Latin-Americanism without Latin America: ‘Theory’ as Surrogate Periphery in the Metropolitan University

Authors

  • Neil Larsen University of California—Davis

Keywords:

Theory, Criticism, University, surrogate, Latinamericanism

Abstract

Latin-Americanism, at least as practiced in humanistic disciplines within the North American university exists today as a strange kind of ritualized enclave, outwardly cosmopolitan, but,beneath the surface, increasingly provincial and sectarian. It has become a form of ‘study’ that, over the last couple of decades, has succeeded in inventing for itself a theoretically ‘regional’ object withalmost no remaining connection to any real place. This is the disturbing and no doubt contentious observation with which I begintoday, in a polemical spirit but also in a self-critical and reflectiveone.

Author Biography

Neil Larsen, University of California—Davis

Neil Larsen es profesor de literatura comparada en la University of California—Davis y director del Programa en Teoría. Es el autor de numerosos artículos sobre la teoría cultural y literaria y de los siguientes libros: Modernism and Hegemony (University of Minnesota Press, 1989), Reading North by South (University of Minnesota Press, 1995) and Determinations: Essays on Theory, Narrative and Nation in the Americas (Verso, 2001).

Published

2006-04-10

How to Cite

Larsen, N. (2006). Latin-Americanism without Latin America: ‘Theory’ as Surrogate Periphery in the Metropolitan University. A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 3(3), 37–46. Retrieved from https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/210

Issue

Section

Articles / Artículos