Can Literature Promote Justice? : Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio

Kimberly A. Nance

ISBN 10: 0826515231 / ISBN 13: 9780826515230

Edité par Vanderbilt University Press Mai 2026, 2026

A propos de cet article

Neuware - As if in direct response to The New Yorker's question of 'The Power of the Pen: Does Literature Change Anything ' Kimberly Nance takes up the relationship between ethics and literature. With the 40th anniversary of the testimonio occurring in 2006, there has never been a better time to reconsider its role in achieving social justice.The advent of the testimonio--loosely, a political autobiography of a Latin American activist who hopes, through the telling of her life story, to bring about change--was met with a great deal of excitement by scholars who posited it as a radical new form of literature. Those accolades were almost immediately followed by a series of critical problems. In what sense were testimonios 'true' What right did privileged scholars in the U.S. have to engage accounts of suffering with traditional modes of criticism Were questions of veracity or aesthetics more important Were these texts autobiography or political screeds It seemed critics didn't know quite what to make of the testimonio and so, after a brief bout of engagement, disregarded it.Nance, however, argues that any form as prolific as the testimonio is well worth examining and that these questions, rather than being insurmountable, are exactly the questions with which scholars ought to be wrestling. If, as critics claim, that the testimonio is one of the most pervasive contemporary Latin American cultural genres, then it is high time for a comprehensive study of the genre such as Nance's.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9780826515230

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Can Literature Promote Justice? : Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio
• Éditeur: Vanderbilt University Press Mai 2026
• Date de parution: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0826515231
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780826515230
• Reliure: Buch
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 229 L x 152 H x 22 P (en millimètres) 229 millimètres de largeur par 152 millimètres de hauteur par 22 millimètres de profondeur
• Poids: 372 grammes

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

As if in direct response to The New Yorker's question of "The Power of the Pen: Does Literature Change Anything?" Kimberly Nance takes up the relationship between ethics and literature. With the 40th anniversary of the testimonio occurring in 2006, there has never been a better time to reconsider its role in achieving social justice.

The advent of the testimonio--loosely, a political autobiography of a Latin American activist who hopes, through the telling of her life story, to bring about change--was met with a great deal of excitement by scholars who posited it as a radical new form of literature. Those accolades were almost immediately followed by a series of critical problems. In what sense were testimonios "true"? What right did privileged scholars in the U.S. have to engage accounts of suffering with traditional modes of criticism? Were questions of veracity or aesthetics more important? Were these texts autobiography or political screeds? It seemed critics didn't know quite what to make of the testimonio and so, after a brief bout of engagement, disregarded it.

Nance, however, argues that any form as prolific as the testimonio is well worth examining and that these questions, rather than being insurmountable, are exactly the questions with which scholars ought to be wrestling. If, as critics claim, that the testimonio is one of the most pervasive contemporary Latin American cultural genres, then it is high time for a comprehensive study of the genre such as Nance's.

À propos de l?auteur

Kimberly A. Nance is Associate Professor of Spanish and Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at Illinois State University.