Books by Eugenio Di Stefano
Articles by Eugenio Di Stefano
nonsite.com, 2021
A response to José Eduardo González's review of Di Stefano's _The Vanishing Frame_. See González'... more A response to José Eduardo González's review of Di Stefano's _The Vanishing Frame_. See González's review on nonsite.com
The aim of this collection is to make possible the forging of a more robust, politically useful, ... more The aim of this collection is to make possible the forging of a more robust, politically useful, and theoretically elaborate understanding of working-class literature(s).
These essays map a substantial terrain: the history of working-class literature(s) in Russia/The Soviet Union, The USA, Finland, Sweden, The UK, and Mexico. Together they give a complex and comparative – albeit far from comprehensive – picture of working-class literature(s) from an international perspective, without losing sight of national specificities.
By capturing a wide range of definitions and literatures, this collection gives a broad and rich picture of the many-facetted phenomenon of working-class literature(s), disrupts narrow understandings of the concept and phenomenon, as well as identifies and discusses some of the most important theoretical and historical questions brought to the fore by the study of this literature.
If read as stand-alone chapters, each contribution gives an overview of the history and research of a particular nation’s working-class literature. If read as an edited collection (which we hope you do), they contribute toward a more complex understanding of the global phenomenon of working-class literature(s).
Forma Journal, 2019
What I want to suggest is that the aesthetics of dead time in Japón, emblematically developed thr... more What I want to suggest is that the aesthetics of dead time in Japón, emblematically developed through the extensive long takes and pans, is an anti-theatrical attempt to assert the film’s status as a measured artistic construction. Japón seeks to overcome its theatricality by asserting that this time be understood as autonomous rather than as indivisible from the viewer and his or her experience. That is, Reygadas’s aesthetics wishes to create an “instantaneous mode of unity” that makes time meaningful in the movie. In sum, the narrative with a clear beginning, middle and end, along with the use of non-professional actors, montage, and especially the long takes and pans, all aim at creating a sense of time that will be understood
within the limits of the frame.
For nearly forty years, freedom in Latin American literature has been tied to liberal democracy a... more For nearly forty years, freedom in Latin American literature has been tied to liberal democracy and state-sponsored terror. Literature, according to this post-dictatorial project, eliminates the division between art and life on behalf of democratic freedom and against human rights violations. What this project ignores is that the dictatorships’ objective was to eliminate all resistance to the market. Or as Eduardo Galeano notes, “People were in prison so that prices could be free.” This essay suggests that Pablo Larraín’s No (2012) and Neruda (2016) begin to challenge the conception of freedom in relation to democracy and dictatorship by insisting that democracy and dictatorship be understood instead in relation to the market. That is, the true force of these two films is found in their insistence on aesthetic form, or what Larraín calls an “illusion,” an illusion that not only rejects the indistinction between art and commodities, but also gestures toward a space of freedom beyond neoliberalism.
The Contemporaneity of Modernism
Nicolás Cabral’s 2014 novel, Catálogo de formas, revisits the history of modern architecture and ... more Nicolás Cabral’s 2014 novel, Catálogo de formas, revisits the history of modern architecture and Mexican modernism to ask what literature can tell us about the concept of freedom today. Loosely based on the life of the Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman, Cabral’s novel traces the career of its protagonist, the Architect, from functionalist beginnings to radically organic ends—that is, from a purposeful architecture to one free from purpose. Neither mode of architecture succeeds in producing anything that is “free,” though Catálogo de formas is not so much the story this failure as it is one about the way in which the modernist identification of form with freedom can only be true today. This raises questions about the meaning of freedom and constraint, something which becomes all the clearer if we consider the role the concept of freedom has played in the policy programs and political strategies associated with neoliberalism. But while neoliberalism demands that we think freedom and constraint exclusively through the market, Catálogo de formas will suggests that literature’s own concern with form can today become a refusal of that demand, and in this way, suggest a different path not simply for the novel, but for politics too.
