A sua pesquisa

Abstract: In the world of Mexican poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries an intense melancholy can be seen. Poets such as Ramon López Velarde, Xavier Villaurrutia, Efraín Huerta, Jaime Labastida, Francisco Hernández or Marco Antonio Campos, among others, may be clearly set into this poetic mode. Each one of these authors has dealt with one or several of the many expressions related to melancholy, from tedium to erotic impulse, patriotic passion or more often, anguish provoked by illness, suicide and death. Given my belief that Jaime Sabines’work springs from melancholic humor, particularly from some of its symptoms described in philosophy, sociology or anthropology, and since this may explain his retreat from writing quite a few years before his death, this article approaches Sabines´ poetry taking into account some of the most relevant and well-known studies on melancholy (Agamben, Bartra, Paz, Castro Santiago or Arancibia). Resumen: En el mapa de la poesía mexicana de los siglos XX y XXI se aprecia una intensa presencia del carácter melancólico. En esta línea podrían ubicarse Ramón López Velarde, Xavier Villaurrutia, Efraín Huerta, Jaime Labastida, Francisco Hernández o Marco Antonio Campos, entre otros. Cada uno de estos autores ha poetizado algunas de las múltiples caras de la tristeza, desde el tedio y el abatimiento hasta la exacerbación erótica, la pasión patriótica o, más frecuentemente, la angustia por la enfermedad, el suicidio y la muerte. Dada mi convicción de que la obra de Jaime Sabines es fruto del humor melancólico –en particular de algunas de las manifestaciones de éste descritas desde la filosofía, la sociología y la antropología– y puesto que puede explicar su casi completa renuncia a la creación poética bastantes años antes de su muerte, este trabajo lee al autor chiapaneco a la luz de algunos destacados estudios sobre la melancolía (Agamben, Bartra, Paz, Castro Santiago o Arancibia).

Neste artigo, através de uma análise das formas e dos conteúdos de várias pelejas brasileiras, selecionadas de entre muitas centenas de folhetos de cordel, procuramos mostrar de que modo aí se apresentam e confrontam homens e mulheres; e procuramos, ainda, compreender o lugar deste género textual na (re)construção da sociedade brasileira (e não só).

The long and labyrinthine process that Latin America has undergone in its way towards democracy has been marked by the same confrontations and quarrels present throughout the Western intellectual history, which have sometimes been expressed as a fight between "ideas and emotions." In Latin America, this intellectual quarrel may be described in Julio Cortazar’s terms, as a struggle between "Baroque cronopios" versus "Gothic fames," or as a war between two cultures: "that of blood and that of ink," echoing the erosion of the great theories and traditional ideologies. Thus, in the wake of the political and cultural developments resulting from globalization, the Latin American democratic transitions, and the fall of the socialist bloc, we know that we are witnessing the end of an era, but we cannot yet define the new age. This article ponders, thus, what the revival of romantic views and emotions may mean at the beginning of the 21st century. Mexico, in particular, faces a major political and cultural challenge, resulting from the fact that the Mexican society is still immersed in the culture of the Revolution’s nationalism. The perennial struggle between ideas and emotions has become manifest again in the form of a dilemma between attaching to an identity in crisis and trying to reconstruct it, or rather looking ahead with the aim of creating a new democratic civic culture. [P1] Tras los desarrollos políticos y culturales derivados de la globalización, las transiciones democráticas en América Latina y la desaparición del bloque socialista, sabemos que estamos ante el fin de una época, pero aún no podemos definir los nuevos tiempos. A partir de ello, este artículo reflexiona sobre lo que puede significar el retorno de algunas visiones y emociones románticas a comienzos del siglo XXI. En particular, México tiene frente a sí un gran reto político y cultural, que parte del hecho de que su sociedad sigue inmersa en la cultura del nacionalismo revolucionario. Se presenta, así, como nueva expresión de esa perenne lucha entre ideas y emociones, la disyuntiva de dirigir los sentimientos a una identidad en crisis e intentar reconstruirla, o bien mirar hacia adelante para darle vida a una nueva cultura cívica democrática.

