1. Ángel Rama contra la ciudad letrada: Prehistoria de un concepto.
- Author
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Martínez, Miguel
- Subjects
- *
ARCHAEOLOGY , *LITERACY , *GENEALOGY , *REALITY , *UTOPIAS - Abstract
Despite its far-reaching influence, Ángel Rama’s La ciudad letrada (1984) has been amply criticized in recent years for positing a too-rigid and univocal relationship between writing and power, as well as for the argument’s disregard of indigenous, mestizo, and Afro-descendant forms of literacy. This article takes these debates as the starting point for a new intellectual genealogy of the concept—the lettered city—through a thorough review of Rama’s earlier critical work and epistolary writing. In particular, I revisit the 1980 essay in which Rama referred for the first time to the lettered city, “La señal de Jonás sobre el pueblo mexicano.” A rereading of the posthumous book in dialogue with the previous work allows us to see that the idea of the lettered city did not aspire to describe the totality of the cultural reality of colonial America, but rather one of the poles that puts it in tension, one side of a cultural conflict. “La señal de Jonás” offers a significantly different vision of the colonial city, where the cultural force of an urban and multiracial plebs defies the walls of the lettered city and manages to penetrate the intellectual practice of some of its guardians. In contrast to the pessimism of La ciudad letrada, “La señal de Jonás” entails a kind of utopianism regarding the political and aesthetic potentialities of that popular urban culture that is ultimately similar to that of Transculturación narrativa en América Latina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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