Stephen Buttes | Purdue University Fort Wayne (original) (raw)
Books by Stephen Buttes
Este volumen explora desde distintas perspectivas críticas los diversos modos en que los imaginar... more Este volumen explora desde distintas perspectivas críticas los diversos modos en que los imaginarios simbólicos pueden contribuir a una mayor comprensión –racional y afectiva– de la experiencia de la pobreza y de las vidas precarias que la rodean o habitan en múltiples escenarios latinoamericanos. Compuesto de diecinueve ensayos originales que abordan esta temática desde el cine y la literatura de gran parte de Latinoamérica, el volumen invita a reflexionar sobre la compleja relación entre la realidad socioeconómica de la pobreza y sus representaciones. Todos los ensayos aquí presentes interrogan las posibilidades o los límites de las estéticas a las que recurren escritores y cineastas para abordar el problema de la pobreza. En conjunto, los artículos exploran una variedad de escenarios y personajes marcados por la precariedad, la marginalidad, la vulnerabilidad, la exclusión, o la violencia que acompañan o resultan de la inseguridad laboral, el desplazamiento local o regional, la frustración y la violencia de quienes se encuentran atrapados en barrios, ciudades o mercados que amenazan con eliminarlos o expulsarlos.
Indice/Index Pobreza y precariedad en el imaginario latinoamericano del siglo XXI (Poverty and Pr... more Indice/Index
Pobreza y precariedad en el imaginario latinoamericano del siglo XXI
(Poverty and Precarity in 21st Century Latin American Fiction and Film)
Volume edited by Stephen Buttes and Dianna Niebylski
Publisher: Cuarto Propio, 2017.
Papers by Stephen Buttes
This essay argues that our current understanding of the cinematic work by the pioneering Chilean ... more This essay argues that our current understanding of the cinematic work by the pioneering Chilean film director Jorge Délano obscures a sophisticated interaction between politics, art and economics, one that reveals unexamined aspects of how the film industry developed in Chile. Most notably, it argues that Délano’s illustrated political satire magazine Topaze was central to the development of early sound cinema in the country. Following Rielle Navitski, the essay utilizes and examines tensions between models drawn from periodical studies and the concepts of remediation and intermediality in film studies. Examining illustrations from the first three years of Topaze’s production (1931–1933) in the context of the country’s economic situation, the essay argues that Délano remediated cinema in Topaze as a strategy of capital accumulation. This analysis also makes it possible to see how one of his sound films, Escándalo (1940), similarly remediated the illustrated paper periodical as he pursued financing for the production of cinematic commodities for export. The essay ends by examining the relationship between these issues and the political situation in early Cold War Chile.
Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 2017
Este artículo estudia las tensiones entre los elementos barrocos y los elementos góticos en Aura ... more Este artículo estudia las tensiones entre los elementos barrocos y los elementos góticos en Aura (1962) de Carlos Fuentes. Usando conexiones entre esta novela y La región más transparente (1958), el ensayo argumenta que en Aura Fuentes radicaliza la teatralidad de las formas barrocas y las formas góticas para señalar sus límites. Con el uso de la segunda persona singular, la novela desarrolla un concepto de la modernidad que no se subordina a los modelos políticos existentes, un modelo parecido al arte anti-teatral en su variante pastoral estudiado por Michael Fried.
Palabras clave: Carlos Fuentes, lo barroco, lo gótico, la antiteatralidad, la autonomía literaria
The present study examines the tensions between Baroque and Gothic elements in Carlos Fuentes’ Aura (1962). Making use of unstudied connections between La región más transparente (1958) and Aura, the essay argues that Fuentes radicalizes the theatricality of Baroque and Gothic forms in his novel in order to signal their limits. With his use of the second person singular to narrate the novel, he seeks to develop a new concept of modernity, one that would not be subordinated to already existing political models. This concept of literary form parallels the pastoral conception of antitheatrical art studied by Michael Fried.
Keywords: Carlos Fuentes, Baroque, Gothic, antitheatricality, literary autonomy
This essay examines Topaze: el barómetro de la política chilena , one of the most widely read wee... more This essay examines Topaze: el barómetro de la política chilena , one of the most widely read weekly humor publications in Chile during its years of publication. Linking theoretical understandings of humor and recent scholarship on empathy in traditional poverty narratives, this essay explores how the magazine's comic depiction of hunger and suffering were central components of its political functioning in Cold War Chile. Focusing on intensifying years of political polarization (1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965)(1966)(1967)(1968)(1969)(1970), this essay argues that Topaze's hunger humor was central to constructing what has generally been understood as the magazine's political neutrality. By understanding the connection between hunger and so-called political neutrality, the magazine's vision of a future middle class political model that could emerge as an alternative to the binaries of the Cold War becomes clear. However, while the persistence of hunger was central to the magazine's humor and political functioning, it also undermined the magazine's political project as Chile emerged as a more important front in the Cold War during the late 1960s. In addition to analyzing the dynamics of poverty, politics and humor, the essay also discusses key details in mid-century Chilean history such as the proto-neoliberal Klein-Saks economic program and the anti-poverty initiative Popular Promotion.