There is a need to create a documentation system adapted to facilitate the conservation and restoration of Street Art and Graffiti. Even though they are ephemeral manifestations of art, there have been some signs of the need for preservation mechanisms that would respect their own special features. For selected works we must establish a procedure that enables their preservation with the highest guarantee.

There is an abundance of books, magazines, films and internet-forums dedicated to graffiti. How this documentation has influenced and been a part of the graffiti subculture has not been studied much. Drawing on personal experiences, as a documentarian and publisher of graffiti media over 27 years, Malcolm Jacobson recollects how the positions of participant and observer incessantly have twisted around each other. This has been mediated through development in media technology as well as by the coming of age of graffiti and its practitioners.

When discussing the paradox of displacing the street art aesthetic, i.e. commissioning street artists to create work for art galleries, museums, or public murals, one inevitably has to address issues of co-opting, appropriation, and the institutionalization of a movement that began as a countercultural form of expression. Two commissioned pieces by OSGEMEOS are used as a case study. This paper parses through the discourse surrounding their production and removal. The goal therein is to break down these narratives and gain insight into the mechanisms at work and the inherent contradictions in the process of institutionalizing street art.

The published works of Andi Nachon (Buenos Aires, 1970) comprise more than half a dozen single-authored collections of poetry, inclusion in several recent anthologies, and her own anthology of Argentine women poets. Her name appears in articles and works on recent poetry from Argentina, as in Diana Bellessi’s La pequeña voz del mundo. She also gives frequent readings on the Buenos Aires poetry circuit. Her work, though, lacks a sustained critical study. This is surprising. Nachon’s poetry occupies, in form and technique, a space between the dominant trends of 80s and 90s poetry – broadly speaking, the neobarroco and objectivismo – whilst her themes take in contemporary pop culture, political memory and resistance, and what might be termed the psychogeography of the city. Ambiguity – of subject or narrative position; of syntax; of geographical or physical position; and of gender – characterizes much of her work. For these and other reasons, a detailed reading of a selection of poems from throughout her career is somewhat overdue. This paper sets out to examine a number aspects of her poetry: the context from which her earliest work emerges; its development of novel forms of address, in relation to comparable near-contemporary poets; explorations of space, including a form of psychogeography, in both her early collections and her volume Taiga (2000); the subtle political engagements found in her poetry, including a later collection Plaza real (2004); before looking at her most recent poetry and its interaction with non-poetic forms. Questions of the lyric and what has been called by Baltrusch and Lourido (2012) and Casas (2012), amongst others, “non-lyric poetry”, are central to these analyses.

The article presents the celebrated peleja (verse exchange) between Inácio da Catingueira and Romano da Mãe d'Água in the Brazilian North-East. The polemic peleja de cordel (a kind of chapbook), which evokes a poetic contest that allegedly took place in 1874 or 1875 in Recife, is regarded as the first of a kind that forms one of the most important phases in Brazilian cordel literature. On the one side stands a slave poet and on the other a landowner; each aims to defend and to characterize the race and social class to which he belongs. The article aims to demonstrate the influence of scientific thinking in popular literature, particularly with regard to ethnic and cultural miscegenation.

