Description
Book SynopsisTheorizes the cultural reactions - within the realms of visual arts, literature, and the social sciences - to the oppression of the Chilean dictatorship. This title considers the importance of Walter Benjamin for the theoretical self-understanding of the Latin American intellectual left.
Trade Review“At last, Nelly Richard’s work is available for English-language readers. A leading figure in the theater of Latin American critical debate, Nelly Richard has written with unorthodox brilliance about the Chilean transition to democracy, North-South cultural relations, and the value of aesthetic intervention to rethink the politics of difference.”—Francine Masiello, author of
The Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and Neoliberal Crisis“The Chilean publication of this book and of its companion volume (
Masculine/Feminine) confirmed and advanced Nelly Richard’s reputation as one of the foremost critical voices of the age. Richard’s brand of cultural critique, informed by a thorough attention to contemporary forms of subjectivity, is unmatched in the force of its theoretical articulation, its aesthetic sensitivity, and its sharp deployment of political strategies. Nelly Richard is today an essential reference for intellectual work in Latin America and beyond.”—Alberto Moreiras, author of
The Exhaustion of Difference: The Politics of Latin American Cultural Studies"Nelly Richard mobilizes language into a trenchant critique of the political, academic, and market-oriented production of meaning that ushers in quiescent solutions to crises such as that of the postdictatorial reconciliation in Chile. Like the aesthetic projects she endorses, her work gives expression to the ‘diffuse zones of the unsaid.’ Richard wrestles the materiality of critique so that it maintains the inscriptions of antagonism, making it an indispensable instrument for an effective democratic culture. In
The Insubordination of Signs, her words add muscle to the Benjaminian insight into rebellious memories that will not be quashed by ‘final and totalizing truths.’”—George Yúdice, author of
The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global EraTable of ContentsAuthor’s Note
ix
Translators’ Acknowledgments xi
Note on This Translation xvii
1. Ruptures, Memory, and Discontinuities (Homage to Walter Benjamin) 1
2. A Border Citation: Between Neo- and Post-Avant-Garde 23
3. Destruction, Reconsstruction, and Deconstruction 39
4. The Social Sciences: Front Lines and Points of Retreat 51
5. Staging Democracy and the Politics of Difference 65
6. Conversation: German Bravo, Martin Hopenhayn, Nelly Richard, and Adriana Valdes 77
Notes 103
Bibliography 113
Index 121
