CRITICAL FICTIONS IN LATIN AMERICA By Catalina Ocampo B.A., University of Virginia, 2001 A.M., Brown University, 2004 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island May 2015 © Copyright 2015 by Catalina Ocampo iii This dissertation by Catalina Ocampo is accepted in its present form by the Department of Comparative Literature as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date_____________ ___________________________________________ Stephanie Merrim, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date_____________ ___________________________________________ Esther Whitfield, Reader Date_____________ ___________________________________________ Michelle Clayton, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date_____________ ___________________________________________ Sheila Bonde, Dean of the Graduate School iv Curriculum Vitae Catalina Ocampo was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She received a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia in 2001 and the A.M. in Comparative Literature from Brown University in 2005. She has taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and Hispanic Studies at Brown University and was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Puget Sound from 2011-2012. She is currently a Member of the Faculty at the Evergreen State College, where she teaches Latin American literature and culture. v Acknowledgments In the coda to this dissertation I outline a literary-critical utopia: it is an open bar where an intellectual community engages, collectively, in the production of critical fictions. In the coda, the bar is populated by the writers, critics, and characters that appear in this dissertation. Yet the community in my utopian open bar is much broader: it includes all those who made this dissertation possible through their camaraderie, support, generosity, imagination, and critical insight. As everyone mentioned here is well aware, this was truly a collective effort. My infinite gratitude goes to my advisor, Stephanie Merrim, whose critical imagination has kept me on my toes from our first conversation about Alfonso Reyes, years before starting this dissertation. Many of the insights contained in the following pages came from my always-imperfect attempts to answer her careful and incisive questions. I continue to ponder them, and have received no bit of wisdom more productive than the phrase, “the secret to the treasure is the treasure.” It truly was. Her human and scholarly wisdom has made me a better thinker, writer, teacher, and person, and I can only hope that we can continue our dialogue for years to come. I am thankful to my readers, Esther Whitfield and Michelle Clayton for their generosity and intellectual rigor, for their patience and flexibility. Esther provided untiring suggestions, leads, words of encouragement and caution from proposal to defense, though I owe much more to her. Throughout my graduate education I often looked to her for example and support, and was never let down. I am grateful to Michelle for joining the committee as the dissertation took new shape, and for her meticulous reading, which caught nuances and connections that had slipped me by. I especially appreciate the pointers that help me think about the next steps for this project. I hope to keep the conversation going with both of them. At Brown University, I am thankful to Julio Ortega, who has been an admirable model of intellectual creativity, and provided early opportunities to present and publish my work. I am grateful to him for introducing me to Héctor Libertella, whose thinking on the relationship between literature and criticism is at the heart of this dissertation. Susan Bernstein also guided me through the ups and downs of graduate school at a critical point in my career, and provided encouragement and a safe haven at a time when I much needed one. I have also to thank Doris Sommer and the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University, which encouraged me to think broadly and creatively about the social contributions of artists and intellectuals. I am grateful to Doris for reigniting my faith in scholarly work and in the possibility of reimagining the role of the humanities. My time vi at the Cultural Agents Initiative has been decisive for my work as a scholar, teacher, and creative thinker, and continues to bear fruit. During the years I worked on this dissertation, I benefitted greatly from the generosity, good humor, faith, and support of my colleagues at the University of Puget Sound and at the Evergreen State College. I am especially indebted to Pepa Lago-Graña, Mark Harpring, and Harry Vélez-Quiñones, who placed great trust in my abilities as a teacher and scholar and made it possible to create more time to work on my dissertation. I also want to thank Brendan Lanctot, Oriel Siu, Alicia Ramirez Dueker, David Hanson, Curtis