Resumen:El presente artículo propone el examen de cuatro categorías y cuatro paradojas de la experiencia política moderna, que a partir de su problematicidad y significación, pudieran ser repensadas y reinscritas en una «concepción trágica de lo político». Primera paradoja: La «comunidad» se quiere y no se alcanza. Segunda paradoja: la tragedia deviene «sentido trágico». Tercera paradoja: Gubernamentalidad biopolítica: queriendo libertad, la niega. Cuarta paradoja. «melancolía»: despotencia que en su retiro, deviene fuerza.Palabras clave: Comunidad, Tragedia, Biopolítica, Melancolía*******************************************************************Community, tragedy and melancholia: Study for a tragic conception of the PoliticsAbstractThe present article proposes the examination of four categories and four paradoxes of modern politics experience, which as low as their quandary and signification could be re-thought and registered en a “tragic conception of the politics”. Firs paradox: The “community” is wanted but not reached. Second paradox: the tragedy becomes “tragic sense”. Third paradox: Bio-politics government: wishing liberty, it is denied. Fourth paradox: “melancholia”: de strengthen that in its leaving becomes force.Key words: Community, tragedy, bio-politics, melancholia. *********************************************************Comunidade, Tragédia e Melancolia: Estudo para uma ConcepçãoTrágica do PolíticoResumoO presente artigo propõe o exame de quatro categorias e quatro paradoxos da experiência política moderna, que a partir de sua problematicidade e significação, puderam ser repensadas e reinscritas numa «concepção trágica do político». Primeiro paradoxo: a «comunidade» se quer e não se consegue. Segundo paradoxo: a tragédia devem «sentido trágico». Terceiro paradoxo: Governamentalidade biopolítica: querendo liberdade, a nega. Quarto paradoxo. «melancolia»: dês-potência que no seu retiro, devem força.Palavras chave: Comunidade, tragédia, biopolítica, melancolia.

La guaracha, como otras manifestaciones de la cultura oral americana, no ha recibido una justa atención crítica, a pesar de ser un género destacadísimo en la producción popular de Cuba y el Caribe, carencia que este trabajo pretende paliar. Enraizada en el cruce de las tradiciones culturales indígena, hispana y africana, y ligada al proverbial choteo cubano, la guaracha ha recorrido un largo trayecto desde sus inicios en el teatro bufo hasta hoy, fundiéndose con otras modalidades lírico-musicales como muestra de su versatilidad y capacidad de adaptación a los tiempos. Se ilustran las características poéticas de este género a través del análisis de algunas letras de Faustino Oramas "El guayabero", quien alcanzó una notable popularidad en toda Cuba a finales del siglo XX. Similar to other manifestations of oral tradition in American culture, the guaracha has not received its deserved attention from critics, despite being an incredibly prominent genre of popular production in Cuba and the Caribbean. It is this lack of attention that this article intends to remedy. Rooted in the intersection of Indigenous, Hispanic, and African cultures and bound to the proverbial Cuban banter, the guaracha has journeyed from its beginnings in the bufo theatre to its current merging with other lyrical-musical forms, demonstrating its versatility and ability to adapt with the times. Through analyses of lyrics by Faustino Oramas – also known as "The guayabero" – who reached noteworthy popularity throughout Cuba at the end of the 20th century, the poetic characteristics of the genre shine through.

This article explores the semantic implications of the concept of tedio through a comparative analysis of Rosalia de Castro´s novel, Flavio, and Edgar Allan Poe’s tale, «The Man of the Crowd». Like spleen and ennui, hispanic tedio is an emotional concept inseparable from the industrial dynamic of the modern city. In this sense, it can be read as a symptom of the profound modification of aesthetic and sociological aspects of narrative which took place in the second half of the XIX century.

Tomam-se como corpora três folhetos de literatura de cordel para discutir sobre os modos de construção do conceito de identidade política, sua relação com a memória social e discursiva, os discursos repetíveis, os deslizamentos e as subversões de sentido. A análise de discurso considera que a identidade é um movimento que se faz na história e que, por isso, dá-se entre unidade e dispersão: refere-se às posições do sujeito, as chamadas identidades de posicionamento, e às suas filiações aos interdiscursos. O suporte teórico respalda-se em autores, tais como Michel Pêcheux, Dominique Maingueneau, Roberto DaMatta, Karina Kuschnir e Max Weber, que contribuem com reflexões pertinentes sobre o conceito de identidade política. Abstract: Three papers of the cordel literature were taken as "corpora" in order to discuss about the ways of building the concept of political identity, its relation with the social and discursive memories, with the repeatable discourses, with the slides and with the subversions of the senses. The discourse analysis considers that the identity is a movement made in history and, therefore, between unity and dispersion: it refers to the positions of the subject, what is known as “identities of position”, and its filiations to the inter-discourses. The theoretical support is based on authors such as Dominique Maingueneau, Roberto DaMatta, Karina Kuschnir and Max Weber who also contribute with pertinent considerations about the concept of political identity.

