Critical Times: Writing, Art and Entertainment in the Long 19th-Century

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Although crisis in Latin America has been generally viewed through the lens of the social and economic sciences, its representation in the everyday public sphere has been creatively featured through artistic and aesthetic endeavors that incorporate discussions on precariousness and exclusion. The papers in this panel aim to showcase representations of crisis during the long 19th century in hopes of revealing how situations of exclusion and precariousness can lead to productive cultural productions and social relationships. Panelists engage, among other topics, with education in times of revolution, popular theater and its connection to the expansion of the frontier, and disease as a locus of fear and agendas for future state architecture. Rather than turning to well-worn examples of cultural production in times of crisis, papers utilize a rich body of lesser-known materials that help to open a multi-layered and renewed debate on the meanings of writing, art, and entertainment in nineteenth-century Latin America.

Sub Track

• Literary Studies: Colonial and 19th Centuries

Chair

• Ronald D Briggs, Barnard College

Individual Presentations

• In Search Of Civilized Entertainment: Negotiating Leisure Time in Mid-Century Mexican Magazines - Amy E Wright, St Louis University

• Novelists to the Rescue! National Crisis and Regional Solidarity in Fin de Siècle Spanish America - Ronald D Briggs, Barnard College

• Hemispheric Travelers on the Rioplatense Stage - William G Acree, Washington University/St. Louis

• Obscenity, Popular Music and Fear of Syphilis in Early 20th century Latin America: A Case Study - Juan Carlos González-Espitia, University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill