My book on José Carlos Mariátegui is currently on sale.

A huge thank you for @juanedecastro.bsky.social for his time and unlimited knowledge on Gabriel García Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa and sharing it with us on the Colombia Calling podcast. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

New release on Latin American critical theory and literary dialogues! 📖 This volume by @marcoramirezrojas.bsky.social and José Carlos Díaz Zanelli comprehensively examines key issues such as translatability, geographical imaginaries & editorial networks. www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

My contribution to Forma's Debates on the state of Latin American criticism is available. Thanks to Stephen Buttes and @jose-eduardo.bsky.social for asking me to collaborate. www.formajournal.org/essays/the-f...

Wordling Latin America: Corpus, Praxis, and Global Networks, edited by Marco Ramírez Rojas and José Carlos Zanelli is available. Proud to have my "José Carlos Mariátegui: Eurocentrism, Indigeneity, the Avant-Garde, and World Literature" included in the anthology: www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

Worldling Latin America edited by Marco Ramírez Rojas and José Carlos Díaz Zanelli is up on Google Books. Proud that my "José Carlos Mariátegui: Eurocentrism, Indigeneity, the Avant-Garde and World Literature" is included in this important critical anthology. books.google.com/books?id=afQ...

Este año fallecieron dos de mis críticos más admirados: primero, Fredric Jameson, y, ahora, Beariz Sarlo. Para mí, su Borges, un escritor en las orillas y Escenas de la vida posmoderna son obras claves.

My book Bread and Beauty is 40% off ($18) as part of the sale at Haymarket Books . www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1752-b...

It seems that my institution--and my colleagues--are joyfully embracing AI.

In homage to the truly great Fredric Jameson: I remember that during the first international conference I attended, the main speaker-whose name I've forgotten-a white, German, Ivy-league professor of African American lit, told the audience not to listen to patriarchs like Fredric Jameson.

Es increíble lo antipático que era José Santos Chocano.

For those in NYC looking for an alternative Halloween activity (though you can still wear a costume if desired).

For those in NYC interested in Roberto Bolaño

Of all meaningless achievements having one's contributions be "the most read contributions from your institution last week" on Researchgate must be the most meaningless.

For those around NYC on 3/26.

A widely respected colleague recently criticized my use of the term "neoliberal." I believe what needs to be studied is what it means to reject the term, especially for a US scholar. Do they believe that nothing changed after 1980? (Or, in Latin America, 1973?)

Just received The Political Uses of Literature, edited by Benjamin Kohlmann & Ivana Perica. (In addition to other essays, includes my "Politics and Literature on the Peruvian Periphery: Realism and Experimentation in the Works of César Vallejo and José Carlos Mariátegui").

A forgotten Christmas classic:

Have managed to use sublation in an article I'm working on. Feel unjustifiably profound.

I cannot help feeling that an uncritical support for any and all actions by the state of Israel has become part of what it means to be a liberal.

Reading Gundle's otherwise very interesting Mussolini's Dream Factory, I come upon the following: "For the Peruvian author Manuel Puig, Isa Miranda loomed large in his imagination." Oh well, at least Puig will enrich the Peruvian canon.

Perhaps the two best recent examples of the differences between US elite-Republican and Democrati-and popular opinions are: 1. how Kissinger is evaluated; 2. whether Israel's mass destruction of Gaza is justified or is a war crime.

A sure sign that someone is a neoliberal is denying that neoliberalism exists!

La primera reseña del Oxford Handbook of the Latin American Novel ha salido. Es muy positiva, aunque discrepo con la idea que no se estudia a I. Allende: los capítulos sobre el realismo mágico de A. Chanady y sobre la novela feminista de María Rosa Olivera-Williams analizan su obra.

I know he's supposed to be obscure (and passé?), but whenever I read F. Jameson I always find him not only understandable but illuminating.

Have just found out that the New School rejected a proposal by Frank Lloyd Wright to design its 12th St building. Somehow I'm not surprised.

The lesson of Milei's election is that the so-called political center has disappeared into the right.

Dado que Carlos Vives tocó en un beneficio a "Goya Cares," habría que boicotearlo. Algo para mí fácil: nunca he asistido a un concierto suyo, ni he comprado cd, lp, etc. suyo.

Everyone seems upset with Univision for its friendly Trump interview. However, there have been earlier signs of Univision's growing closeness to the US right: it actively promoted Goya Cares, a supposedly anti-child trafficking initiative and Sound of Freedom, the movie GC produced.

Neoliberalism has been shown tone a gateway political drug to fascism.

 If Kafka had been a revolutionary, he would have made suppositories instead of bombs. Roberto Schwarz "Worries of a Family Man."

Honrado de participar al aldo de nombres tan prestigiosos como Grinor Rojo, Julio Ortega, Ana Gallego, Silviano Santiago, Will Corral, etc. en Dominios y dislocaciones de la crítica latinoamericana, editado por Marcela Croce www.eduvim.com.ar/producto/dom...

A sign of the the change in the opinion on Israel held by Latin American progressives is that in 1963 Cortázar referred to a moment of self-reconciliation as "the kibbutz of desire." The phrase implies that the kibbutz is an utopia. Would a progressive writer would today coin a similar phrase?

I can't believe how bad are CLR James's attempts at presenting cricket as one of the arts. He is even forced to argue that bull fighting is also an art!

I think that CLR James liked cricket too much.

A writer at the other place, reminded people not break up with friends over politics. However, I think politics, especially when it is related to extreme positions, such as fascism, or when it involves justifying war crimes, is probably the most valid of reasons to break up a friendship.

I didn't expect 2023 to give us a practical lesson in how McCarthysm can came about.

I remember seeing Corina Machado on TV, decades ago, meeting GW Bush. She looked at him, like, I imagine, a Christian would look at Jesus; a Swiftie, Swift.

Perhaps I'm giving too much importance to the Argentinean elections, but I think it'll give us a preliminary answer to one of the key questions of the near future: when push comes to shove, will the center and center-right support or oppose fascism?

It's difficult to imagine Argentina, the country of Borges, electing a barbarian like Milei. (It has been run by barbarians before, but they were not elected). But one has to remember that Brazil, the home of bossa nova and tropicalia, voted Bolsonaro.

After evaluating 3 journal articles in a row, when I thought I had fully become the "second reader," I was able to finally give one the "rewrite and resubmit."

I think I've reached a new level of maturity (in my old age): I have learnt not to read reviews of my books, even when written by well-known novelists.

My department is once again considering revising or eliminating its Eurocentric and "Anglocentric" “great books” courses: Inventions-from the Bible and Homer to the Renaissance-and Reinventions-from Shakespeare to the present. Wondered how many other schools offer similar classes?

Looking at call for papers for a conference that provides "suggested readings." Is the goal to establish intellectual parameters and exclude those who write and think outside them? Does this assume potential authors do not know about the field? To make things worse, all the readings are in English

Según García Bedoya El espía del Inca "da una respuesta arguediana a una pregunta vargasllosiana." Además de estas influencias, veo ecos de "Funes, el memorioso" de Borges (en la transformación del protagonista) y de Cien años de soledad de GGM (los quipus recuerdan a los manuscritos de Melquiades).

Tentado a escribir sobre La tía Julia y el escribidor a partir de este texto de Gramsci: "dos escritores pueden representar (expresar) el mismo momento histórico-social, pero siendo artista el uno y mero escribidor el otro." El problema es que Vargas Llosa se presenta a si mismo como el artista.

Reading Gramsci on popular literature for my Marxism and Literature course, I was surprised to discover his antipathy towards opera. What would seem to be the one "national popular" Italian art form is described as "bookish degeneration.