Frankfurt School in Latin America

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

“Frankfurt School in Latin America” will consider the metamorphoses of Latin American representations of power and the Self as a process of resistance to authoritarian politics. The panel will explore the reception and re-voicing of Frankfurt School philosophy through selected Latin American figures. In “The double reality of 1968: Paz and Adorno on domination, critique and action”, Christine Brueckner McVay will examine the relationship of force and reason in the Mexican public sphere and in contemporary Latin American protest movements. In “Ricardo Piglia, Walter Benjamin and the Latin American Intellectual History of the 1960s and 70s”, Rebeca Fromm Ayoroa will evaluate the full extent of Walter Benjamin’s influence on Ricardo Piglia as a cultural producer engaged with, and directly intervening in, the conditions of production and circulation of culture. Ricardo Isea will reflect on Bolívar Echeverría’s reading of Marx and Benjamin and the concept of “baroque modernity” from the perspective of the political in “Bolívar Echeverría’s concept of ‘baroque modernity’”. Guilherme Martins Pinheiro’s “Brazilian Activist Art in Transformation” will analyze the development of awareness and self-recognition from a peripheral perspective under the influence of Frankfurt School philosophy in Brazil as represented in the works of Euclides da Cunha, Antonio Callado and Eduardo Coutinho. Alhelí Alvarado’s “Investigating Dictatorship and other Authoritarian Enigmas: Roberto Bolaño re-voicing Adorno and Benjamin” will discuss Bolaño’s political resonances as anti-authoritarian writer and political provocateur in Nocturno de Chile, Estrella Distante and El Tercer Reich and the relevance of his ideas for Latin American human rights politics.

Sub Track

• Culture, Power, and Political Subjectivities

Session Organizer

• Alhelí M Alvarado

Chair

• Alhelí M Alvarado

Discussant

• Guilherme Martins Pinheiro

Individual Presentations

• “The double reality of 1968” : Paz and Adorno on domination, critique and action - Christine McVay, Independent Scholar

• Ricardo Piglia, Walter Benjamin, and the Latin American Intellectual History of the 1960s and 70s - Rebeca Fromm Ayoroa, Washington University / St. Louis

• Brazilian Activist Art in Transformation – Building an Identity Through Memory - Guilherme Martins Pinheiro

• Bolívar Echeverría’s concept of «baroque modernity» - Ricardo Isea

• Investigating Dictatorship and Other Authoritarian Enigmas: Roberto Bolaño re-voicing Adorno and Benjamin - Alhelí M Alvarado