La poesía experimental latinoamericana se posiciona frente a la tradición textual que priva a la palabra escrita de sus potencialidades escénicas, gráficas y rituales, y cuestiona los límites del lenguaje, al tiempo que exalta su libertad. La reflexión sobre la letra y la sonoridad de la poesía nos permite considerar a la escritura no como portadora de significados externos a ella, sino como un pensamiento que se despliega por la página y más allá. El aquí y ahora de la escritura se encuentra con el aquí y ahora de la escena, lo cual abre camino a una poesía performativa. Este ensayo reflexiona acerca de estas cuestiones a través del análisis de un caso particular: el trabajo poético y de arte-acción de Raúl Zurita, fundador del Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA), el cual tuvo gran impacto en las manifestaciones de arte político durante la dictadura militar de Augusto Pinochet, así como en la manera de concebir los límites entre la literatura y el arte del performance.

Contemporary visual poetry remains as hybrid and experimental an artistic modality as it was in the 20th century, with a continued emphasis on mixing temporal and spatial elements in a dynamic verbal–sound–visual structure. These essential aspects and techniques, still at work today, which originated in simple pattern poems from earlier centuries, reached their peak of sophistication with the Concretists and Neoconcretists. Today, however, intermedia practices have a tendency to focus more on certain aspects of our technoculture that resonate with an ‘altered’ mode of perception, keen on exploring uncharted territories through the newest technologies and the speed of information. To illustrate this attraction to the functional use of technologies, I have selected two representative artists, Bartolome Ferrando and Eduardo Kac. Their radically different lines of work and artistic intentions reflect, nonetheless, a similar conception of poems as (bio)dynamic objects, existing as living art within a continuum of possibilities. Ferrando is more interested in exploring the possibilities of condensing movement in a 2-D or 3-D surface, whereas Kac wants his poetic performances to interfere with the essentials of life itself. These authors prioritize the importance of non-linear sequencing with the organization of multiple levels of information in micro-units of space-time in order to manipulate the standard experiences and expectations of readers.

A medio camino entre el centro barroco de La Habana y las playas situadas al este de la ciudad que anteceden al esplendor de Varadero, la barriada de Alamar forma parte del municipio de La Habana del Este: una ciudad dentro de la ciudad, separada de La Habana Vieja por un túnel tras el cual empieza un mundo que el yuma (término despectivo del argot callejero que designa al turista o al extranjero) tiene pocas posibilidades de contemplar como no sea por la ventanilla de uno de esos taxis que recorren sin paradas el espacio comprendido entre el centro y la costa. Cien mil habitantes divididos en veinticinco barrios construidos entre los años setenta y la mitad de la década de los ochenta. Alamar es la antítesis de esa Habana Vieja disneyficada, con sus calles coloniales y su flujo ininterrumpido de turistas: un tiempo y un espacio dilata-dos, edificios racionalistas separados por unas fluidas arterias que conectan los diferentes barrios, espacios agrícolas, un río, vastas áreas militares en desuso, una decrépita y decadente fachada litoral cubierta de hormigón desde la que se vislum-bran las diferentes áreas y etapas de la zona. Una zona que es la plasmación física del diseño y del fracaso de la Utopía, una vasta Unité d'habitation reproducida a gran escala y en la actualidad deshaciéndose poco a poco por la falta de mantenimiento, infraestructuras, servicios comunitarios, comunicaciones y transporte. Una metáfora perfecta de las paradojas y singularidades de Cuba: la instalación abstracta del modelo socialista (y de su fracaso) en una realidad caribeña hecha de lentitud, relaciones y mestizaje. La expansión urbana de la capital cubana llegó a su culmen y al máximo de su decadencia en esta zona, construida por las Microbrigadas, unos grupos de hombres traídos por el gobierno para edificar uno de los proyectos de urbanización de viviendas sociales más imponentes del país. Un periodo constructivo que quedó interrumpido por la crisis econó-mica que siguió a la caída del Muro de Berlín y a la disolución de la URSS (Periodo especial').

