In this Book
- Mexico's Ruins: Juan Garcia Ponce and the Writing of Modernity
- Book
- 2007
- Published by: State University of New York Press
summary
At face value, the concept of modernity seems to reference a stream of social and historical traffic headed down a utopian one-way street named “progress.” Mexico’s Ruins examines modernity in twentieth-century Mexican culture as a much more ambiguous concept, arguing that such a single-minded notion is inadequate to comprehend the complexity of modern Mexico’s national projects and their reception by the nation’s citizenry. Instead, through the trope of modernity as ruin, author Raúl Rodríguez-Hernández explores the dilemma presented by the etymology of “ruins”: a simultaneous falling down and rising up, a confluence of opposing forces at work on the skyline of the metropolis since 1968. He focuses on artists and writers of the generación de medio siglo, like Juan García Ponce, and envisions both the tales of modernity and their storytellers in a new light. The arts, literature, and architecture of twentieth-century Mexico are all examined in this cross-cultural and interdisciplinary book.
Table of Contents
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- MEXICO’S RUINS
- p. iii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- 2. The Storyteller’s Ruins
- pp. 27-51
- 3. Monuments and Relics, I
- pp. 52-74
- 4. Monuments and Relics, II
- pp. 75-104
- 6. Modernity, Contingency, Compensation
- pp. 143-177
- 7. A Brief Return to the Ruin
- pp. 179-183
- WORKS CITED
- pp. 199-210
Additional Information
ISBN
9780791480823
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
137662026
Pages
227
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No