Present-day Argentina Research Articles

The invisibility of indigenous names in the place names of the Jesuit missions of the Pampas (Buenos Aires, present-day Argentina)

The invisibility of indigenous names in the place names of the Jesuit missions of the Pampas (Buenos Aires, present-day Argentina)

The Challenges of 190 Years of the Spanish versus British Pre-Colonial and Colonial Manipulations of Equatorial Guinea/ Fernando Po / the Bight of Biafra 1778-1968

The main focus of this paper is to illustrate how the Spanish gained control of Equatorial Guinea during the late 18th and what prompted the British to mark their presence briefly for the continuation of Spanish lucrative imperialistic ambitions in the African Gulf of Guinea. That those European challenges in the zone lasted till the Second half of the 20th Century brings out the main pre-colonial and colonial agents which were appointed by the Spanish and British Monarchical and Republican Governments with a total of 110 appointed in different portfolios to manipulate the destiny of the Africans and looted resources for their home countries in their mission of the so-called civilization of the Black Africans in the forested zones. This is because the young generation of African historians who are shortsighted and thinking of demanding colonial crimes from their main Western European actors of the time have to know which of their agents were appointed and more research can been done on periodical considerations in order to rate the degree of atrocities and colonial crimes committed coupled with the looting of African extracted natural resources for the construction of Europe to the detriment of the African countries and Kingdoms they subdue even larger than their homeland. In 1778, the Spanish gained control of Equatorial Guinea via the Treaty of El Pardo which was an agreement between the Spain Empire and the Kingdom of Portugal. From 1778 to 1810 Spain directed Spanish Guinea through the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, based in present-day Argentina. This marked the effective beginning of Spanish strength in the African territory and the British once more passed through Fernando Po, linking to the Bight of Biafra to show their presence in this part of the Gulf of Guinea in the name of British suzerainty. The scrutinized of diverse specialized sources and documents enable us to engage on historical method in our analyses using clear statistical table to censor

Grabados decorativos europeos y los retablos rococó del siglo XVIII en Trujillo (Perú)

El impacto del rococó ha sido tradicionalmente subestimado en el caso de los retablos del Perú. Aunque los estudiosos reconocen que el rococó se manifiesta en algunos retablos de Lima y Trujillo de finales del siglo XVIII como decoración, se ha hecho poco por investigar cómo este estilo llegó al virreinato. Este artículo identifica unas fuentes impresas francesas y alemanas (de la ciudad de Augsburgo) y considera la manera como los artistas locales las utilizaron. También compara el tratamiento de los adornos rococó y sus formas en Trujillo con la manera en que esas formas son tratados en el Cono Sur (actual Argentina y Chile). Aunque ambas áreas se nutrieron de las mismas fuentes, los retablos del Cono Sur con frecuencia fueron obra de artistas inmigrantes (especialmente de habla alemana), mientras que los del norte fueron hechos en su mayor parte por artesanos criollos. 

Gnathovorax cabreirai: a new early dinosaur and the origin and initial radiation of predatory dinosaurs.

Predatory dinosaurs were an important ecological component of terrestrial Mesozoic ecosystems. Though theropod dinosaurs carried this role during the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods (and probably the post-Carnian portion of the Triassic), it is difficult to depict the Carnian scenario, due to the scarcity of fossils. Until now, knowledge on the earliest predatory dinosaurs mostly relies on herrerasaurids recorded in Carnian strata of South America. Phylogenetic investigations recovered the clade in different positions within Dinosauria, whereas fewer studies challenged its monophyly. Although herrerasaurid fossils are much better recorded in present-day Argentina than in Brazil, Argentinean strata so far yielded no fairly complete skeleton representing a single individual. Here, we describe Gnathovorax cabreirai, a new herrerasaurid based on an exquisite specimen found as part of a multitaxic association form southern Brazil. The type specimen comprises a complete and well-preserved articulated skeleton, preserved in close association (side by side) with rhynchosaur and cynodont remains. Given its superb state of preservation and completeness, the new specimen sheds light into poorly understood aspects of the herrerasaurid anatomy, including endocranial soft tissues. The specimen also reinforces the monophyletic status of the group, and provides clues on the ecomorphology of the early carnivorous dinosaurs. Indeed, an ecomorphological analysis employing dental traits indicates that herrerasaurids occupy a particular area in the morphospace of faunivorous dinosaurs, which partially overlaps the area occupied by post-Carnian theropods. This indicates that herrerasaurid dinosaurs preceded the ecological role that later would be occupied by large to medium-sized theropods.

