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13 Chapter 2 The Politics of Contemporary Latin Americanism I n the 1970s and early 1980s, it was not uncommon for emerging critics to complain about the apolitical orientation of literary criticism in the United States. The New Critics, with their aestheticism, their belief in the autonomy of the work of art, and their frequently conservative politics, were the preferred targets for these critics who, shaped by the cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s, promised a criticism—both literary and cultural—that was more engaged with the world, more committed to progressive political causes, and more informed by a sense of the urgency of the times.1 The calls for a more political criticism coincided with the rise of theory, but even though the intensely critical, demystifying thrust of theory often sustained and buttressed the work of the new political critics, largely by reinforcing their iconoclasm, relations between the two camps were often tense (even or especially when these camps battled each other within the mind of a single critic). After all, the deconstructive weapons of theory could easily be used to undermine the core concepts on which the political critics relied. Still, the political turn in criticism, announced and called for by the leading critics of thirty years ago, emerged triumphant in subsequent decades and is now firmly installed at the very center of critical work in literature departments around the country. Everywhere one turns, one finds critics whose work is driven by political agendas more so than by literary, historical, or disciplinary concerns. There is, of course, nothing wrong with linking literature and politics; on the contrary, the connections between these two domains are the topic of this book. Nor is it a matter of disputing the widely accepted (albeit depressing) notion that politics informs everything we do—including, needless to say, the writing of this book. What is questionable, however, is the view that politics ought to be our first and foremost concern even in the domain of literature and culture. Politics may inform all cultural activities, but it does not inform them all in exactly the same way, nor does the presence of politics in any given cultural endeavor necessarily imply the preeminence of politics in that endeavor. What we need is a more nuanced approach to the political dimension of culture in general, and literature in particular. Chapter 1 of this book offers a theoretical framework within which such an approach can be fruitfully developed . In this chapter, I will examine the work of three prominent contemporary 14 Gunshots at the Fiesta Latin Americanists, with the goal of determining where the political orientation of current criticism has led us. TheEndofLiterature? In Latin American studies, arguments in favor of the politicization of academic work have tended to go hand in hand with the demotion of literature from its previously central place in humanistic inquiry. Perhaps the best representative of the assault on literature (from within literary study itself) is John Beverley, who in a series of influential books—including Against Literature (1993), Sub­ alternity and Representation (1999), and Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth (2004)—has argued for a reorientation of scholarly work on Latin America in the contemporary university. Beverley’s first and foremost claim is that the institution of literature is “an apparatus of domination and alienation.”2 Contrary to the belief that literature is or may be an instrument of human emancipation, Beverley contends that literature actually contributes to human oppression. Now, if this is indeed the case, literary critics with a conscience will have to rethink the nature and purpose of the work they do. Beverley offers three possible solutions to this dilemma: the first is to move from the study of literature to the study of mass culture; the second is to take up the cause of “testimonio,” Latin American testimonial literature; and the third is to abandon literary and cultural criticism altogether, and to devote oneself to political theory. I will limit myself here to an examination of the first two solutions. In both cases, we will see that it is not ultimately mass culture or testimonial literature that really matters to Beverley. His concern is with certain political goals; mass culture and testimonial literature are, in the end, mere vehicles with which to achieve these goals. It is not surprising, therefore, that Beverley ends up shifting his focus to political theory, and to long meditations on how to achieve a “hegemonic articulation of the left.”3 To foreground...

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