Angel Diaz Miranda | Hollins University (original) (raw)

Papers by Angel Diaz Miranda

Octavio Paz and the Institutions of Poetry, 2024

This chapter considers cultural institutions as major shapers of the poetry of the second half of... more This chapter considers cultural institutions as major shapers of the poetry of the second half of the twentieth century. Here Octavio Paz is once again crucial, as a cultural broker, the editor of Plural and later Vuelta, and the force behind the creation of major cultural institutions. The roles of poetic institutions are reflected in the careers of major poets like José Emilio Pacheco and Eduardo Lizalde, among the first winners of the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize. This award opened a poetic period that eventually slowly declined, beginning with the closing of Vuelta to what Malva Flores has termed the "twilight" of the intellectual poets. The chapter also examines the cultural ecology emerging from the subsidies, fellowships, and privileges instituted by the Mexican State.

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies, 2023

The members of Infrarealism, an eo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-197... more The members of Infrarealism, an eo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-1970s, considered themselvest ob et he inheritors of historical avant-garde groups such as Dada, Surrealism and Mexican Stridentism. It is logical to assume that Futurism alsoplayedanimportant rôleinshaping the movement'si deas; however,t heir connection has barelyb een explored. This essayinvestigates how Futurism influencedfirst Infrarealism and then the poetry and prose of Roberto Bolaño, whoa cquired international renown as an ovelist after Infrarealism disbanded. We argue that Futurism was at the centreofInfrarealist sensibility and activity,ifnot in an explicit then at least in an implicit manner, with the intention of showing that Infrarealism was aclear example of Neo-Futurism, but one that re-elaborated Futurist conceptsf rom aL atin American perspective.

Revista de literatura mexicana contemporánea, 2021

Images of the body as the site of illness and extreme violence, but also as a text to be decoded ... more Images of the body as the site of illness and extreme violence, but also as a text to be decoded through pain, are reiterated in Sergio Loo’s Operación al cuerpo enfermo (2015). The text underscores an effort to associate the poetic act to illness as a drive towards disarticulation and mutilation. This phenomenon gives the reader insight into a poetics of the decaying, fragmented queer body. Loo resists an oppressive national construct that lurks but remains unnamed. I investigate how Loo’s poetry in Operación combines metaphors that form an allegorical questioning of Mexican modernity. Is in it, that text, body, and poetic voice become a fragmented corpus that transgresses notions of the unitary subject.

Cincinnati Romance Review, 2021

Resumen: En este artículo, analizo el motivo del "boxeador polaco" en la obra de Eduardo Halfon. ... more Resumen: En este artículo, analizo el motivo del "boxeador polaco" en la obra de Eduardo Halfon. Se trata de un cuento, el título de un libro, una figura recurrente y elusiva que emblematiza su obra. Argumento que los mecanismos de elusión y repetición del encuentro de su abuelo y el boxeador en el campo de concentración de Auschwitz responden a lo que denomino una ambigüedad siniestra a la que Hirsch apunta en los procesos de posmemoria. Además, sugiero que la identidad móvil de este boxeador que pudo ser Henry Haft, entre otros, alegoriza el acto combativo de la supervivencia, el lenguaje y la memoria.

Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 2020

My article advances the notion of trauma as a synecdochic event in Amulet (1999) by Roberto Bolañ... more My article advances the notion of trauma as a synecdochic event in Amulet
(1999) by Roberto Bolaño. I will showcase how Amulet functions as a false
memory or testimony by focusing on aspects of ekphrasis, surrealism, and trauma within the novel. The main character, Auxilio Lacouture, suffers from fractures of memory, which renders her enunciation both ambiguous and ambivalent. This ambivalence demonstrates both a lack and an overabundance of poetry. Bolaño intends to recapture the events that precede and follow the Tlatelolco student massacre in Mexico. In doing so, he exhibits the traumatic potentiality of State-sanctioned violence as a source for poetry. By recreating and fictionalizing these unnamed events, Bolaño dismantles the symbolic production of order and modernity brought forth by the government’s ideologues during the time leading to the Olympic games and the institutional silencing of the witnesses amid the massacre. Moreover, the narration of trauma becomes a paradoxical enterprise, because the fragmentation of the self becomes an unavoidable totality that erases coherent narrative and fills its vacuums with memories of suffering, endless repetition, and reiteration.