How Policy Fields Are Born: The Rise of Democratic Security in Argentina

AbstractThis essay maps the transformation of security from a symbol of authoritarian government under the Cold War paradigm of National Security into a public good and a policy field acknowledged as legitimate and democratic by politicians and policy experts. Using present-day Argentina as an example, we show how security ideas gain dominance across the political spectrum, displacing and subordinating democratic politics conceived in terms of rights. As institutions increasingly accept security measures and pre-emptive risk management, a securitising discourse – despite its claims to advocate for the ‘citizen’ – trumps governance and the rule of law. Appealing to citizens’ concerns and rights, the new forms of securitisation may yet undermine democratic life.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND CHURCHES IN ARGENTINA: INTERSECTIONS IN QUICKSAND

This work intends to analyze the historical intersections between political parties and churches in Argentina, focusing on Catholic and evangelical interventions, since these are the religious organizations with the most presence, interests and connections in this space. Our analysis will be based on a binary classification: the term direct intersections refers to the decision by religious agents to form their own party structures, while indirect intersections is the denomination for those practices through which churches exert their influence on political parties without getting involved in the electoral arena. After establishing the degree of effectiveness of these different strategies, we will discuss their impact in the context of the consolidation of democracy in present-day Argentina. Methodologically, the analysis relies on a comprehensive and critical review of the scientific production about religion and politics in the country being studied.

Trauma and Contemporary Forms of Subjectivity: Contributions of Argentine Psychoanalysis.

This paper offers arguments to justify the relevance of psychoanalysis-psychoanalyses-in present-day Argentina and reflects on the stance taken by psychoanalysts with different theoretical perspectives in the face of the havoc wreaked by state terror (1976-1983). To this end, the author focuses on the pioneers' traits, the significance of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association in the 1950s and 1960s, and the impact of the departure of the Plataforma Group in 1971. The establishment of the latter opened the way for the development of a psychoanalysis tied to popular movements, sensitive to social conflict, and close to human rights organizations. The author explores both on psychoanalysts' intervention to address the social trauma resulting from the theft of babies during the dictatorship, and on their relationship with Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

Psychological, Social, Cultural, Literary and Legal Dimensions of Memory

As many researchers have pointed out, the past two decades have seen ‘a hypertrophy of memory’. Never before have so many different disciplines investigated the mysteries behind the ways we remember, trying to show that memory does influence various sciences, from sociology, to law, to literature. This article ventures to outline the scope of these investigations, looking at memory from a different, broad perspective. Following a short introduction, section two focuses on the ‘technical’ details of memory, explaining how our mind remembers (and forgets), and remarking upon the so-called ‘sins of memory’. Section article addresses social aspects of memory, in particular the notion of collective memory. The author explains this increasingly popular term, introducing several other interconnected expressions. Section four focuses on cultural dimensions of memory. It first outlines, then analyses the relationship memory and philosophy have had through the ages, showing how the perceptions of the latter have changed. Next, the author evokes the once popular, nowadays slightly forgotten discipline, known as mnemotechnics, or ‘art of memory’. Section five is devoted to the relations between literature and memory. The article first explains how, in many ways, memory influences literature and then argues that literature is one of the best grounds to observe how different mechanisms of memory work. Thus, the author analyses three contemporary works, Marcel Proust’s In the Search of Lost Time, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz’s Maidens of Wilko, and Czeslaw Mislosz’s Lost Places, showing how they can help us unveil some of memory’s mysteries. In the last part of the essay, the author investigates the ties between international law and collective memory. Giving insight into this unobvious relationship, on the examples of present-day Argentina and Germany, the article notes that international law both influences and is influenced by collective memory.

The Revolution’s Neverending Stories: Liliana Heker’s El fin de la historia

This article considers the legacy of 1970s revolutionary thought and political action within Argentine cultural production. Liliana Heker’s 1996 novel El fin de la historia is a fictional depiction of Montonera ‘Lucy’ Carazo, who was taken as a political prisoner, fell in love with and seduced her captor, and went on to collaborate with the military regime. Similar stories continue to arise and generate a great deal of debate in present-day Argentina, at the same time that Heker's novel itself continues to elicit controversial critical and cultural responses. This close reading of the novel thus situates itself within present-day debates regarding the ethics and politics of 1970s armed struggle as well as ongoing debates concerning individuals who abjure or betray their commitment to 1970s revolutionary causes. The analysis focuses on seduction and sexuality as a means of leading the novel’s protagonist astray from the cultural topoi of revolutionary martyrdom and heroism.