Nicolás Cabral’s 2014 novel, Catálogo de formas, revisits the history of modern architecture and ... more Nicolás Cabral’s 2014 novel, Catálogo de formas, revisits the history of modern architecture and Mexican modernism to ask what literature can tell us about the concept of freedom today. Loosely based on the life of the Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman, Cabral’s novel traces the career of its protagonist, the Architect, from functionalist beginnings to radically organic ends—that is, from a purposeful architecture to one free from purpose. Neither mode of architecture succeeds in producing anything that is “free,” though Catálogo de formas is not so much the story this failure as it is one about the way in which the modernist identification of form with freedom can only be true today. This raises questions about the meaning of freedom and constraint, something which becomes all the clearer if we consider the role the concept of freedom has played in the policy programs and political strategies associated with neoliberalism. But while neoliberalism demands that we think freedom and constraint exclusively through the market, Catálogo de formas will suggests that literature’s own concern with form can today become a refusal of that demand, and in this way, suggest a different path not simply for the novel, but for politics too.
This essay explores the shift from a social model to social-constructivist model in the burgeonin... more This essay explores the shift from a social model to social-constructivist model in the burgeoning field of disability studies within Latin American cultural studies. It does so by examining Latin American literature and culture beginning in the 1980s and its increasing focus on theories of exclusion within the particular framework of human rights. The first part of this essay centers on the experience of the disabled body, and corporeal difference more broadly, in Susan Antebi's Carnal Inscriptions (2009), the first text in Latin American cultural studies dedicated solely to disability. The second part of this essay looks at Argentina's Disability Rights Network (REDI, Red por los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad), which defines disability primarily through disabled people's exclusion from the workforce. Both of these conversations, I argue, ultimately fold into each other by reconceptualizing disability as an issue of human rights exclusion, and not necessarily one of class exploitation. In this way, this essay suggests that this focus on the human rights model obfuscates a clearer reading of the intersection between disability and exploitation in Latin America. The last part of the essay points to some potential directions the field might take with respect to Latin America in order to overcome the limitations of this human rights model, limitations that include not only the increasing emphasis on the social construction of disability but also the widespread disregard for challenging a system that produces economic exploitation for disabled and able-bodied alike.
Special Issues by Eugenio Di Stefano
Reviews by Eugenio Di Stefano
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Books by Eugenio Di Stefano
Articles by Eugenio Di Stefano
These essays map a substantial terrain: the history of working-class literature(s) in Russia/The Soviet Union, The USA, Finland, Sweden, The UK, and Mexico. Together they give a complex and comparative – albeit far from comprehensive – picture of working-class literature(s) from an international perspective, without losing sight of national specificities.
By capturing a wide range of definitions and literatures, this collection gives a broad and rich picture of the many-facetted phenomenon of working-class literature(s), disrupts narrow understandings of the concept and phenomenon, as well as identifies and discusses some of the most important theoretical and historical questions brought to the fore by the study of this literature.
If read as stand-alone chapters, each contribution gives an overview of the history and research of a particular nation’s working-class literature. If read as an edited collection (which we hope you do), they contribute toward a more complex understanding of the global phenomenon of working-class literature(s).
within the limits of the frame.
Special Issues by Eugenio Di Stefano
Reviews by Eugenio Di Stefano
These essays map a substantial terrain: the history of working-class literature(s) in Russia/The Soviet Union, The USA, Finland, Sweden, The UK, and Mexico. Together they give a complex and comparative – albeit far from comprehensive – picture of working-class literature(s) from an international perspective, without losing sight of national specificities.
By capturing a wide range of definitions and literatures, this collection gives a broad and rich picture of the many-facetted phenomenon of working-class literature(s), disrupts narrow understandings of the concept and phenomenon, as well as identifies and discusses some of the most important theoretical and historical questions brought to the fore by the study of this literature.
If read as stand-alone chapters, each contribution gives an overview of the history and research of a particular nation’s working-class literature. If read as an edited collection (which we hope you do), they contribute toward a more complex understanding of the global phenomenon of working-class literature(s).
within the limits of the frame.