Michael P Abeyta | University of Colorado Denver (original) (raw)

Books by Michael P Abeyta

Fuentes, Terra Nostra and the Reconfiguration of Latin American Culture., 2006

Grounding his study on the work of Derrida and Bataille, Abeyta focuses on the theme of the gift ... more Grounding his study on the work of Derrida and Bataille, Abeyta focuses on the theme of the gift in Terra Nostra, analyzing how gift giving, excess, expenditure, sacrifice, and exchange give shape to the novel. The question of giving leads him into contemplations of such parallel issues as money and exchange economies, the gift's role in art and narration, and the Baroque in Latin American culture--an elaborate set of arguments that puts Fuentes's understanding of Latin American culture in a surprising new light. Blending literary theory with economic anthropology, philosophy, and Latin American studies, Abeyta analyzes the deconstructive functions of rhetorical figures and tropes in Terra Nostra to show how the novel's revival of Baroque style integrates European and Nahuatl figural strategies. In the process, he reveals the novel's relevance to current discussions about the relationship between art and the question of the gift. He then goes on to examine Fuentes's Baroque in relation to Terra Nostra's reconfiguration of Latin American cultural history . . . He shows how Fuentes's rereading of Latin American history confronted important changes during the initial encounter between Europe and the Americas, which coincided with the spread of the European market and the shift from gift to an exchange economy--from a culture in which economic relations were based on sacrifices, tributes, or gifts to one in which market forces predominated. He also engages in the recent scholarly debate on the potlatch and its implications in New World culture. As Abeyta reveals, underlying Fuentes's treatment of the gift is a deep questioning of utopian thought and its impact throughout Latin America's history. His insights help define Terra Nostra's place in current discussions in literary theory about art, economy, and th question of the gift. [From the inside cover].

Papers by Michael P Abeyta

Carmen Boullosa. In Between Brooklyn and Coyoacán, 2024

Abstract: Carmen Boullosa's La otra mano de Lepanto (2005) and Texas: La Gran Ladronerfa en el Le... more Abstract: Carmen Boullosa's La otra mano de Lepanto (2005) and Texas: La
Gran Ladronerfa en el Lejano Norte (2012) depict the violent expansion of
imperial borders in the early formation of both nation-states and empires. Each novel highlights the displacement and destruction of local communities, and how these, in turn, resist imperial incursion. In this essay, Abeyta interprets these novels in relation to Walter Mignolo's remapping of knowledge in decoloniality and the decolonial responses implied in the resistance: Boullosa portrays the regional diversity in each novel through multiple narrative voices and perspectives that subvert, burlesque, and deconstruct historical representations that glorify imperial designs or affirm the racial and cultural superiority of any one group. Both novels also dialogue with other classic authors from Spain and the United States, such as Quevedo and Stowe, but Cervantes and Twain are of primary concern in this study.
Keywords: La otra mano de Lepanto, Texas: La Gran Ladronería en el Lejano
Norte, Walter Mignolo, Cervantes, Mark Twain, decolonial, La gitanilla,
Exemplary novels, moriscos

Revista de literatura mexicana contemporánea, 2002

[The Iconography of Desire and Cruelty in Nen, the Useless by Ignacio Solares. Revista de Literat... more [The Iconography of Desire and Cruelty in Nen, the Useless by Ignacio Solares. Revista de Literatura Mexicana Contemporánea 5.15, Jan-April (2002): 22-31. Summary: Using the theories of Georges Bataille, Julia Kristeva and Sigmund Freud, but also historical and anthropological sources such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Miguel León-Portillo among others, this article explores the use of ancient Mexican iconography and cosmology in the Mexican writer Ignacio Solares’s novel Nen, la inútil. The novel is a reconstruction of the moment of the Conquest of Mexico; its narration alternates between fragments that focus on Nen, a young Aztec girl who can see the future, and on a young Spanish conquistador named Felipe. I show how the novel’s structure corresponds to Aztec pictographic writing as well as the cuicatl and tlahtolli, the poetic forms of expression in Nahuatl. I also examine the erotic representation of desire and cruelty in the novel.

