Beyond Human
238 pages, 6 x 9
13
Paperback
Release Date:15 Feb 2019
ISBN:9781684480678
Hardcover
Release Date:15 Feb 2019
ISBN:9781684480685
In the Andes, indigenous knowledge systems based on the relationships between different beings, both earthly and heavenly, animal and plant, have been central to the organization of knowledge since precolonial times. The legacies of colonialism and the continuance of indigenous cultures make the Andes a unique place from which to think about art and social change as ongoing, and as encompassing more than an exclusively human perspective. Beyond Human revises established readings of the avant-gardes in Peru and Bolivia as humanizing and historical. By presenting fresh readings of canonical authors like César Vallejo, José María Arguedas, and Magda Portal, and through analysis of newer artist-activists like Julieta Paredes, Mujeres Creando Comunidad, and Alejandra Dorado, Daly argues instead that avant-gardes complicate questions of agency and contribute to theoretical discussions on vital materialisms: the idea that life happens between animate and inanimate beings—human and non-human—and is made sensible through art.
Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Beyond Human offers an important reading that adds to ongoing discussions of new materialism....[A] very interesting book that proposes a fresh reading of materiality in the Andes.
From the pedagogical perspective, Beyond Human is teachable in its entirety in a course on Latin-American Vanguards or on the cultural production in the Andean region. The chapters can also be used as stand-alone material on the five intellectuals discussed in the book.
Recommended.
In recent years, a critical reevaluation of the avant-garde movements and their legacy has been taking place in Latin American literary and cultural studies. Beyond Human offers an innovative contribution to the understanding of the avant-garde and its legacy in the Andean region. With an approach that combines political philosophy and ecocriticism with current debates about the ‘'new materialism,’ Tara Daly proposes a pluralistic view of avant-garde Andean arts, and argues that their uniqueness within the broad panorama of twentieth-century Vanguardisms centers on their reorientations of the multiple relationships among humans and the natural world, partly inspired by the indigenous cultures of the Americas. Cutting through the mainly sociopolitical readings that have traditionally been applied to the Andean avant-garde, Daly argues compellingly that these artistic movements are best understood in terms of a 'vitalistic materialism' that sought to establish a uniquely Andean middle way between capitalist commodification and Marxist utopianism.
In recent years, a critical reevaluation of the avant-garde movements and their legacy has been taking place in Latin American literary and cultural studies. Beyond Human offers an innovative contribution to the understanding of the avant-garde and its legacy in the Andean region. With an approach that combines political philosophy and ecocriticism with current debates about the ‘'new materialism,’ Tara Daly proposes a pluralistic view of avant-garde Andean arts, and argues that their uniqueness within the broad panorama of twentieth-century Vanguardisms centers on their reorientations of the multiple relationships among humans and the natural world, partly inspired by the indigenous cultures of the Americas. Cutting through the mainly sociopolitical readings that have traditionally been applied to the Andean avant-garde, Daly argues compellingly that these artistic movements are best understood in terms of a 'vitalistic materialism' that sought to establish a uniquely Andean middle way between capitalist commodification and Marxist utopianism.
Recommended.
From the pedagogical perspective, Beyond Human is teachable in its entirety in a course on Latin-American Vanguards or on the cultural production in the Andean region. The chapters can also be used as stand-alone material on the five intellectuals discussed in the book.
Beyond Human offers an important reading that adds to ongoing discussions of new materialism....[A] very interesting book that proposes a fresh reading of materiality in the Andes.
Tara Daly is an assistant professor of Spanish at Marquette University is the co-editor of Decolonial Approaches to Latin American Literatures and Cultures (Palgrave 2016). She has published on visual art and literature from both the central Andes and the Amazon regions of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador.
Illustrations ... vi
A Note on Translations... vii
Introduction: Revitalizing the Andean Avant-Gardes ... 1
1 César Vallejo’s Lithic Poetry: Stones as Material Guides ... 53
2 Alejandra Dorado’s Installation Art: Material Transmutations in Contemporary Cochabamba ... 111
3 José María Arguedas’s 1960s: The Air as Space of Material Encounters ... 157
4 Mujeres Creando Comunidad: Communitarian Feminisms from the Bolivian Soil ... 199
5 Magda Portal’s Bare Life in the Sea ... 245
Conclusion: New Material Orientations in the Andes and Beyond ... 300
Acknowledgments ... 311
Bibliography ... 314
Index ... 342
About the Author ... 343