This article argues that Colombian novels Our Lady of the Assassins (1994) by Fernando Vallejo, a... more This article argues that Colombian novels Our Lady of the Assassins (1994) by Fernando Vallejo, and Satanás (2002) by Mario Mendoza, tend towards the hygienic abolishment of what is arguably an ineffectual order by making their main characters the only (marginal) members of society that are able to challenge their cultural order and subvert it. In addition, it will also focus on various themes that are present in both works: the fragmentation of the self, the loss, search, and replacement of God as " Law " , and violence as annihilating act.

Alfonso Cuarón's film, Children of Men (2006), and Miru Kim's photographic series Naked City Sple... more Alfonso Cuarón's film, Children of Men (2006), and Miru Kim's photographic series Naked City Spleen (2007) are essential to illustrate the causal process by which biopower accelerates—in the way that it fuses with late capitalistic tendencies—and transforms into the post-apocalyptic, the surplus of the recognizable, but unnameable " event " as considered by Žižek and Derrida on a global scale. As capitalism accelerates by means of technological and military advancement, it marks alterity in non-citizens as biological threat. There is always already the perception of imminent danger to the survival of the controlling structure. Neoliberal practices in late capitalism work as biopower in the societal body. The traumatic aftermath of this event can be observed in the film and the photographic series that are discussed in my article, both of which serve as case studies of how as late capitalism and biopower are bonded they become the source of communal and individual trauma.

La llamada "generación del 36" en la poesía española se caracterizó por sus temas conservadores y... more La llamada "generación del 36" en la poesía española se caracterizó por sus temas conservadores y religiosos. Uno de sus mayores exponentes fue Leopoldo Panero Torbado, patriarca de la familia Panero. Su actividad creativa se destacó por una constante comunicación, de visos existencialistas, entre la voz poética y Dios. La crítica española ha sido renuente a analizar su obra poética y narrativa por sus supuestos vínculos con el régimen franquista. Críticos como Federico Utrera lo han llamado "poeta fascista" mientras que J. Benito Fernández lo cataloga de "poeta oficial" (Contorno 10) del régimen. Por otro lado, su hijo Leopoldo María ingresa al partido comunista (ilegal en la época) a los 16 años y siempre se ha identificado con los anarquistas y otros grupos de izquierda.

It is widely acknowledged that both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies influenced Octavio Paz's lite... more It is widely acknowledged that both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies influenced Octavio Paz's literary works. Paz uses these philosophical "resources" as a means to displace linear time and emphasize the possibility of a circular or "alinear" time. The poet has stated that "all civilizations and cultures possess an idea of time and express a vision of time" from "primitive" civilizations to those of Antiquity. Furthermore, Paz insists that: "Time is an illusion, but there is a time outside of time in which temporal contradictions disappear […] time [i]s an illusion, and therefore ignores history" (Quoted by Guibert; 29).

Book Reviews by Angel Diaz Miranda

Latin American Literature Today, 2018

Latin American Literature Today, 2018

Peer-Reviewed Articles by Angel Diaz Miranda

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies, 2023

The members of Infrarealism, a neo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-197... more The members of Infrarealism, a neo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-1970s, considered themselves to bet he inheritors of historical avant-garde groups such as Dada, Surrealism and Mexican Stridentism. It is logical to assume that Futurism also played an important role in shaping the movement's ideas; however, their connection has barely been explored. This essay investigates how Futurism influenced first Infrarealism and then the poetry and prose of Roberto Bolaño, who acquired international renown as a novelist after Infrarealism disbanded. We argue that Futurism was at the centre of Infrarealist sensibility and activity, if not in an explicit then at least in an implicit manner, with the intention of showing that Infrarealism was a clear example of Neo-Futurism, but one that re-elaborated Futurist concepts from a Latin American perspective.

