contemporary Mexican NovelEmilio Sauri (University of Massachusetts-Boston, USA)Notes on ContributorsIndex

The 15 essays offer readings of a wide range of texts—some familiar, some newer—through theoretical lenses that are often surprising. For example, there is a compelling essay on Rosario Castellanos's Balún Canán and its connections to the Southern gothic; Guadalupe Nettel's El cuerpo en que nací is read with disability theory; and José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra's theory of the "absential" is used in reading the work of Amado Nervo. The collection also offers essays on the literature of the Mexican Revolution, violence in contemporary Mexico, and the cartonera publishing scene in Mexico. Summing Up: Highly recommended.