As Others Put Plays upon the Stage: Aguirre, Neocolonialism, and the New German Cinema

Abstract

The celebration of the quincentennial of Columbus's discoveries and with it live-hundred years of the New World Order heightened many ongoing debates about the roles of media and representation in the construction of colonial history. While such discussions have helped uncover the biases in traditional colonial history, the present essay believes that they not only comment on specific representations of the history of colonization, but also participate in the dynamic refiguration of neocolonial relations. I take my lead here tromJose Rabasa's exploration of Cortes's writings for the use of as in an essay which recontextualizes the conqueror of Mexico within the European discourses at the origins of Western anthropology.' Seeking to overturn the 'Europe and its others' that relies upon reductive cultural dichotomies of Self and Other, Rabasa argues that it is not simply the misuse of knowledge that aids the imperialist cause. It is rather the very production of knowledge in the early imperialist context that entails conquest and rests on a proto-anthropological notion of dialogue invented in large part by the conquistadores (190). Rabasa concludes that we can only avoid this reductive complex by