John Charles Chasteen

Patterson Distinguished Term Professor of History John Charles Chasteen

Sara Castro-Klarén

How did the nationalisms of Latin America's many countries -- elaborated in everything from history and fiction to cookery -- arise from their common backgrounds in the Spanish and Portuguese empires and their similar populations of mixed European, native, and African origins? Beyond Imagined Communities: Reading and Writing the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, discards one answer and provides a rich collection of others. These essays began as a critique of the argument by Benedict Anderson's highly influential book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Anderson traces Latin American nationalisms to local circulation of colonial newspapers and tours of duty of colonial administrators, but this book shows the limited validity of these arguments. Instead, Beyond Imagined Communities shows how more diverse cultural influences shaped Latin American nationalisms. Four historians examine social situations: FranÃ§ois-Xavier Guerra studies various forms of political communication; Tulio HalperÃ­n Donghi, political parties; Sarah C. Chambers, the feminine world of salons; and Andrew Kirkendall, the institutions of higher education that trained the new administrators. Next, four critics examine production of cultural objects: Fernando Unzueta investigates novels; Sara Castro-KlarÃ©n, archeology and folklore; Gustavo Verdesio, suppression of unwanted archeological evidence; and Beatriz GonzÃ¡lez Stephan, national literary histories and international expositions.

Reading and Writing the Nation in Nineteenth-century Latin America

Beyond Imagined Communities

When John Charles Chasteen learned that Sim?n Bolívar, the Liberator, danced on a banquet table to celebrate Latin American independence in 1824, he tried to visualize the scene. How, he wondered, did the Liberator dance? Did he bounce stiffly in his dress uniform? Or did he move his hips? In other words, how high had African dance influences reached in Latin American societies? A vast social gap separated Bolívar from people of African descent; however, Chasteen's research shows that popular culture could bridge the gap. Fast-paced and often funny, this book explores the history of Latin American popular dance before the twentieth century. Chasteen first focuses on Havana, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro, where dances featuring a "transgressive close embrace" (forerunners of today's salsa, tango, and samba) emerged by 1900. Then, digging deeper in time, Chasteen uncovers the historical experiences that molded Latin American popular dance, including carnival celebrations, the social lives of slaves, European fashions, and, oddly enough, religious processions. The relationship between Latin American dance and nationalism, it turns out, is very deep, indeed.

Patterson Distinguished Term Professor of History John Charles Chasteen

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