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MODERNIZATION IN LATIN AMERICA: |
When Latin American countries entered the world market around 1875, they
changed their traditional ways and rural economies in order to replicate
the economic characteristics, social structure, and political organization
of northwestern contemporary societies. These changes painted dramatic
new images for the urban areas, especially the most "modern"
capital-cities in the region, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santiago de Chile,
Mexico, and La Havana. The images of these cities at the turn of the century
can be compared with the Mecca of modernity, New York City. We will discover
the emergence of a modern sensitivity in Latin America, touched by technological
advances and desires of being "authentic" in the midst of changes,
through pictures of that time and readings in English translation of the
most fascinating authors of the so-called "Modernismo." Writers
such as Cuban José Martí will enable us to reflect on the
thoughts of Latin American intellectuals regarding the advantages and
disadvantages of modernization as well as their ideas on the different
development of the two Americas at a pivotal time in history.
Click here to see images of the seminar.
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Marķa Rosa Olivera-Williams is associate professor of Latin American literature, faculty fellow of the Kellogg Institute, and chair of the Latin American Studies Association. She studies 19th- and 20th-century Latin American literature and culture, with a special focus on feminist theories and Southern Cone studies. She is the author of La poes'a gauchesca de Hidalgo a Hern‡ndez, 'Modernizaci-n y fin de siglo: naturalismo y criollismo.' Currently she is finishing a book-length manuscript The Complex Art of Creating the Feminine: Power, Sexuality and Desire in Spanish American Women Writers of the Southern Cone.
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