Utopia and the Dialectic in Latin American Liberation examines the concept of utopia in Latin American thought and practice, and asks where there is a resonance with the dialectic as Hegel developed it. Within this context, emancipatory Latin American social movements are discussed.

"Utopia and the Dialectic in Latin American Liberation" examines the concept of utopia in Latin American thought and practice, and asks where there is a resonance with the dialectic as Hegel developed it. Within this context, emancipatory Latin American social movements are discussed.

Catholic mission from the mid-20th century onwards was complicated by geopolitical upheaval, church reform, and the emergent critique of the colonial power matrix to which the Church belonged. Missionary movements to Latin America coincided with visions for a progressive, radically transformative church. Landscapes of Liberation expands scholarship into liberation theology’s reception in Andean America and critically examines the interplay of the Catholic Church as a global institution with parishes as local actors. Through source material from both sides of the Atlantic, this book charts how a transnational network of pastoral agents and laypeople in Peru’s southern highlands claimed mission and development as intertwined tenets of spiritual and social life throughout three decades of agrarian reform, activism, and social conflict. Ultimately, this book reveals how transformative theories for rural development yield contingent transformations: concrete change, yet contested liberation.

Winner of the Premio Iberoamericano Book Award in 1997 (Spanish Edition) What form does the crisis of modernity take in Latin America when societies are politically demobilized and there is no revolutionary agenda in sight? How does postmodern criticism reflect on enlightenment and utopia in a region marked by incomplete modernization, new waves of privatization, great masses of excluded peoples, and profound sociocultural heterogeneity? In No Apocalypse, No Integration Martín Hopenhayn examines the social and philosophical implications of the triumph of neoliberalism and the collapse of leftist and state-sponsored social planning in Latin America. With the failure of utopian movements that promised social change, the rupture of the link between the production of knowledge and practical intervention, and the defeat of modernization and development policy established after World War II, Latin American intellectuals and militants have been left at an impasse without a vital program of action. Hopenhayn analyzes these crises from a theoretical perspective and calls upon Latin American intellectuals to reevaluate their objects of study, their political reality, and their society’s cultural production, as well as to seek within their own history the elements for a new collective discourse. Challenging the notion that strict adherence to a single paradigm of action can rescue intellectual and cultural movements, Hopenhayn advocates a course of epistemological pluralism, arguing that such an approach values respect for difference and for cultural and theoretical diversity and heterodoxy. This essay collection will appeal to readers of sociology, public policy, philosophy, cultural theory, and Latin American history and culture, as well as to those with an interest in Latin America’s current transition.

The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures celebrates a literary genre already over 500 years old. Specially commissioned essays from established and emerging international scholars reflect the vibrancy of utopian vision, and its resiliency as idea, genre, and critical mode. Covering politics, environment, geography, body and mind, and social organization, the volume surveys current research and maps new areas of study. The chapters include investigations of anarchism, biopolitics, and postcolonialism and study film, art, and literature. Each essay considers central questions and key primary works, evaluates the most recent research, and outlines contemporary debates. Literatures of Africa, Australia, China, Latin America, and the Middle East are discussed in this global, cross-disciplinary, and comprehensive volume.

Toward a Dialectic of Philosophy and Organization is an exploration of Hegel’s dialectic and its radical re-creation in Marx’s thought within the context of revolutions and revolutionary organizations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Does a dialectic in philosophy itself bring forth a dialectic in revolutionary organization? This question is explored via organizational practices in the Paris Commune, the 2nd International, the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Spanish Revolution of 1936-37 and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, as well as the theoretical-organizational concepts of such thinkers as Lassalle, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and Pannekoek. “What Philosophic-Organizational Vantage Point Is Needed for Revolutionary Transformation Today?” is examined by engaging the theoretical arguments of a number of thinkers. Among them: Adorno, Dunayevskaya, Hardt and Negri, Holloway, Lebowitz, Lukcás, Mészáros and Postone.

The first in-depth study in English to analyze post-utopian historical novels written during and in the wake of brutal Latin American dictatorships and authoritarian regimes During neoliberal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, murder, repression, and exile had reduced the number of intellectuals and Leftists, and many succumbed to or were coopted by market forces and ideologies. The opposition to the economic violence of neoliberal projects lacked a united front, and feasible alternatives to the contemporary order no longer seemed to exist. In this context, some Latin American literary intellectuals penned post-utopian historical novels as a means to reconstruct memory of significant moments in national history. Through the distortion and superimposition of distinct genres within the narratives, authors of post-utopian historical novels incorporated literary, cultural, and political traditions to expose contemporary challenges that were rooted in unresolved past conflicts. In Anything but Novel, Jennie Irene Daniels closely examines four post-utopian novels--César Aira's Ema, la cautiva, Rubem Fonseca's O Selvagem da Ópera, José Miguel Varas's El correo de Bagdad, and Santiago Páez's Crónicas del Breve Reino--to make their contributions more accessible and to synthesize and highlight the literary and social interventions they make. Although the countries the novels focus on (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador) differ widely in politics, regime changes, historical precedents, geography, and demographics, the development of a shared subgenre among the literary elite suggests a common experience and interpretation of contemporary events across Latin America. These novels complement one another, extending shared themes and critiques. Daniels argues the novels demonstrate that alternatives exist to neoliberalism even in times when it appears there are none. Another contribution of these novels is their repositioning of the Latin American literary intellectuals who have advocated for the marginalized in their societies. Their work has opened new avenues and developed previous lines of research in feminist, queer, and ethnic studies and for nonwhite, nonmale writers.