UMI Dissertation Services eBooks, 1999

Inti: Revista de literatura hispánica, 2017

Revista De Critica Literaria Latinoamericana, 2010

ABSTRACT Este estudio explora las implicaciones ideológicas del humor negro en la narrativa de Da... more ABSTRACT Este estudio explora las implicaciones ideológicas del humor negro en la narrativa de David Toscana. El humor satírico y acérbico, la burla, la parodia y la ironía tienen un papel crucial en la visión crítica que aporta el autor sobre la sociedad mexicana actual. Señalaremos en su narrativa la aproximación satírica a la modernidad y a la historia, pero sobre todo a la cultura del libro en México para observar cómo esta visión se relaciona con el fracaso individual y colectivo en el contexto del subdesarrollo. Destacamos en la obra de Toscana cierta crítica a la razón instrumental promocionada en los libros de la "no-ficción" que han saturado al mercado del libro. Asimismo, se discutirán el humor morboso y la parodia en la obra de Toscana en relación con la tradición hispánica: sobre todo con Miguel de Cervantes y la verdad quijotesca. This study explores the ideological implications of black humor in David Toscana's narrative works. The satiric and acerbic humor, the mocking parody and irony play a crucial role in the author's critique of contemporary Mexican society. We highlight his satirical treatment of Modernity and history, but above all of the book culture in Mexico, to show how his critique relates to the idea of individual and collective failure as a corollary to underdevelopment. In particular, his works critique the instrumental reason promoted by the nonfiction books that have saturated the book market. We also examine his morbid humor and parody in relation to the Hispanic tradition, primarily in comparison with Cervantes and the play of truth and fantasy in Don Quixote.

Revista de literatura mexicana contemporánea, 2006

Explicacion De Textos Literarios, 2000

Confluencia-revista Hispanica De Cultura Y Literatura, 2008

Poet and novelist Juvenal Acosta was born in Mexico City in 1961, and has lived in the San Franci... more Poet and novelist Juvenal Acosta was born in Mexico City in 1961, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1986, where he teaches and is part of its literary community. San Francisco also serves as the atmospheric setting for his first novel El cazador de tatuajes (first published in 1998, reissued in 2004 as a "final version"). Acosta has also published two anthologies of Mexican poetry in translation, Light from a Nearby Window: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (1993) and Dawn of the Senses: Selected Poems of Alberto Blanco (1994), a number of short stories, and publishes criticism and essays. In 2004 Acosta finished his doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Davis, entitled "Cuerpos violentos. Sexo, amor y muerte en tres poetas mexicanos: Ram?n L?pez Velarde, Xavier Villarutia y Octavio Paz." Acosta is the founder of the Writing and Consciousness MFA at the New College of California in San Francisco, and currently teaches at the California College of the Arts, where he is an Associate Professor. His second novel, Terciopelo violento, came out in 2003 and with El cazador de tatuajes forms part of the trilogy that Acosta calls "Vidas menores." The third novel in the trilogy, La hora ciega, has yet to be published though he has written another novel, Inmortal, that will be out in 2008. In El cazador de tatuajes, and to a lesser degree in Terciopelo violento, the experience of physical exile combined with erotic encounters of great intensity leads to the reconfiguration, if not to the destruction of individual identity. Acostas first two novels have a quick rhythm that recalls the style of mystery novels and of thrillers, but also stand out due to their intertextuality and their intellectual tone, primarily in El cazador de tatuajes. The narrator of El cazador de tatuajes speaks directly about several authors and their philosophical meditations on seduction: Julio Cort?zar, Milan Kundera, The Marquis de Sade, and Soren Kierkegaard to mention the most important. The mixing of styles and genres produces very effective and peculiar characters, conflicts and atmospheres; one character in particular, Angela Cain, "the Countess," is reminiscent not only of Julio Cort?zar s "La Maga" of Rayuela (more so for the challenge she represents for the Tattoo Hunter than for her psychological character), but also of the

