Overview
- Examines material from five different cultural fields, ranging from science through to literature
- Outlines the philosophical ideas that underpin the Spanish American Enlightenment with theoretical clarity and historical nuance to debates on Latin America and modernity
- Provides a comparative dimensions, eschewing naĆÆve celebrations of Enlightenment, ill-informed denunciations of it and contradictory affirmations of Hispanic alternatives that bypass its aporias
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book is about Enlightenment culture in Spanish America before Independenceāin short, there where, according to Hegel, one would least expect to find it. It explores the Enlightenment in texts from five cultural fields: science, history, the periodical press, law, and literature. Texts include the journals of the geodesic expedition to Quito, philosophical histories of the Americas, a yearās work from the Mercurio Peruano, the writings of Mariano Moreno, and Lizardiās El periquillo sarniento. Each chapter takes one field, one body of writing, and one key question: Is modern science universal? Can one disavow the discourse of progress? What is a āCatholicā Enlightenment? Are Enlightenment reason and sovereignty monological? Must the individual be the normative subject of modernity? The bookās premise is that the above texts not only speak to the contradictions of a doubtless marginalised colonial American IlustraciĆ³n but illuminate the constitutive aporias ofthe so-called modern project itself.
Drawing on the work of Derrida, but also on both historical and philosophical accounts of the various Enlightenments, this incisive book will be of interest to students of Spanish America and scholars in the fields of postcolonialism and the Enlightenment.
Reviews
āThis is an insightful, well-researched, and very well-written piece of research on a rather overlooked subject of Spanish American Enlightenment thought and its translation into scientific, political, legal, and literary discourse. Close readings of relevant texts, including a painstaking examination of periodicals, provide a rounded understanding of the topic. The study engages in academic debate with the leading contributions to the field (including Prattās seminal work), drawing original and well-supported conclusions which open up new perspectives on several topics,including the view of Spanish American Enlightenment as a distinct philosophical field rather than a pale copy of its Western counterpart. Sharman demonstrates a rounded approach to the subject, exploring with equal ease and eloquence geodesic findings and legal intricacies. In short, this is a high-quality, memorable contribution to the field.ā- Dr. Victoria Carpenter, Head of Research Development, University of Bedfordshire
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Adam Sharman is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Nottingham, UK. His books include Tradition and Modernity in Spanish American Literature, Otherwise Engaged: After Hegel and the Philosophy of History, and the co-edited 1812 Echoes: The Cadiz Constitution in Hispanic History, Culture and Politics.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Deconstructing the Enlightenment in Spanish America
Book Subtitle: Margins of Modernity
Authors: Adam Sharman
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37019-0
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), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-37018-3Published: 14 February 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-37021-3Published: 14 February 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-37019-0Published: 13 February 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 263
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: Latin American Culture, Latin American/Caribbean Literature, Latin American History, Critical Theory