Authors:
- Represents the first systematic examination of the relationship between literature and geography in Latin American narrative
- Makes an intervention not only in geocriticism and spatial studies, but also ecocriticism, an ever more important field
- Examines the relations of cartography to environmental collapse
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies (GSLS)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book looks to the writings of prolific statesmen like D.F. Sarmiento, Estanislao Zeballos, and Euclides da Cunha to unearth the literary and political roots of the discipline of geography in nineteenth-century Latin America. Tracing the simultaneous rise of text-writing, map-making, and institution-building, it offers new insight into how nations consolidated their territories. Beginning with the titanic figures of Strabo and Humboldt, it rereads foundational works like Facundo and Os sertões as examples of a recognizably geographical discourse. The book digs into lesser-studied bulletins, correspondence, and essays to tell the story of how three statesmen became literary stars while spearheading Latin America’s first geographic institutes, which sought to delineate the newly independent states. Through a fresh pairing of literary analysis and institutional history, it reveals that words and maps—literature and geography—marched in lockstep to shape nationalterritories, identities, and narratives.
Reviews
“In Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative, Aarti Smith Madan explores the cartographic impulse propelling nineteenth-century criollos in their efforts to appropriate their newly independent national territories as their own. A new geographical discourse emerges that surveys the land through text and map. Madan’s exquisite readings of classics like Sarmiento and da Cunha features the aestheticqualities of their writings as integral to a fin-de-siècle geographical imagination and hence to Latin America’s entry into modernity.” (Adriana Méndez Rodenas, author of Transatlantic Travels in Nineteenth-Century Latin America: European Women Pilgrims, Professor of Spanish and Director of Afro-Romance Institute, University of Missouri, USA)
“Madan’s monograph is a fascinating and well-executed study of two major figures of Argentine narrative and one Brazilian figure of the latter half of the 19th century whose work is fundamental to the project of nation building in Argentina and Brazil and the forging of national cultural imaginaries. Yet despite their significantly different political history, the two countries are brought into parallel focus by the importance of geographical studies. Geography cuts an interdisciplinary swath here. Yet no one has analyzed in detail all of the scientific principles of geography present in their work in the way in which Madan has done.” (David William Foster, Regents’ Professor of Spanish and Women and Gender Studies, Arizona State University, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
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Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, USA
Aarti Smith Madan
About the author
Aarti Smith Madan is Associate Professor of Spanish and International Studies in the Department of Humanities and Arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA, where she also serves as Director of the Buenos Aires Project Center. She was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee and lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative
Book Subtitle: National Territory, National Literature
Authors: Aarti Smith Madan
Series Title: Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55140-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-55139-5Published: 06 September 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-85577-6Published: 10 August 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-55140-1Published: 17 August 2017
Series ISSN: 2578-9694
Series E-ISSN: 2634-5188
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 291
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: Twentieth-Century Literature, Postcolonial/World Literature