Wasson, Diane Kelley, and Rachel Sizer-Williams for the sense of camaraderie that they shared during the semesters I taught at Puget Sound. I am deeply grateful to my teaching partners at the Evergreen State College, who went above and beyond the call of duty to welcome me and guide me through the new adventure of teaching at Evergreen. Alice Nelson and Tom Womeldorff provided friendship and an open space for intellectual and pedagogical experimentation. They challenged me to think about systems of power in new ways, fed my love of narrative, and reinforced my belief in the potential of collaborative work. I am deeply grateful for the kindness of Chico Herbison and Amy Cook, who pulled me out of my intellectual and pedagogical comfort zones and challenged me rethink the relationship between the sciences and the humanities. I thank them for the experience of truly interdisciplinary thinking. This dissertation would not have been possible without an extraordinary community of friends, who have sat with me in bars, libraries, living rooms, parks, cafes, and virtual spaces to think about and reimagine the world. I thank Kelley Kreitz for her unwavering friendship and innumerable hours of conversation on everything from the relationship between journalism and criticism in Latin America, to the commercial potential of modernista action figures, to job applications, to the challenges of writing and nursing. She knows that this dissertation is of common authorship. I thank Rachel Greene for a beautiful postcard of a library with a secret door leading into a dining room: its subtle poetics capture our friendship, which has helped me persevere through this dissertation. We have now earned half of our imagined meal. I could not have done without Teresa Villa-Ignacio’s friendship, wit, heart, loyalty, open spirit, and intelligence. I thank her for being there from the very beginning and for all the glasses of wine that she shared with me, at all the moments that mattered. I thank Marimar Patrón for understanding the importance of literature, community, and creativity and for sharing her friendship and contagious energy. I owe the title of this dissertation to her. I am thankful to Weston Smith, who always helps me believe that anything is possible. William Tortorelli shared my love of literature, ancient and contemporary, and motivated me to get to the finish line, though he beat me by a couple years. I am grateful to Dan and Anna Scheid for sharing space, children, food, drink, and the experience of writing a dissertation. Their kindness and generosity prevented this project from floundering in its early stages. Stacey Levine, Mike Rosenmeier, April Randle, John Paul, Rachel Spigler, and Will Trask provided home and community in Pittsburgh. They were untiring supporters and made me laugh at the times I needed it most. I am grateful to Peter Hodum and Nathalie Hamel for throwing their doors and hearts wide open, and for repeatedly allowing me to use their home as a writing retreat. Darby Veek and Kristi Lynett also vii provided unconditional support, unexpected meals, and the knowledge that I could always count on them. Gwynne and Jim Brown always believed in me and in this project, even when I myself was dubious. I thank all my friends, collectively, for the many forms of community and intellectual dialogue they have shared with me: they surpass any utopian model I could have devised by myself. No tengo cómo agradecerles a mi padre, madre y hermana, quienes apoyaron (y se soportaron) este proyecto durante muchos años. A mi madre, Beatriz Londoño, le debo incontables de horas de ayuda, plegarias, mensajes de apoyo, visitas a todas las ciudades donde escribí esta tesis y sobre todo su incansable amor de madre, su confianza incondicional, su paciencia conmigo. A mi padre, Francisco Ocampo, le agradezco por ser el mejor profesor de crítica-ficción que he tenido en mi vida. De él heredo mi amor por la literatura y las letras, y le dedico este proyecto. Que sea acto de eternidad. A mi hermana, Juana Ocampo, quien siempre fue una mejor hermana mayor, le agradezco su vital energía, su sentido estético, su amor, que siempre me renuevan y me dan fuerzas para seguir adelante. To Carl Toews, steadfast believer, exacting critic, partner in imagination, voice of pragmatism, co-conspirator, demanding timekeeper, gentle supporter: I have no way to thank him for the many roles that he played, from beginning to end. I thank him for love, ambition, home, all at once. My son Benjamin, already a voracious reader and exacting critic, continues to remind me of the critical power of apparently naive readings. I thank him for challenging my imagination, daily and in unexpected ways. My son Simon was with me, in and ex utero, during much of this project. The second half of the dissertation is his. viii Para mi padre, gran lector ingenuo, con quien sigo aprendiendo a leer.