Abstract
What does democracy mean in Latin America? How has that meaning been shaped by its complex histories of (de)colonization? This Colloquium addresses these questions as part of an interdisciplinary research project – “Plotting for Democracy: A Transnational Approach to Literatures of Transition in Latin America” – that analyzes and interrogates theories, narratives and practices of democracy in Latin America. The aim of the panel is to examine the sometimes surprising connections between the region’s socio-political formations and its literary-cultural forms. Taking a step back from the paradigm of (post-)dictatorship that has dominated in scholarly analyses, we focus on democracy and how it interfaces, often violently, with Latin America’s historical continuum of coloniality or “Conquistualidad”, as Argentine anthropologist Rita Segato puts it (2019). We are particularly interested in texts that, in transcending disciplinary boundaries between the Humanities and Social Sciences, between literature and politics, contribute to the construction of plural democratic worlds; texts that, considered together as a sprawling network of thought and praxis, point to the pluriverse. The five presentations take different historical, theoretical and textual angles on the above questions, from the problematic displacement of the concept of democracy to the new Latin American Republics in the nineteenth century to emerging forms of anti-racist literary practices in the present day. Our hope is that this Colloquium will generate fruitful dialogue and debate around the possible decolonization of a “democracy to come” (Derrida) in Latin America, and the role of specific forms of writing and thinking in this process.
Presenters
Mabel MorañaProfessor, Romance Languages, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, United States Stefano Tedeschi
Professor, Dipartimento di Studi Europei, Americani e Interculturali, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy Luca Bacchini
Assistant Professor, Dipartimento di Studi Europei, Americani e Interculturali, Sapienza Università di Roma , Italy Ariadne Catarine dos Santos
PhD student , Program in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature (PPG-TLLC) and Dipartimento di Studi Europei Americani e Interculturali (SEAI), University of São Paulo (USP) and Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" (Uniroma1), Brazil Lucy Amelia Jane Bell
Assistant Professor, Dipartimento di Studi Europei Americani e Interculturali, Sapienza, University of Rome, Agrigento, Italy
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Civic, Political, and Community Studies
KEYWORDS
LITERATURE, DEMOCRACY, DECOLONIALITY, FEMINICIDE, ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CRISIS