This essay argues that Sergio Chejfec’s 2012 novel La experiencia dramática maps out a form for u... more This essay argues that Sergio Chejfec’s 2012 novel La experiencia dramática maps out a form for understanding the global function of debt by narrating a series of mundane everyday experiences (e.g. trivial conversations, inconsequential purchases, personal anecdotes, the use of Google Maps to navigate a city). Chejfec makes these everyday experiences available as representations of the global credit system not by explicitly linking them to debt obligations but rather through his development of a specifically literary form of writing, one that insists on a separation between aesthetic representation and lived experience. This project of separation is made possible through a process of narrativization that parallels the temporality evoked by antitheatrical aesthetic forms in landscape art, which are analyzed by Michael Fried in his seminal book Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (1980). By mobilizing these antitheatrical visual forms and their temporalities for literature, Chejfec can move away from the crises, causalities and temporalities of narrative forms such as allegory. In so doing, La experiencia dramática creates a representation of the invisible influences of debt and the operation of the global credit system but also establishes for contemporary Latin American literature a “critical potentiality” that may be unavailable to other forms of narrative.
http://nonsite.org/article/towards-an-art-of-landscapes-and-loans
Building on the work of recent critics, this essay asserts that the narrative of illness and reco... more Building on the work of recent critics, this essay asserts that the narrative of illness and recovery at the center of Sebastián Silva's film La nana (2009) can be understood as allegorically working through the contradictions between economy and culture in contemporary Chile. Diverging from these critics, however, the essay argues that the film operates its critique by mobilizing the narrative structures that characterized Chilean criollista novels, and in particular the huaso romance narrative. Far from arguing that the film represents a nationalist or folkloric take on contemporary Chile, the essay asserts that Silva reconfigures the huaso romance to construct local solutions to the potential social conflicts generated by Chile's more complete integration into the world economic system. Following this line of argument, the essay asserts that Silva's film, like its criollista antecedents, produces a reformist political project that provides the grounds from which new social bonds can be developed to heal and stabilize the neoliberal economic system. In addition to a close reading of the film, the essay considers the basic characteristics of criollismo by examining Joaquín Edwards Bello's best-selling criollista novel La chica del Crillón (1935) as well as key details in Chilean history, politics, economy and culture.
Este volumen explora desde distintas perspectivas críticas los diversos modos en que los imaginar... more Este volumen explora desde distintas perspectivas críticas los diversos modos en que los imaginarios simbólicos pueden contribuir a una mayor comprensión –racional y afectiva– de la experiencia de la pobreza y de las vidas precarias que la rodean o habitan en múltiples escenarios latinoamericanos. Compuesto de diecinueve ensayos originales que abordan esta temática desde el cine y la literatura de gran parte de Latinoamérica, el volumen invita a reflexionar sobre la compleja relación entre la realidad socioeconómica de la pobreza y sus representaciones. Todos los ensayos aquí presentes interrogan las posibilidades o los límites de las estéticas a las que recurren escritores y cineastas para abordar el problema de la pobreza. En conjunto, los artículos exploran una variedad de escenarios y personajes marcados por la precariedad, la marginalidad, la vulnerabilidad, la exclusión, o la violencia que acompañan o resultan de la inseguridad laboral, el desplazamiento local o regional, la frustración y la violencia de quienes se encuentran atrapados en barrios, ciudades o mercados que amenazan con eliminarlos o expulsarlos.
Indice/Index Pobreza y precariedad en el imaginario latinoamericano del siglo XXI (Poverty and Pr... more Indice/Index
Pobreza y precariedad en el imaginario latinoamericano del siglo XXI
(Poverty and Precarity in 21st Century Latin American Fiction and Film)
Volume edited by Stephen Buttes and Dianna Niebylski
Publisher: Cuarto Propio, 2017.
This essay argues that our current understanding of the cinematic work by the pioneering Chilean ... more This essay argues that our current understanding of the cinematic work by the pioneering Chilean film director Jorge Délano obscures a sophisticated interaction between politics, art and economics, one that reveals unexamined aspects of how the film industry developed in Chile. Most notably, it argues that Délano’s illustrated political satire magazine Topaze was central to the development of early sound cinema in the country. Following Rielle Navitski, the essay utilizes and examines tensions between models drawn from periodical studies and the concepts of remediation and intermediality in film studies. Examining illustrations from the first three years of Topaze’s production (1931–1933) in the context of the country’s economic situation, the essay argues that Délano remediated cinema in Topaze as a strategy of capital accumulation. This analysis also makes it possible to see how one of his sound films, Escándalo (1940), similarly remediated the illustrated paper periodical as he pursued financing for the production of cinematic commodities for export. The essay ends by examining the relationship between these issues and the political situation in early Cold War Chile.
Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 2017
Este artículo estudia las tensiones entre los elementos barrocos y los elementos góticos en Aura ... more Este artículo estudia las tensiones entre los elementos barrocos y los elementos góticos en Aura (1962) de Carlos Fuentes. Usando conexiones entre esta novela y La región más transparente (1958), el ensayo argumenta que en Aura Fuentes radicaliza la teatralidad de las formas barrocas y las formas góticas para señalar sus límites. Con el uso de la segunda persona singular, la novela desarrolla un concepto de la modernidad que no se subordina a los modelos políticos existentes, un modelo parecido al arte anti-teatral en su variante pastoral estudiado por Michael Fried.
Palabras clave: Carlos Fuentes, lo barroco, lo gótico, la antiteatralidad, la autonomía literaria
The present study examines the tensions between Baroque and Gothic elements in Carlos Fuentes’ Aura (1962). Making use of unstudied connections between La región más transparente (1958) and Aura, the essay argues that Fuentes radicalizes the theatricality of Baroque and Gothic forms in his novel in order to signal their limits. With his use of the second person singular to narrate the novel, he seeks to develop a new concept of modernity, one that would not be subordinated to already existing political models. This concept of literary form parallels the pastoral conception of antitheatrical art studied by Michael Fried.
Keywords: Carlos Fuentes, Baroque, Gothic, antitheatricality, literary autonomy
This essay examines Topaze: el barómetro de la política chilena , one of the most widely read wee... more This essay examines Topaze: el barómetro de la política chilena , one of the most widely read weekly humor publications in Chile during its years of publication. Linking theoretical understandings of humor and recent scholarship on empathy in traditional poverty narratives, this essay explores how the magazine's comic depiction of hunger and suffering were central components of its political functioning in Cold War Chile. Focusing on intensifying years of political polarization (1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965)(1966)(1967)(1968)(1969)(1970), this essay argues that Topaze's hunger humor was central to constructing what has generally been understood as the magazine's political neutrality. By understanding the connection between hunger and so-called political neutrality, the magazine's vision of a future middle class political model that could emerge as an alternative to the binaries of the Cold War becomes clear. However, while the persistence of hunger was central to the magazine's humor and political functioning, it also undermined the magazine's political project as Chile emerged as a more important front in the Cold War during the late 1960s. In addition to analyzing the dynamics of poverty, politics and humor, the essay also discusses key details in mid-century Chilean history such as the proto-neoliberal Klein-Saks economic program and the anti-poverty initiative Popular Promotion.
This essay argues that Sergio Chejfec’s 2012 novel La experiencia dramática maps out a form for u... more This essay argues that Sergio Chejfec’s 2012 novel La experiencia dramática maps out a form for understanding the global function of debt by narrating a series of mundane everyday experiences (e.g. trivial conversations, inconsequential purchases, personal anecdotes, the use of Google Maps to navigate a city). Chejfec makes these everyday experiences available as representations of the global credit system not by explicitly linking them to debt obligations but rather through his development of a specifically literary form of writing, one that insists on a separation between aesthetic representation and lived experience. This project of separation is made possible through a process of narrativization that parallels the temporality evoked by antitheatrical aesthetic forms in landscape art, which are analyzed by Michael Fried in his seminal book Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (1980). By mobilizing these antitheatrical visual forms and their temporalities for literature, Chejfec can move away from the crises, causalities and temporalities of narrative forms such as allegory. In so doing, La experiencia dramática creates a representation of the invisible influences of debt and the operation of the global credit system but also establishes for contemporary Latin American literature a “critical potentiality” that may be unavailable to other forms of narrative.
http://nonsite.org/article/towards-an-art-of-landscapes-and-loans
Building on the work of recent critics, this essay asserts that the narrative of illness and reco... more Building on the work of recent critics, this essay asserts that the narrative of illness and recovery at the center of Sebastián Silva's film La nana (2009) can be understood as allegorically working through the contradictions between economy and culture in contemporary Chile. Diverging from these critics, however, the essay argues that the film operates its critique by mobilizing the narrative structures that characterized Chilean criollista novels, and in particular the huaso romance narrative. Far from arguing that the film represents a nationalist or folkloric take on contemporary Chile, the essay asserts that Silva reconfigures the huaso romance to construct local solutions to the potential social conflicts generated by Chile's more complete integration into the world economic system. Following this line of argument, the essay asserts that Silva's film, like its criollista antecedents, produces a reformist political project that provides the grounds from which new social bonds can be developed to heal and stabilize the neoliberal economic system. In addition to a close reading of the film, the essay considers the basic characteristics of criollismo by examining Joaquín Edwards Bello's best-selling criollista novel La chica del Crillón (1935) as well as key details in Chilean history, politics, economy and culture.