Hispanic Review, Apr 1, 2004

Georges Bataille da cuenta de la ruptura de la economia del trueque par la del potlatch o don que... more Georges Bataille da cuenta de la ruptura de la economia del trueque par la del potlatch o don que crea una economia del desgaste o de la perdida con el proposito de ponerfin a la estabilidad de lasfortunas dentro de la economia totomica . . . El potlatch rompe el statu quo conservadory erige en su lugar un principio contrario a la conservation. (Cervantes, o la critica de la lectura 108)At the conclusion of Cervantes, i la critica de la lectura, Carlos Fuentes refers to Georges Bataille's conception of general economy and Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of "white mythology" as sources for his own conception of economy's relationship to writing. The study of economy in literature concerns questions of production, the distribution of elements within a literary work, and the relationship between signs and literary tropes. Because literary works are composed of tropic exchanges, metaphor and other literary tropes involving the exchange of meaning and qualities, some of these exchanges can be analyzed in terms of economic form. Thus, for Marc Shell, "the economy of literature seeks to understand the relationship between literary exchanges and the exchanges that constitute a political economy" (152). Fuentes's treatment of Bataille and Derrida serves as a roadmap for the study of literary economy in Terra Nostra. Although Fuentes uses the metaphor of usury to represent political and economic power, his discussion of Bataille's theory of "general economy" requires a critical approach that goes beyond a study of "political economy" in the novel. For example, in Fuentes's novel the tension between, on the one hand, the economies of gift-giving, excess, and expenditure and, on the other, those of accumulation and exchange, is instrumental to the novel's representation of the decline of feudal power and the rise of capitalist economy. For this reason, a preliminary discussion of the general economies of Bataille and Derrida's writings on this subject is necessary.According to Bataille, general economy would approximate a science that studies the excesses of energy produced in the universe, excesses that by definition cannot be utilized. This useless waste or expenditure also implies an irreducible loss at the level of representation. In literary discourse the excess implies a loss in meaning. As a theoretical framework, moreover, general economy studies and posits a relation to this loss with regard to other economies that Bataille characterized as restricted economies. These would be the political economy of accumulation and epistemological systems that seek to establish absolute truth and fixity of meaning. According to Bataille, political economy is restricted precisely because it is always concerned with wealth and value as common denominators. General economy is unrestricted because it concerns both principles of gains and of losses; for example, in Bataille's discussion of potlatch, or the gift of rivalry, the logic of the gift concerns not so much its reciprocation, but rather the acquisition of the power to surpass the receiver, and the expenditure or loss that comes with that gain in power and prestige. A generous king, one who is able to give, in some societies is seen as a powerful king. (In terms of gift-giving, Derrida in Given Time takes a more radical position: the gift disrupts and annuls all exchange including reciprocity [7-14].) As an approximation to literature, general economy would study the excess and the loss of meaning at the level of figuration in literary discourse. In Terra Nostra, this would include the novel's Baroque style, the excess of its figurai language, eroticism, and the thematic representation of sacrifices, potlatches, gift-giving and other socioeconomic relations not directly limited to accumulation and exchange economy.In Derrida's deconstruction of "white mythology," he analyzes the general economic play of metaphor in philosophical discourse. In particular, he employs the metaphor of usury to describe a process of abstraction in philosophical discourse, wherein figures, signs, and metaphors become abstracted through "a progressive erosion, a regular semantic loss, an uninterrupted exhausting of the primitive meaning" (Margins 215). …

Hispania, Dec 1, 2007

... These would be the political economy of accumulation and epistemological systems that 3. Goyt... more ... These would be the political economy of accumulation and epistemological systems that 3. Goytisolo, Terra Nostra, 250. Page 19. ... Political economy is re-stricted precisely because it is always concerned with wealth and value as common denominators. ...

