The Ethics of Latin American Literary Criticism | Rebecoming a Latin Americanist

Back in the day, I was an aspiring Latin Americanist--and as I make halting steps back to my professéd field, it gives me sublime pleasure to hang with John Beverly on the back cover of a recent Palgrave title, The Ethics of Latin American Literary Criticism: Reading Otherwise:

"The ethical 'turn' in Latin American literary and cultural criticism marked a withdrawal from or renunciation of politics that was generally coincident with the hegemony of neoliberalism. The great value of this collection is that it effects a reversal of this tendency, in a new context marked by the resurgence of the left, or 'lefts,' in Latin America. It seeks to find new ways of conceiving the political from the ethical. That desire, however, marks the collection as a site of conflict and debate--and that, too, is part of its urgency and richness."

--John Beverley, Professor of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, and Founding member, Graduate Program in Cultural Studies, University of Pittsburgh

"A dynamic collection that will make a lasting contribution to contemporary scholarship, Erin Graff Zivin's The Ethics of Latin American Literary Criticism is an original and eclectic collaboration--one that hastens the development of conversations between Latin American Studies and Cultural Studies academic enclaves."

--William Anthony Nericcio, Professor and Chair of English & Comparative Literature, San Diego State University

Perhaps my street-cred for domains Latin American is in full resuscitation: next week, my review of Gabriel García Márquez's new biography by Gerald Graff, Gabriel García Márquez: A Life, will appear in the Sunday San Diego Union-Tribune.