Este trabajo se propone señalar las prácticas de poesía ligadas a la performance y la teatralidad en la región del Río de la Plata durante los procesos de finalización de la dictadura y comienzos de la democracia, hacia finales del siglo XX. Menciona brevemente una historia del género y los problemas metodológicos que presenta la investigación. Desarrolla, además, la emergencia de formas de la teatralidad en las producciones artísticas y políticas de comienzos de 1980 en Argentina, período marcado por la transición democrática, para ubicar en este marco la producción del poeta y dramaturgo Emeterio Cerro.

Centred around Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, this paper employs a critical globalisation theory framework to argue that the 1990s notion of ‘changing the world from below', understood as resistance to capitalist globalisation through a ‘transnational civil society', requires re-theorisation in the light of the contemporary developments in Our America. I make a methodological case for a neo-Gramscian approach to argue that ‘counter-hegemony', together with an adequate theorisation of the state and power, should be the preferred concept over the inherently apolitical and under-theorised ‘alter-globalisation'. Whilst the alter-globalisation movement's ideational and normative challenges to hegemony (captured in ex-British prime minister Thatcher's There-Is-No-Alternative-Doctrine, TINA) are undisputed, the transformation of the global geographies of power through local actors alone has remained illusory. Rather, the experience of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-PTA) strongly suggests that counter-hegemonic globalisation theory will have to consider the roles of both the ‘state-in-revolution' and the ‘transnational organised society'. This will be shown through the analysis and theorisation of the ALBA-PTA as a multi dimensional inter and transnational counter-hegemonic regionalisation and globalisation project that operates across a range of sectors and scales.

Professionalization and political engagement are usually placed as incompatible in the case of journalism and the mainstream press, resulting in an identification of cultural resistance exclusively with alternative/amateur vehicles. I will use the concept of journalistic field as introduced by Pierre Bourdieu to review these assumptions and discuss a form of political resistance that acts in one's own area of knowledge, is not overtly political and whose effects are not immediately accountable for. Drawing examples from my research on two literary newspapers published in the 1950s in Brazil and Uruguay, this paper will focus on the implications of didacticism for literary criticism as a genre of newswriting. The analysis of these newspapers will lead to a reflection on two main issues: a) the conflict between the professionalization and democratization of literature; and b) the definition of resistance as necessarily an action that is against something. The article will reconsider education in journalism as a form of resistance, taking into account its risks of becoming political indoctrination and commercial manipulation, but emphasizing its potential as a way of expanding access to literature.

This article analyses a range of discourses articulated around the figure of the film archive between the late nineteenth and the early twenty-first centuries, accounting for the various possibilities that they open up for considering audiovisual heritage as a potential space either for revolutionary change or for political or textual resistance. Focused mainly on archival discourses in Mexico, the article traces their interaction with both national-historical and anti-imperialist narratives, and the implications of digital and online culture for the encounter between the archiving of film and resistance. It accounts for the position of the archive in negotiations between state and private capital and spaces of artistic autonomy, and for the relationships between the archive, modernity, postmodernity and the notion of posterity.

In October 2007, over the course of a weekend, several hundred people descended on Coronel Pringles, a small town in the Argentine pampas. For two days they would participate, along with many of the town’s residents, in a series of workshops and performances held under the aegis of the Asociación Civil Estación Pringles, an organization founded in 2006 and headed by the poet Arturo Carrera. This inaugural event centered on the practice of declamation, one of the ‘viejas prácticas sociales y artı́sticas’ (‘timeworn social and artistic practices’) that Estación Pringles seeks to place into dialogue with the work of contemporary artists, writers and performers. In its founding statement, the project casts this dialogue in theatrical terms, calling itself ‘una plataforma o una escena donde prácticas estéticas dispersas en un espacio lateral puedan agregarse, articularse, hacerse visibles’ (‘a platform or scene where aesthetic practices, scattered throughout a lateral space, might come together, be articulated, become visible’). Indeed, an emphasis on theatricality would reappear in Carrera’s closing remarks to the 2007 gathering, in which he couches the practice of declamation in terms of a ‘teatrito,’ a ‘little theater’ (Estación Pringles).