Una aproximación a Sin novedad en Shanghai

Abstract

This essay analyzes five of Panamanian author Rogelio Sinanân short stories published in the anthological volume Sin novedad en Shanghai. The essay proposes a new approach to these texts in the light of recent historical and geopolitical events such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US invasion of Panama in 1989, the transfer of the Canal Zone to Panamanian Administration and the dismantling of American military bases in December 1999. With the re-reading of these texts, the author takes into account several proposals belonging to the academic field of cultural studies that help explain recent shifts of philosophical and social paradigms in the Latin America. These changes make a break from the epistemic postulates of Modernity, establish a commitment with popular culture, fragment all types of intellectual authority, and defend hybridization, thus initiating the Postcolonial debate and the concept of peripheral Modernity and Post Modernity in Latin America. Finally, through this trans-disciplinary re-reading of the texts, the author underlines the various linguistic and disciplinary approaches and narrative strategies displayed by Sinan in these short stories and how through the appropriation and recreation of old myths, allegories and legends, he created a cultural product that is both Latin American and Panamanian as well.