[Cathedrals, Nomads, and Bodies Without Organs: Between Gilles Deleuze and Alberto Ruy Sánchez’s ... more [Cathedrals, Nomads, and Bodies Without Organs: Between Gilles Deleuze and Alberto Ruy Sánchez’s Novels of Mogador.] Summary: This article explores the intertextuality of Alberto Ruy Sánchez’s novels set in the city of Mogador (Essaoira, Morroco) with the philosophical discourse of Gilles Deleuze. Ruy Sánchez was a student of Gilles Deleuze during several years and his novelistic discourse shares similar principles with Deleuze’s thought: namely the principles of fluidity, connection, movement, plasticity and heterogeneity. In this article I examine some of the parallels being Ruy Sánchez’s highly lyrical novels and the theories of Deleuze, in particular Ruy Sánchez three novels on Mogador: Los nombres del aire (1987), En los labios del agua (1996), y Los jardines secretos de Mogador (2001). I examine the idea of nomadology in relation to the affective social environments Ruy Sánchez creates in his works. Ruy Sánchez’s characterizes his own work as belonging to “the prose of intensities,” which I compare to Deleuze’s poststructuralist notions of rhizome and assemblage. According to Ruy Sánchez the prose of intensities organizes itself not around the anecdote, but rather around “poetic intensities”, images and emotions, that come together in the form of a mosaic or kaleidoscope. Deleuze also discusses such intensities and both authors derive this idea or preference from the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The eroticism in Ruy Sánchez’s novels can also be related to the idea of the Body Without Organs, a concept Deleuze develops from Antonin Artaud’s writing: the body as intimately connected to its environment. Ruy Sánchez reconfigures Deleuze’s ideas through their integration into the Hispano-Arabic tradition and their juxtaposition with the many other preferred authors that Ruy Sánchez writes about in his essays: Yourcenar, Rilke and Bacon just to mention a few. Revista Iberoamericana is a premier journal for Latin American literature and cultural studies. It is the publication of the Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana [International Institute of IberoAmerican Literature] at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.

Hispanic Review, 2022

This article argues that the allusions to cannibalism through snippets of text that appear on scr... more This article argues that the allusions to cannibalism through snippets of text that appear on screen and the insistent representation of commodity and monetary exchange through visual associations, montage, framing, and dialogue establish an undeniable cause-e!ect, social relationship between money and violence. This indictment is bolstered by a complex network of interweaving stories and multilayered imagery that comprises an allegory of cannibalistic capitalism in Mexico on the eve of the twenty-first century. In this light, the figure of the neoliberal cannibal, the entrepreneur engaged in the commodification of violence, profiting from murder and the spectacle of violence, personifies this allegorical critique of neoliberalism. This interpretation of the film's complex allegory centered on the image of a meat market as a metaphor for cannibalistic capitalism

América, 2017

Este ensayo estudia varios matices de la risa en la obra de Georges Bataille y cómo se manifiesta... more Este ensayo estudia varios matices de la risa en la obra de Georges Bataille y cómo se manifiestan en la narrativa tardía de Carlos Fuentes, sobre todo en el cuento «El hijo de la estrella». El estudio parte de una discusión de la risa del salvaje en Histoire de l’Œil, «Le cheval académique», y «L’Amérique disparue». Luego se estudian las relaciones entre la risa y la práctica de la alegría ante la muerte entre los aztecas, y la risa y la soberanía de los niños. En la última parte se comparan el carnaval de Bakhtin y la risa en Bataille como formas de pensamiento crítico. Según ambos críticos la risa interrumpe el discurso autoritario y restaura la comunicación y la intimidad con el otro.

Cet essai étudie différentes nuances du rire dans l’œuvre de Georges Bataille ainsi que la manière dont elles se manifestent dans les œuvres ultérieures de Carlos Fuentes, surtout dans la nouvelle « El hijo de la estrella ». L’étude se fonde sur une discussion autour du rire sauvage dans Histoire de l’Œil, « Le cheval académique » et « L’Amérique disparue ». Ensuite, nous étudions la relation entre le rire et la pratique de la joie devant la mort chez les Aztèques, et entre le rire et la souveraineté des enfants. La dernière partie compare le Carnaval de Bakhtine et le rire dans l’œuvre de Bataille comme pensée critique. Selon les deux écrivains, le rire fait cesser le discours autoritaire et instaure l’intimité avec l’autre

This article examines the intertextuality between Álvaro Mutis’s novels about Maqroll el Gaviero ... more This article examines the intertextuality between Álvaro Mutis’s novels about Maqroll el Gaviero and the tales of Sinbad the Seaman from the Arabian Nights. After a discussion of the resistance in Mutis criticism to any comparison of the Maqroll novels to adventure stories, the study poses the question of how the Maqroll novels breathe life into the tales of Sinbad, reinvigorating for modern readers the ancient adventure tales. Through a Bakhtinian analysis of the chronotope of adventure time, the study demonstrates how Mutis employs and modifies traditional folk chronotopes. A direct parallel between the Maqroll and Sinbad narratives is drawn in the books’ focus on fatalism and the art of dying. Whereas Sinbad as adventurer ultimately affirms law and religion, especially with respect to the taboos around death in Islam, Maqroll does not. Sinbad in this sense is not a true nomad whereas Maqroll is. Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of nomadology is used to define Maqroll’s nomadism. The...

