Research Catalog

Forms of dictatorship : power, narrative, and authoritarianism in the Latina/o novel

Title
Forms of dictatorship : power, narrative, and authoritarianism in the Latina/o novel / Jennifer Harford Vargas.
Author
Harford Vargas, Jennifer, 1980-
Publication
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/TextUse in library JFE 18-634Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
xiv, 260 pages; 25 cm
Summary
  • " An intra-ethnic study of Latina/o fiction written in the United States from the early 1990s to the present, Forms of Dictatorship examines novels that depict the historical reality of dictatorship and exploit dictatorship as a literary trope. This literature constitutes a new sub-genre of Latina/o fiction, which the author calls the Latina/o dictatorship novel. The book illuminates Latina/os' central contributions to the literary history of the dictatorship novel by analyzing how Latina/o writers with national origin roots in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America imaginatively represent authoritarianism. The novels collectively generate what Harford Vargas terms a "Latina/o counter-dictatorial imaginary" that positions authoritarianism on a continuum of domination alongside imperialism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, neoliberalism, and border militarization. Focusing on novels by writers such as Junot Díaz, Héctor Tobar, Cristina García, Salvador Plascencia, and Francisco Goldman, the book reveals how Latina/o dictatorship novels foreground more ubiquitous modes of oppression to indict Latin American dictatorships, U.S. imperialism, and structural discrimination in the U.S., as well as repressive hierarchies of power in general. Harford Vargas simultaneously utilizes formalist analysis to investigate how Latina/o writers mobilize the genre of the novel and formal techniques such as footnotes, focalization, emplotment, and metafiction to depict dictatorial structures and relations. In building on narrative theories of character, plot, temporality, and perspective, Harford Vargas explores how the Latina/o dictatorship novel stages power dynamics. Forms of Dictatorship thus queries the relationship between different forms of power and the power of narrative form -- that is, between various instantiations of repressive power structures and the ways in which different narrative structures can reproduce and resist repressive power. "--
  • "Forms of Dictatorship argues that that Latina/o fiction unveils the horrors of domination in both Latin America and the United States, the manuscript reveals how Latina/os are haunted by multiple kinds of repressive regimes. An intra-ethnic study of Latina/o fiction published from the early 1990s to the present, Forms of Dictatorship is the first book-length study to examine Latina/o novels that employ dictatorship as a historical reality and a literary trope. This work constitutes a new sub-genre of contemporary Latina/o fiction known as the Latina/o dictatorship novel. Forms of Dictatorship is also the first study to comparatively analyze how U.S. Latina/os from different national origins in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America represent authoritarianism. Critical examinations of Latina/o literature have privileged the lenses of race, class, gender, sexuality, migration, and language; my study examines authoritarianism alongside these multiple axes"--
Series Statement
Oxford studies in American literary history
Uniform Title
Oxford studies in American literary history.
Subject
  • American fiction > Hispanic American authors > History and criticism
  • Dictators in literature
  • Authoritarianism in literature
  • Social control in literature
  • Point of view (Literature)
  • American fiction > 20th century > History and criticism
  • American fiction > 21st century > History and criticism
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Chapter 1: Dictating Narrative Power -- Chapter 2: The Borderlands of Authoritarianism -- Chapter 3: The Floating Dictatorship -- Chapter 4: Plotting Justice -- Chapter 5: The Fall of the Patriarchs.
Call Number
JFE 18-634
ISBN
  • 9780190642853
  • 0190642858
LCCN
2017008679
OCLC
983824496
Author
Harford Vargas, Jennifer, 1980- author.
Title
Forms of dictatorship : power, narrative, and authoritarianism in the Latina/o novel / Jennifer Harford Vargas.
Publisher
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Series
Oxford studies in American literary history
Oxford studies in American literary history.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 18-634
View in Legacy Catalog