The Historiography of Railways in Argentina: Between Foreign Investment, Nationalism, and Liberalism

By the mid-nineteenth century, the territory of present-day Argentina was still a sparsely settled network of towns beyond which lived some native peoples. In 1860 the incomplete Martin de Moussy survey estimated a total population of about 1 million inhabitants; a decade later the first national census recorded about 1.8 million. Halperin Donghi summarizes the situation in “A Nation for the Argentine Desert,” the prologue to his classic work about this period.1 At that time, the country lacked roads, and the traditional transport system, as Enrique M. Barba describes in a pioneering book, consisted of cart tracks that were impassable during the rainy season, and some staging posts that provided rudimentary services for long-distances travelers.2 Indigenous trails trodden by livestock, called rastrilladas, supplemented them.3 Years later, Cristian Werckenthie studied the traditional transport of the pampas. Bullock carts were the principal means of transport; elsewhere, mule trains were the norm.

Palaeoecology and sedimentology of Carboniferous glacial and post-glacial successions in the Paganzo and Río Blanco basins of northwestern Argentina

Abstract Recent studies show that Late Palaeozoic Ice Age (LPIA) climate change broadly affected marine invertebrate faunas: glaciations decreased origination and extinction and long-term gradual global warming during the final deglaciation altered palaeocommunity composition. Carboniferous stratigraphy and palaeoecology in the Paganzo and Río Blanco basins of southwestern Gondwana (present-day Argentina) were studied in ordered to further determine how palaeocommunities were influenced by glacial and post-glacial processes during the LPIA. In the Paganzo Basin, the Guandacol Formation consisted of an ice-proximal to very ice-distal glaciomarine succession, while the Tupe Formation represented continental fluvial lowstand sedimentation interrupted by periodic marine incursions (estuary setting). In the Río Blanco Basin, the Río del Peñon Formation represents a shallowing-upwards coastal marine facies under the influence of wave and storm activity. Diversity and abundance data from northwestern Argentina reflects that ice-proximal environments proved physiologically stressful to organisms, limiting colonization to only opportunistic fauna. Following glaciation, the fauna of northwestern Argentina diversified and became increasingly ecologically complex during two marine transgressions in the Río Blanco Basin. It is interpreted that palaeocommunity establishment, composition and diversification in western Argentina during the LPIA was mostly dependent upon localized environmental conditions and palaeogeographic location.

Productions of social solidarity and of social compulsion

I begin from the assumption that the social groups within which people acquire subjective attributes belong to two different orders. Those of the first order follow the model of organized, closed structures that define fixed places. Examples are social institutions, the state, and the oedipal structure. The groups of the second order are ad hoc groups whose life and consistency depend on the emergence of a problem that must be solved and, therefore, on a doing together. I call these groups communities. This approach to the matter of globalization responds to a way of thinking linkage organization that privileges different ontologies and a characteristic topology for each of them. We should ask ourselves whether solidarity requires an ontological definition; whether it constitutes an ethical problem (commitment), a moral problem (behaviour or obligation), an action/doing based on a previous knowledge of one of the parties, a practice created in connection with an emerging problem, a psychic mechanism, and so on. To answer these manifold questions, I travel a path – one among many possible paths – that involves understanding solidarity as a resource and a practice referred to psychic suffering, especially in present-day Argentina. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons. Ltd.

