This dissertation analyzes the impact of European liberalism on the process of nation-building in Mexico. In particular, it studies the role of liberalism in the shaping of Mexican thought concerning national identity. It accomplishes this by examining the essayistic production of four major Mexican intellectuals: José María Luis Mora (1794-1850), Gabino Barreda (1818-1881), José Vasconcelos (1882-1959), and Carlos Monsiváis (1938-2010). This dissertation aims to explore how a program deeply rooted in European culture and thought such as liberalism shaped these intellectuals’ interpretations of Mexican culture. The dissertation will also highlight how their work coincided with their pursuit of a governmental system based on liberal principles, along with the urgent need to build a sense of national identity. The first chapter delineates a historical and conceptual framework by borrowing key ideas and definitions of liberal doctrine. Likewise, the chapter traces and contextualizes Mora’s contributions to liberal thought in Mexico during the early stages of Mexico’s independence. The second chapter centers on two periods in Mexican history: the Porfiriato (1876-1910) and the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1911-1921). It focuses on Porfirian views of liberal education, and on the role of the post-revolutionary state in guaranteeing social and economic progress after decades of civil and military unrest. For this purpose, the chapter studies Gabino Barreda's positivist approach to education and Jose Vasconcelos’ views on the role of the state in shaping a national post-revolutionary culture based on the figure of the mestizo: a multiracial, multicultural, national symbol. The third chapter analyzes Carlos Monsiváis' retrospective reading of liberalism in the context of the downfall of the PRI. It shows why Monsiváis rescues the legacy of Jacobin liberalism in an era of globalized neoliberalism. This chapter shows in which ways Monsiváis engages with liberalism to address the question of “lo mexicano.” The conclusion of this dissertation revisits the main ideas deployed in the three chapters and assesses the limits of liberalism to articulate the problem of national identity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This dissertation proposes an analysis of representative texts that portray the earthquake that hit Mexico City in 1985 as a historical event that contributed to forging new ways of interaction among the people itself, as well as between the community as a whole and its government. By examining the representations of this historically important episode in the life of the city, this project compensates for a significant omission of literary criticism—that has relegated the substantial corpus of texts about this catastrophe to brief comments or footnotes on other topics. Through analysis of testimonial chronicles, newspaper articles, political cartoons, music videos, poetry, drama, and narratives, this dissertation investigates the process through which intellectuals created discursive constructions of a new relationship between Mexican society and its government. The following pages give an account of the debate to shape the historical interpretation of the catastrophe: some texts challenged the patrimonialism institutionalized by the government bureaucracy of the PRI State, while others supported the structures in place even though they acknowledged the need for a nimbler bureaucracy. Therefore, this study is focused on texts that incorporate previous discursive traditions to propose new symbolic ways to understand the nation after the earthquake. This discussion engages texts by authors committed to diverse perspectives—such as Elena Poniatowska, Carlos Monsiváis, José Emilio Pacheco, Carlos Olmos, Enrique Serna, and Rodrigo Fresán, among others—to offer a panorama on the arguments presented on the cultural field. This dissertation considers four specific moments in the construction of the new national narrative: (1) the call for solidarity with the victims of the disaster; (2) the redefinition of the idea of civil society; (3) the debate within mass media to impose a particular meaning to both solidarity and civil society; and (4) the questioning of the main discourses related to the earthquake. This study illuminates the ways that the earthquake narratives have been deployed to challenge political inequities and injustices and to attempt political change towards a modern Mexican State.

This dissertation proposes an analysis of representative texts that portray the earthquake that hit Mexico City in 1985 as a historical event that contributed to forging new ways of interaction among the people itself, as well as between the community as a whole and its government. By examining the representations of this historically important episode in the life of the city, this project compensates for a significant omission of literary criticism—that has relegated the substantial corpus of texts about this catastrophe to brief comments or footnotes on other topics. Through analysis of testimonial chronicles, newspaper articles, political cartoons, music videos, poetry, drama, and narratives, this dissertation investigates the process through which intellectuals created discursive constructions of a new relationship between Mexican society and its government. The following pages give an account of the debate to shape the historical interpretation of the catastrophe: some texts challenged the patrimonialism institutionalized by the government bureaucracy of the PRI State, while others supported the structures in place even though they acknowledged the need for a nimbler bureaucracy. Therefore, this study is focused on texts that incorporate previous discursive traditions to propose new symbolic ways to understand the nation after the earthquake. This discussion engages texts by authors committed to diverse perspectives—such as Elena Poniatowska, Carlos Monsiváis, José Emilio Pacheco, Carlos Olmos, Enrique Serna, and Rodrigo Fresán, among others—to offer a panorama on the arguments presented on the cultural field. This dissertation considers four specific moments in the construction of the new national narrative: (1) the call for solidarity with the victims of the disaster; (2) the redefinition of the idea of civil society; (3) the debate within mass media to impose a particular meaning to both solidarity and civil society; and (4) the questioning of the main discourses related to the earthquake. This study illuminates the ways that the earthquake narratives have been deployed to challenge political inequities and injustices and to attempt political change towards a modern Mexican State.