Octavio Paz and the Institutions of Poetry, 2024

This chapter considers cultural institutions as major shapers of the poetry of the second half of... more This chapter considers cultural institutions as major shapers of the poetry of the second half of the twentieth century. Here Octavio Paz is once again crucial, as a cultural broker, the editor of Plural and later Vuelta, and the force behind the creation of major cultural institutions. The roles of poetic institutions are reflected in the careers of major poets like José Emilio Pacheco and Eduardo Lizalde, among the first winners of the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize. This award opened a poetic period that eventually slowly declined, beginning with the closing of Vuelta to what Malva Flores has termed the "twilight" of the intellectual poets. The chapter also examines the cultural ecology emerging from the subsidies, fellowships, and privileges instituted by the Mexican State.

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies, 2023

The members of Infrarealism, an eo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-197... more The members of Infrarealism, an eo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-1970s, considered themselvest ob et he inheritors of historical avant-garde groups such as Dada, Surrealism and Mexican Stridentism. It is logical to assume that Futurism alsoplayedanimportant rôleinshaping the movement'si deas; however,t heir connection has barelyb een explored. This essayinvestigates how Futurism influencedfirst Infrarealism and then the poetry and prose of Roberto Bolaño, whoa cquired international renown as an ovelist after Infrarealism disbanded. We argue that Futurism was at the centreofInfrarealist sensibility and activity,ifnot in an explicit then at least in an implicit manner, with the intention of showing that Infrarealism was aclear example of Neo-Futurism, but one that re-elaborated Futurist conceptsf rom aL atin American perspective.

Revista de literatura mexicana contemporánea, 2021

Images of the body as the site of illness and extreme violence, but also as a text to be decoded ... more Images of the body as the site of illness and extreme violence, but also as a text to be decoded through pain, are reiterated in Sergio Loo’s Operación al cuerpo enfermo (2015). The text underscores an effort to associate the poetic act to illness as a drive towards disarticulation and mutilation. This phenomenon gives the reader insight into a poetics of the decaying, fragmented queer body. Loo resists an oppressive national construct that lurks but remains unnamed. I investigate how Loo’s poetry in Operación combines metaphors that form an allegorical questioning of Mexican modernity. Is in it, that text, body, and poetic voice become a fragmented corpus that transgresses notions of the unitary subject.

Cincinnati Romance Review, 2021

Resumen: En este artículo, analizo el motivo del "boxeador polaco" en la obra de Eduardo Halfon. ... more Resumen: En este artículo, analizo el motivo del "boxeador polaco" en la obra de Eduardo Halfon. Se trata de un cuento, el título de un libro, una figura recurrente y elusiva que emblematiza su obra. Argumento que los mecanismos de elusión y repetición del encuentro de su abuelo y el boxeador en el campo de concentración de Auschwitz responden a lo que denomino una ambigüedad siniestra a la que Hirsch apunta en los procesos de posmemoria. Además, sugiero que la identidad móvil de este boxeador que pudo ser Henry Haft, entre otros, alegoriza el acto combativo de la supervivencia, el lenguaje y la memoria.

Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 2020

My article advances the notion of trauma as a synecdochic event in Amulet (1999) by Roberto Bolañ... more My article advances the notion of trauma as a synecdochic event in Amulet
(1999) by Roberto Bolaño. I will showcase how Amulet functions as a false
memory or testimony by focusing on aspects of ekphrasis, surrealism, and trauma within the novel. The main character, Auxilio Lacouture, suffers from fractures of memory, which renders her enunciation both ambiguous and ambivalent. This ambivalence demonstrates both a lack and an overabundance of poetry. Bolaño intends to recapture the events that precede and follow the Tlatelolco student massacre in Mexico. In doing so, he exhibits the traumatic potentiality of State-sanctioned violence as a source for poetry. By recreating and fictionalizing these unnamed events, Bolaño dismantles the symbolic production of order and modernity brought forth by the government’s ideologues during the time leading to the Olympic games and the institutional silencing of the witnesses amid the massacre. Moreover, the narration of trauma becomes a paradoxical enterprise, because the fragmentation of the self becomes an unavoidable totality that erases coherent narrative and fills its vacuums with memories of suffering, endless repetition, and reiteration.

