Beyond Renewal?: Latin America, the “Classics,” and the Interesting Spaces between Martí and Chakrabarty

Authors

  • Marc A. Hertzman University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Keywords:

Postcolonialism, Latin American Cultural Studies, Latin American History, Indigeneity, Literature

Abstract

Drawing on my experience teaching in one of the last required Core Curricula in the United States, recent literature on indigenous people and indigeneity, and a remarkable text published in Brazil in 1937, this article considers the challenges and possibilities that arise when the European-U.S. canon is read and taught from a Latin American perspective. I place my findings in conversation with José Martí's anti-colonial perspective and Dipesh Chakrabarty's critique of postcolonial, both of whom, I argue, provide compelling but ultimately incomplete frameworks for a truly critical Latin Americanist reading of the canon and higher education in the U.S.

Author Biography

Marc A. Hertzman, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Marc Hertzman is assistant professor in Latin American History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His first book, Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil, was published by Duke University Press in 2013. In 2014, the Latin American Studies Association selected this text from over 80 submissions in awarding it Honorable Mention (runner-up) for the Bryce-Wood Book Prize, given annually to the best manuscript about Latin America in any field in the Humanities or Social Sciences. He has published articles in Hispanic American Historical Review and Journal of Latin American Studies, and have forthcoming pieces in Luso-Brazilian Review, and in two edited volumes in Brazil.

Published

2015-06-15

How to Cite

Hertzman, M. A. (2015). Beyond Renewal?: Latin America, the “Classics,” and the Interesting Spaces between Martí and Chakrabarty. A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 12(2), 42–73. Retrieved from https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/800

Issue

Section

Articles / Artículos