El Segundo Quijote (1615): Nuevas interpretaciones cuatro siglos después. Ed. Conxita Domènech and Andrés Lema-Hincapié. Madrid; Frankfurt: Iberoamericana; Vervuert,, 2018

Acompañado en sus interpretaciones por reconocidos estudiosos de los vínculos entre la literatura... more Acompañado en sus interpretaciones por reconocidos estudiosos de los vínculos entre la literatura de España y el mundo árabe, como Luce López-Baralt, María Antonia Garcés, Jareer Abu-Haidar, Mohamed Akalay, Oumama Aouad Lahrach, Américo Castro y James T. Monroe, el crítico Michael Abeyta recuerda el hecho de que Cervantes tenía conocimiento profundo de la vida y de las costumbres de los mulsumanes. El mudejarismo de Cervantes--insiste Abeyta-- va mucho más allá del empleo de meros artificios literarios. A juicio del crítico, habría paralelos entre el tema del sufrimiento de los moriscos de España, sobre todo en cuanto a la censura y la literatura aljamiada, por un lado, y las experiencias que Cervantes vivió durante su cautiverio en Argel, por otro. Ahora bien: si el autor previene de que existen dificultades para comprobar documentalmente eso paralelismos, en todo caso el tema de los moriscos y las posibles referencias islámicas en al obra de Cervantes atestiguan que en esa obra hay trazos de la experiencia vital de contacto con el mundo árabe-islámico. Más precismente, Abeyta propone explorar la relación entre el Quijote y el género literario árabe de las māqamāt desde la perspectiva de la picaresca. Él propone la hipótesis de considerar las māqamāt como precursoras de la picaresca, porque tal vez desde allí sea posible descubrir las ocultas correspondencias de las māqamāt con el Quijote. [De la introducción a El Segundo Quijote (1615): Nuevas interpretaciones cuatro siglos después]. Este ensayo compara en particular al Quijote, la novela picaresca, las māqamāt y la sátira menipea como contragéneros, siguendo las pautas de Monroe. Examina el comienzo y el final del Quijote en comparación con las prácticas retóricas de las māqamāt y de la historiografía islámica. También compara a Don Quijote y Sancho con los pícaros españoles y los pícaros de las māqamāt como personajes ambulantes elocuentes y locuaces.

Inti: Revista de literatura hispánica, 2017

En este libro la crítica belga Kristine Vanden Berghe contribuye una lectura profundamente persp... more En este libro la crítica belga Kristine Vanden Berghe contribuye
una lectura profundamente perspicaz a una creciente colección de
crítica y biografía sobre la vida y obra de Nellie Campobello. Este libro
será reconocido como uno de los estudios claves en la interpretación,
valorización y reivindicación de la obra de la autora mexicana. Como
Vanden Berghe menciona, desde su muerte en 1986, y sobre todo desde
principios del nuevo milenio, la crítica literaria ha manifestado un
renovado interés por la obra de Campobello. A pesar de que sí Campobello
gozó algo de reconocimiento entre círculos literarios, Cartucho y Las manos
de mamá fueron incluidas en la antología fundamental de Antonio Castro
Leal, su obra había recibido, sin embargo, poca atención en la crítica.
Según Vanden Berghe es gracias en gran parte a la crítica de Jorge Aguilar
Mora y Max Parra que Cartucho en particular ha sido reconocida como
obra seminal y una importante precursora para otras obras cruciales, tales
como Pedro Páramo de Juan Rulfo. Aguilar Mora propuso esta genealogía
entre Cartucho y Pedro Páramo, y por extensión Cien años de soledad de
García Márquez, y con mucha cautela Vanden Berghe profundiza en
las razones de porqué tal afirmación no es exagerada. Pero uno de
los mayores aportes del estudio de Vanden Berghe es precisamente el
enfoque teórico que le permite elaborar un análisis innovador; a saber,
la sagaz decisión de leer la obra entera de Campobello a través de la
lente de la teoría del juego de Johan Huizinga y Roger Caillois (entre
otras lecturas y enfoques).

