Reading and Writing the Latin American Landscape

by B. Rivera-Barnes, J. Hoeg

Overview

Spanning the whole of Latin America, including Brazil, from its beginnings in 1492 up to the present time, Rivera-Barnes and Hoeg analyze the relationship between literature and the environment in both literary and testimonial texts, asking questions that contribute to the on-going dialogue between the arts and the sciences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230615199
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	01/13/2010
Edition description:	2009
Pages:	203
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

BEATRIZ RIVERA-BARNES is Associate Professor of Spanish at Penn State Worthington Scranton, USA.
JERRY HOEG is Professor of Spanish at the Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Table of Contents

To Discover, an Intransitive Verb; Christopher Columbus's First Encounter with the American Landscape Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Water? The Hurricanes that Foundered and the Swamps that Hindered Alvar Núnez Cabeza de Vaca Picaresque Nature: Conquistadors, Parrots, Parasites, Mimics Andrés Bello's 'Ode to Tropical Agriculture': The Landscape of Independence 'I do not Weep for Camaguey': Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's 19th Century Cuban Landscape Rebellion in the Backlands ( Os Sertões ): The Darwinian Landscape Yuyos are not Weeds: An Ecocritical Approach to Horacio Quiroga The Landscapes of Venezuela: Doña Bárbara 'It didn't work, Mother. You should have let me stay here.' Alegría's and Flakoll's Ashes of Izalco Pablo Neruda's Latin American Landscape: Nations, Economy, Nature Love in the Time of Somoza: (Gioconda Belli's Ambivalent Ecofeminism) The Landscape of the Consumer Society: Fernando Contreras Castro's Unica mirando al mar

Editorial Reviews

"Rivera-Barnes and Hoeg venture beyond the omnipresent critical considerations of place in Latin American writing to mark both the literature s unique valuation of nature and its ever more strident calls for its conservation. They engage texts from across the centuries, mapping the moral questions they raise as well as offering a 21st-century strategy for finding answers in both the artistic and the scientific realms." - Dale Pratt, Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University

"The landscape offers an opportunity to put the environmental crisis in literary perspective. Rivera-Barnes and Hoeg explore our evolving perceptions and the collection could not be more timely." - Joseph Henry Vogel, University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras, and Author of The Economics of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative: Climate Change as if Thermodynamics Mattered

"This is an important contribution to the growing field of ecocriticism in Latin America. The book s broad historical and geographical scope, as well as its careful analysis, make it essential reading for anyone interested in understanding literature and nature in Latin America." - J. Andrew Brown, Washington University in St. Louis, and Author of Test Tube Envy: Science and Power in Argentine Narrative.

"The authors have their feet firmly planted on the ground of solid scholarship. They cut a wide swath, geographically and historically, but are careful to blaze a trail and even to pavethe way for readers to follow. Their book is well worth a reader s time, not just for an initial incursion, but for further avid study." - Kevin S. Larsen, Professor of Spanish and Religious Studies, University of Wyoming

From the Publisher