This dissertation is a recovery project, and as such it introduces Adrián del Valle, a prolific Spanish-born literary modernista and anarchist activist who dedicated his life to social reform in in turn-of-the-century Cuba and beyond. In addition to a critical introduction, this project includes my translation of his 1907 collection of integrated short stories Por el camino [Along the Way], which, as all of his works, is long out of print. Por el camino complicates critical models grounded in nationality and therefore invites us to construct and apply an alternative model better suited to handling a transnational epistemology of space, which allows for the constant flow of people, ideas, and texts, as well as commercial and political influences, across borders. In developing this epistemological framework, I blend two theoretical concepts—“multitude” and “imagined communities”—to situate del Valle in his dynamic historical moment. Del Valle wrote Por el camino in the throes of the Second Industrial Revolution, the Age of Synergy, which I argue can be understood as an early age of globalization. Por el camino also stands at the crossroads of Latin American modernista short fiction and the international anarchist movement, thus challenging critical positions that treat modernismo as an apolitical and socially apathetic literary movement obsessed with elitist aesthetics and escapism and anarchism as a mutually exclusive movement wholly concerned with achieving practical social and political reforms. Through my reading of del Valle’s work, I demonstrate that modernismo and anarchism
are two manifold and simultaneous responses to the complex socio-political, economic, cultural,
and spiritual crises that grew out of Latin America’s transition into modernity. / Globalization -- Anarchism -- Modernismo -- On the translation -- Along the way. / Department of English
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:123456789/197410 |
| Date | 20 July 2013 |
| Creators | Thomson, Shane L. |
| Contributors | Mix, Deborah M. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
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