Equestrian Rebels. Critical Perspectives on Mariano Azuela and the Novel of the Mexican Revolution. Cambridge Scholars Publishing., 2016

This article discusses the political and narratological uses of the image of Pancho Villa in the ... more This article discusses the political and narratological uses of the image of Pancho Villa in the literary criticism of Mariano Azuela and in the novel El águila y la serpiente by Martín Luis Gúzman. The approach examines the subalternizing of Pancho Villa by Mexican intellectuals during the revolutionary period and afterwards. Basing my analysis in Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of the "Beast" and sovereignty, I examine the animal reference used by and against Villa as "the man-beast" and "'the Jaguar." I argue that Azuela's description of passages from El águila y la serpiente reduces the complex image that Gúzman develops in his novel to subaltern caricature for ideological reasons. The essay includes a detailed discussion of this issue in literary criticism and in Gúzman's novel.

Fuentes, Terra Nostra and the Reconfiguration of Latin American Culture., 2006

Carmen Boullosa. In Between Brooklyn and Coyoacán, 2024

Revista de literatura mexicana contemporánea, 2002

UMI Dissertation Services eBooks, 1999

Inti: Revista de literatura hispánica, 2017

Revista De Critica Literaria Latinoamericana, 2010

Revista de literatura mexicana contemporánea, 2006

Explicacion De Textos Literarios, 2000

Confluencia-revista Hispanica De Cultura Y Literatura, 2008

Hispanic Review, Apr 1, 2004

Hispania, Dec 1, 2007

Hispanic Review, 2022

América, 2017

El Segundo Quijote (1615): Nuevas interpretaciones cuatro siglos después. Ed. Conxita Domènech and Andrés Lema-Hincapié. Madrid; Frankfurt: Iberoamericana; Vervuert,, 2018

Inti: Revista de literatura hispánica, 2017

Equestrian Rebels. Critical Perspectives on Mariano Azuela and the Novel of the Mexican Revolution. Cambridge Scholars Publishing., 2016

Democracia, otredad, melancolía. Roger Bartra ante la críticaMexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica / Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2015

This essay is an expanded, Spanish language version of my earlier article on Bartra. "La jaula de... more This essay is an expanded, Spanish language version of my earlier article on Bartra. "La jaula de la condición postmexicana" discusses the concepts of postnationalism and the “post Mexican condition” in Roger Bartra’s deconstruction of homogeneity in Mexican identity and nationalism. Bartra is a well known Mexican sociologist and anthropologist who bases his analyses of Mexican society on postmodern theory. His criticism of Mexican intellectuals and their invention of Mexican identity has made him an important figure in cultural studies. In his discussions of ethnicity, Bartra is critical of attempts to assimilate indigenous communities into a national culture, and is also skeptical of the segregation of indigenous communities based on an equivocal notion of multiculturalism following U.S. models. He cites the Zapatista uprising as an example of the decline of nationalist politics and identity. This article also examines Bartra’s position regarding Mexico’s transition to democracy, in particular his
notion of civil society’s role in political legitimation and his opposition to any populist or nationalist movements. His belief that Mexican society has entered a postnational condition, his postmodern disenchantment, and his distrust of nationalist and populist traditions in Mexico, have shaped his view of the ongoing crises of legitimation.
This article compares Bartra’s views to two other prominent intellectuals in Mexico: Néstor García Canclini and Carlos Monsiváis. This paper concludes that Bartra’s postmodernist standpoint has limited his ability to recognize the negative impacts of globalization and the transnationalization of culture, as well as the rise of the neoliberal
state, on Mexico’s democratic transition. In this extended version I also examine Bartra's role in the 2006 elections in Mexico and his views on populism and nationalism. In particular I criticize his reading of Ernesto Laclau's book On Populist Reason.