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Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America

Jerónimo Arellano

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America rethinks the rise and fall of magical realism in Latin America in the light of the cultural history of the emotions, and in conversation with contemporary theories of the affects. It explores how twentieth-century magical realist narrative reimagines public and collective forms of feeling, in particular the colonial history of wonder in the wake of the voyages to the New World. Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America argues that this reconceptualization of magical realism also invites a new reading of its marked devaluation in contemporary Latin American literature, suggesting that this turning point responds to major changes in the uses and circulation of forms of emotional intensity in the present. « less more »

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6 x 9

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Caribbean & Latin American, Literary Criticism / General, Psychology / Emotions

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America

Summary

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America rethinks the rise and fall of magical realism in Latin America in the light of the cultural history of the emotions, and in conversation with contemporary theories of the affects. It explores how twentieth-century magical realist narrative reimagines public and collective forms of feeling, in particular the colonial history of wonder in the wake of the voyages to the New World. Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America argues that this reconceptualization of magical realism also invites a new reading of its marked devaluation in contemporary Latin American literature, suggesting that this turning point responds to major changes in the uses and circulation of forms of emotional intensity in the present.

Book Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6 x 9

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Caribbean & Latin American, Literary Criticism / General, Psychology / Emotions

Author

Jerónimo Arellano is assistant professor of Latin American literature and culture at Brandeis University

Table of Contents

Notes on Translations
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Worldly Wonder
Part I: Wonder in the Colonial Heart
Chapter: One: The Intermittence of the Marvelous
Chapter Two: Columbus’s First Journal and the Materiality of the Emotions
Chapter Three: Colonial Chronicles as Archives of Feelings
Part II: The Afterlives of Feelings
Chapter Four: Alejo Carpentier’s lo real maravilloso americano and the Colonial History of Wonder
Chapter Five: The Afterlives of Feelings: Wonder as Palimpsest in Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad
Chapter Six: In the Graveyards of Magical Realism: The Dissafection of the Marvelous and César Aira’s El mago
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Reviews

In this seminal work Arellano reevaluates the history and transmission of wonder in Latin American literature. His treatment is chronological: he starts with early chronicles of the New World, which he classifies as the first manifestations of wonder, and concludes with the relevance of wonder in contemporary magical realist narratives. Throughout the book, Arellano provides alternative readings of canonical texts, looking at them through the lens of affectivity and emotion, and he examines the cultural history of wonder and the practice of collecting, which he connects to the 16th-century Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities). Challenging the notion that postcolonial magical realist writers simply reproduce the discourse and motifs of colonial chronicles, the author demonstrates how texts dialogue with one another through time and space, reconceptualizing the motif of what he calls 'the marvelous-as-ordinary.' Through this exploration, Arellano delves into the discrepancies surrounding the definition, analysis, and evolution of magical realism in the literary history of Latin America. Overall, this is an excellent scholarly contribution that does not limit itself to regional contexts and instead traces transcultural and transnational connections in the study and reevaluation of the Latin American chronicle and magical realist narratives. Summing Up: Essential. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.
— CHOICE

This study sheds a novel light on an already extensively researched topic. The argument is daring, subtle and remains engaging throughout the book.
— Forum For Modern Language Studies

Contiene, por un lado, una clarificadora discusión de la difícil y, a menudo, abstrusa literatura sobre el binario emoción/afecto. Es en mi opinión, además, una de las más convincentes demostraciones de la productividad del llamdo 'giro afectivo' en el pensamiento crítico latinoamericano contemporáneo. Su tratamiento de las transformaciones epocales pre-modernas, modernas y post-modernas de la maravilla como estructura de sentimiento es extraordinariamente valioso. . . .un acercamiento pionero a la maravilla en el marco de la cuestión del afecto y las emociones en la historia de América Latina.

[[Magical Realism in the History of the Emotions] includes, among other features, an illuminating discussion of the challenging, often abstruse, literature on the binary affect/emotion. In my view, this book is also one of the most convincing demonstrations of the productivity of the so-called 'affective turn' in Latin Americanist critical thought. Its examination of the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern epochal transformations of the marvelous as a structure of feeling is extraordinarily valuable. . . A ground-breaking approach to the marvelous in the context of the question of affect and emotion in the history of Latin America.]

— Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin Americamakes a valuable contribution to a crowded area of research by approaching magical realism through affect studies, the history of the emotions, and new materialist studies ( Jane Bennett, Bill Brown). Jerónimo Arellano’s opposing perspectives elicit surprising new insights about works that have been analyzed extensively, such as Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) and Alejo Carpentier’s Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps)…. Indeed, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America has critical ambitions that far surpass those of a new study on magical realism; it is more aptly characterized as a sketch toward a new transatlantic literary and cultural history of wonder in modernity from the discovery and invasion of the New World to the present…. Impeccably researched in all areas of expertise, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America is a sophisticated study that models the kinds of innovative readings that new emotions-based and object-oriented theories may facilitate in Latin American literary and cultural studies.
— Modern Language Quarterly

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America

Jerónimo Arellano

Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America

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