Overview

The Art of Transition addresses the problems defined by writers and artists during the post-dictatorship years in Argentina and Chile, years in which both countries aggressively adopted neo-liberal market-driven economies. Delving into the conflicting efforts of intellectuals to name and speak to what is real, Francine Masiello interprets the culture of this period as an art of transition, referring to both the political transition to democracy and the formal strategies of wrestling with this change that are found in the aesthetic realm. Masiello views representation as both a political and artistic device, concerned with the tensions between truth and lies, experience and language, and intellectuals and the marginal subjects they study and claim to defend. These often contentious negotiations, she argues, are most provocatively displayed through the spectacle of difference, which constantly crosses the literary stage, the market, and the North/South divide. While forcefully defending the ability of literature and art to advance ethical positions and to foster a critical view of neo-liberalism, Masiello especially shows how issues of gender and sexuality function as integrating threads throughout this cultural project. Through discussions of visual art by Guillermo Kuitca, Juana Davila, Liliana Porter, and Gonzalo Diaz, and literary work by prominent novelists and poets, Masiello sketches a broad landscape of vivid intellectual debate in the Southern Cone of Latin America. The Art of Transition will interest Latin Americanists, literary and political theorists, art critics and historians, and those involved with the study of postmodernism and globalisation.

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9780822328186

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"" ... Francine Masiello's The Art of Transition is a path-breaking book that consolidates her as one of the most creative academics working in the area of Latin American literature in the US ... indispensable for scholars working in contemporary art, literature and cultural studies in Latin America."" - Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, October 2003 Volume 80 Number 4 ""The Art of Transition will be indispensable reading for literary critics working on contemporary Latin America. Though it focuses on Argentina and Chile, the questions it poses are of concern to anyone who cares about literature and art in the neo-liberal era. Masiello tacks smoothly among a diverse gallery of figures, lining them up around a rich and often brilliant array of insights."" - Mary Louise Pratt, Stanford University ""Two centuries ago, Villemain described literature as an expression of society; one century later Benedetto Croce replied that what really counts is that literature is always expression. Proving both right, Francine Masiello has written a much-needed book that brings back the aesthetic dimension to a study of current Spanish American literary production grounded on her exceptionally insightful understanding of the current turn in the history of the region."" - Tulio Halperin-Donghi, author of The Contemporary History of Latin America

... Francine Masiello's The Art of Transition is a path-breaking book that consolidates her as one of the most creative academics working in the area of Latin American literature in the US ... indispensable for scholars working in contemporary art, literature and cultural studies in Latin America. - Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, October 2003 Volume 80 Number 4 The Art of Transition will be indispensable reading for literary critics working on contemporary Latin America. Though it focuses on Argentina and Chile, the questions it poses are of concern to anyone who cares about literature and art in the neo-liberal era. Masiello tacks smoothly among a diverse gallery of figures, lining them up around a rich and often brilliant array of insights. - Mary Louise Pratt, Stanford University Two centuries ago, Villemain described literature as an expression of society; one century later Benedetto Croce replied that what really counts is that literature is always expression. Proving both right, Francine Masiello has written a much-needed book that brings back the aesthetic dimension to a study of current Spanish American literary production grounded on her exceptionally insightful understanding of the current turn in the history of the region. - Tulio Halperin-Donghi, author of The Contemporary History of Latin America

Author Information

Francine Masiello is Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of several books, including Between Civilization and Barbarism: Women, Nation, and Literary Culture in Modern Argentina.

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