Alternative Communities in Hispanic Literature and Culture
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Alternative Communities in Hispanic Literature and Culture Alternative Communities in Hispanic Literature and Culture Edited by Luis H. Castañeda and Javier González Alternative Communities in Hispanic Literature and Culture Edited by Luis H. Castañeda and Javier González This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Luis H. Castañeda, Javier González and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9494-X ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9494-4 CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................................. viii Introduction ................................................................................................ ix Luis H. Castañeda and Javier F. González Marginality and Community Chapter One ................................................................................................. 2 An Alternative Nation Building Project: The Depiction of Ángel Vicente Peñaloza in Eduardo Gutiérrez’s Historical Folletines Gisela Salas Carrillo Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 20 Transnational Panic: Criminal Cults in “Elena Garrigó” and René’s Flesh Pilar Cabrera Fonte Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 37 La Montaña Mágica: Representations of HIV/AIDS from the Sanatorium Óscar A. Pérez Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 61 Víctor Hugo Viscarra: The Dog Life of the Human Pack—Reflections on the Limits of Community as a Promise of Emancipation Irina Feldman Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 87 Street Dwellers and Youth Gangs as War Machines in Colombian Literature and Film Carlos-Germán Van Der Linde Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 110 Into the Matrix of Contemporary Spanish Squatter Communities: Navigating Through Utopian Landscapes of Hospitality and Dystopian Landscapes of Hostility in Okupada by Care Santos Diana Palardy vi Contents Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 135 Alternative Communities in Lavapiés: (Dis)Encounters between Spain and Cuba Ana Corbalán Intellectuals: Rethinking Community Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 152 “Anarchy is a Literary Thing”: Mateu Morral, Pío Baroja and the Ephemeral Community of 1906 Xavier M. Dapena Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 174 Deciphering Macedonio: Macedonio Fernández’s Project to Found an Alternative Community in Museo de la novela de la Eterna (Primera novela buena) Federico Fridman Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 197 Transient Communities: Authority and Emancipation in Alberto Fuguet’s Tinta Roja Juan García Oyervides Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 215 Two Peruvian Circles of Artists: Artistic Communities and Globalization in the Novels of Iván Thays and Rodrigo Núñez Carvallo Luis H. Castañeda Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 236 A Cellular Literary Model: Globalization and Transnational Flows in Latin American Contemporary Fictions Carlos Yushimito Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 257 Cultura Profética: Across Communities of Resistance and Insistence Geraldine Monterroso Alternative Communities in Hispanic Literature and Culture vii The Mexican Case: Counterculture Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 280 The Literature of the Onda: Imagined Alternative Communities in 1960s Mexico Javier F. González Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 309 The Representation of the Mexican Counterculture Movement in Pasaban en silencio nuestros dioses by Héctor Manjarrez Salvador Fernández Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 333 From Manifesto to Manifestation: The Infrarrealista Movement on the Margins of Mexican Literary Culture John Burns Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 357 Porn-themes of Dominance and Submission: Perverse Communities in Alberto Chimal’s Los esclavos Salvador L. Raggio ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors wish to thank Cambridge Scholars Publishing and Middlebury College for the financial support that made this publication possible. INTRODUCTION LUIS H. CASTAÑEDA MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE AND JAVIER F. GONZÁLEZ CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, CHANNEL ISLANDS This book studies the literary and cultural representation of a diverse group of social organisms that, despite their vast historical and geographical differences, can all be described as “alternative communities” operating within the open, fluid borders of the Hispanic world between the nineteenth century and the present. In more precise terms, the seventeen chapters that comprise this book study the depiction—mostly in novels and narrative texts, but also in film, poetry, music, etc.—of certain artistic communities or circles or artists, along with a handful of more marginalised, even criminal groups, all of which challenge a plethora of set notions regarding national, cultural, and artistic identity, as well as other elements of the accepted status quo. But what, specifically, are alternative communities, and why should critics of Hispanic literature and culture explore them? In short, alternative communities are small and subversive groupings; transgressive associations that differ from society at large and threaten it with the possibilities of transformation. A first attempt at a definition conjures up two images: the secret society, and the circle of artists. Secret societies can be defined as bands that meet clandestinely to devise plots that usually involve overturning the established order in a radical way.1 A motif of popular literature and film, the secret society gains a metaphysical status in the work of Jorge Luis Borges as it becomes entangled with ruminations about the nature of reality, language, and literature. In Borges’ seminal short story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940), a secret society of conniving intellectuals devotes generations to imagining a whole planet— Tlön—and writing forty volumes of an encyclopaedia that describes every possible aspect of this invented world. Significantly, in Tlön reality is not grounded in objectivity but exists as a system of idealistic constructions in which language is the ultimate fabric of things. The story’s final twist is x Introduction Tlön’s slow but steady invasion of our world, a colonisation that changes everything, from history to objects themselves, and that resembles the advance of totalitarianism in the Western world at the time Borges published it. The lonely and mournful narrator bears witness to this inevitable conquest and finds in the work of translation a source of quiet resistance. Secret societies can be understood as the dark cousins of alternative communities. Borges’s Tlön incorporates a key element that we must take into consideration when we study the latter: the idea of a collective and systematic invention, supported by a handful of seditious agents, that entails an intellectual and political project of conquest, replacement, or transformation. There is a utopian drive here as well as a deep faith in the transformative potential of words. In the arena of language, two confronted worlds engage in conflict: the status quo and a possible, alternative reality. Two communities fight against each other: society as we know it and the group of plotters. In Borges, the use of imagination and language as tools of coercion has a problematic authoritarian undertone that cannot be overlooked. Not all alternative communities have this aggressive, tyrannical trait, but most of them can be said to be intrinsically violent in their bold and often unequal struggle with reality as it is. Never satisfied with any given state of affairs, especially when inequality and oppression prevail, the majority of alternative communities never reach such a level of power that enables them to do what the heresiarchs of Tlön accomplish, because they often survive on the edges of society. Nevertheless, in Spanish American literature, it is perhaps Borges’ contribution (even though Roberto Arlt had already published his masterpiece The Seven Madmen/The Flamethrowers in 1929 and 1931) to bring together insurgence, intellectualism, and linguistic imagination in the shape of a secret society: This bold estimate brings us back to the basic problem: who were the people