This article argues that Colombian novels Our Lady of the Assassins (1994) by Fernando Vallejo, a... more This article argues that Colombian novels Our Lady of the Assassins (1994) by Fernando Vallejo, and Satanás (2002) by Mario Mendoza, tend towards the hygienic abolishment of what is arguably an ineffectual order by making their main characters the only (marginal) members of society that are able to challenge their cultural order and subvert it. In addition, it will also focus on various themes that are present in both works: the fragmentation of the self, the loss, search, and replacement of God as " Law " , and violence as annihilating act.

Alfonso Cuarón's film, Children of Men (2006), and Miru Kim's photographic series Naked City Sple... more Alfonso Cuarón's film, Children of Men (2006), and Miru Kim's photographic series Naked City Spleen (2007) are essential to illustrate the causal process by which biopower accelerates—in the way that it fuses with late capitalistic tendencies—and transforms into the post-apocalyptic, the surplus of the recognizable, but unnameable " event " as considered by Žižek and Derrida on a global scale. As capitalism accelerates by means of technological and military advancement, it marks alterity in non-citizens as biological threat. There is always already the perception of imminent danger to the survival of the controlling structure. Neoliberal practices in late capitalism work as biopower in the societal body. The traumatic aftermath of this event can be observed in the film and the photographic series that are discussed in my article, both of which serve as case studies of how as late capitalism and biopower are bonded they become the source of communal and individual trauma.

La llamada "generación del 36" en la poesía española se caracterizó por sus temas conservadores y... more La llamada "generación del 36" en la poesía española se caracterizó por sus temas conservadores y religiosos. Uno de sus mayores exponentes fue Leopoldo Panero Torbado, patriarca de la familia Panero. Su actividad creativa se destacó por una constante comunicación, de visos existencialistas, entre la voz poética y Dios. La crítica española ha sido renuente a analizar su obra poética y narrativa por sus supuestos vínculos con el régimen franquista. Críticos como Federico Utrera lo han llamado "poeta fascista" mientras que J. Benito Fernández lo cataloga de "poeta oficial" (Contorno 10) del régimen. Por otro lado, su hijo Leopoldo María ingresa al partido comunista (ilegal en la época) a los 16 años y siempre se ha identificado con los anarquistas y otros grupos de izquierda.

It is widely acknowledged that both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies influenced Octavio Paz's lite... more It is widely acknowledged that both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies influenced Octavio Paz's literary works. Paz uses these philosophical "resources" as a means to displace linear time and emphasize the possibility of a circular or "alinear" time. The poet has stated that "all civilizations and cultures possess an idea of time and express a vision of time" from "primitive" civilizations to those of Antiquity. Furthermore, Paz insists that: "Time is an illusion, but there is a time outside of time in which temporal contradictions disappear […] time [i]s an illusion, and therefore ignores history" (Quoted by Guibert; 29).

International Yearbook of Futurism Studies, 2023

The members of Infrarealism, a neo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-197... more The members of Infrarealism, a neo-avant-garde literary movement founded in Mexico in the mid-1970s, considered themselves to bet he inheritors of historical avant-garde groups such as Dada, Surrealism and Mexican Stridentism. It is logical to assume that Futurism also played an important role in shaping the movement's ideas; however, their connection has barely been explored. This essay investigates how Futurism influenced first Infrarealism and then the poetry and prose of Roberto Bolaño, who acquired international renown as a novelist after Infrarealism disbanded. We argue that Futurism was at the centre of Infrarealist sensibility and activity, if not in an explicit then at least in an implicit manner, with the intention of showing that Infrarealism was a clear example of Neo-Futurism, but one that re-elaborated Futurist concepts from a Latin American perspective.