Argentina on the Couch: Psychiatry, State, and Society, 1880 to the Present

Argentina, this volume claims, is the “world capital of psychoanalysis” (p. 2). More than a therapeutic approach, psychoanalysis represents a “filter of intelligibility” for contemporary Argentines, a framework for understanding culture, politics, and society (p. 221). These essays explore the historical context for this development, resulting in a volume that historians and students interested in twentieth-century Argentine intellectual culture and the globalization of mental healthcare will find worth reading, despite a few nagging problems.Editor Mariano Plotkin sets two goals for the volume: to map the historical trajectory of “Argentines’ passion for Freud” and to use the history of the psycho-sciences to explore the Argentine state and “the reception and adaptation of European ideas” in Argentine society (p. 3). The book achieves these goals with uneven success. Adopting a Foucauldian stance, essays in the first two parts (on degeneration and gender, and institutional psychiatry) interpret the development of psychiatry as an integral process of modern state building at the turn of the century. The four essays portray a positivist psychiatric establishment that positioned itself as a beacon of modernity on the periphery of a global scientific community but which was also beset by powerful contradictions. Julia Rodriguez and Kristin Ruggiero point to the tensions inherent in the medical framing of gender and madness: Argentine psychiatrists readily followed Italian and French degeneration theorists by privileging organic origins to psychological disorders, yet also turned to poorly conceived notions of “moral insanity” when organic explanations failed. And Lila Caimari’s study of the Argentine Institute of Criminology’s amassing of prison inmates’ “scientific biographies” reveals how state concerns about rehabilitation trumped psychiatrists’ preoccupations with the biological causes of crime, diverting scientific inquiry according to political need.Combined with Jonathan Ablard’s astute essay on the bureaucratic mishandling of overcrowded public hospitals, these portraits of a beleaguered Argentine psychiatric profession reveal a desperate need for reform—one potentially ameliorated by psychoanalytic approaches. Yet Freud and psychoanalysis are entirely absent from these essays, forcing the reader to imagine how the failures of Argentine psychiatry connect to psychoanalytic diffusion. More seriously, none of these essays sufficiently addresses Argentina’s particularities; the problems they outline pertain equally to European and North American psychiatry in the same period. Despite some useful remarks on how anxieties about immigration directed psychiatric attention to the purportedly criminal nature of foreign-born populations, there is little to explain what was specifically Argentine in this. The essays do tell an important set of stories about the development of psychiatry in Argentina, yet one wonders how European medical ideas may have been transformed, contested, or subverted in the Argentine context.The final two essays and the epilogue fare somewhat better, indicating the effects of Argentine intellectual and political culture on psychoanalytic theory. Hugo Vezzetti explores the popularization of psychoanalysis by Enrique Pichon-Rivière, a Swiss-born analyst who adapted Freudianism to Argentine needs in the 1950s and 1960s. Pichon-Rivière’s “operative groups”—a collective healing approach that promoted social, as well as individual, mental health and hygiene— drew on Gestalt psychology and Freudian notions of unconscious anxieties to reintegrate a politically and emotionally fragmented community. Better still are Plotkin’s essay and epilogue on the political significance of psychoanalysis in Argentina, largely drawn from his recent book, Freud in the Pampas. Plotkin outlines the reformist effects of psychoanalysis for Argentine psychiatry—including the destigmatization of mental illness—while usefully highlighting the multiple uses of psychoanalysis that operated in twentieth-century Argentina. The ideological crises of the Perón era and the military repression that followed in its wake exacerbated intellectual divisions forged in the interwar period: leftist thinkers saw in psychoanalysis a tool kit for social liberation, while conservatives saw a means to enhance social control over humanity’s natural egocentrism. Such popularization was not without its costs: Plotkin points to a “banalization” of psychoanalysis in present-day Argentina, one that (combined with pharmacological and neuroscientific advances) stands to strip the discipline of its therapeutic legitimacy.A technical matter: a number of the book’s photos and illustrations are mis-numbered and are often presented without much explanation, posing potential difficulties for non-Spanish readers. There is repetitive overlap between essays on some issues, while others—such as the urban-rural divide in Argentine politics and culture—receive too little attention. The book might rather be called “Porteños on the couch.” On a positive note, the volume contains a useful glossary of psychiatric and psychoanalytic terminology, and Plotkin’s able introduction highlights salient points in the history of Argentina and the psycho-sciences, rendering the book accessible to nonspecialists in both fields.

Social Protest against Repression and Violence in Present-day Argentina and Peru

ERLACS – European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies is an Open Access, scientific journal. It publishes peer-reviewed articles in English and Spanish. Contributions reflect substantial empirical research and/or are theoretically innovative with respect to major debates within social science research (understood in the broadest sense, including history and economics) on Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to research articles, ERLACS includes 'Explorations' (a section in which new themes are presented and new debates are stimulated), review essays, book reviews, and film reviews. Articles are published online soon after they have been accepted.Sign up for our newsletter and read our latest issue!Special Collections:Heritage, protests and coloniality in contemporary Latin AmericaViolent configurations of power in MexicoVenezuela's crisis from global perspectivesElite and popular responses to a left in crisisMega-projects, contentious action, and policy change in Latin America ERLACS – Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe es una revista científica de Acceso Abierto. Difunde artículos bajo la revisión de pares en inglés y español. Las contribuciones reflejan la investigación empírica sustancial y/o son teóricamente innovadoras con respecto a los grandes debates dentro de la investigación social (en el sentido más amplio, incluyendo la historia y la economía) en América Latina y el Caribe. Además de los artículos de investigación, ERLACS incluye 'Exploraciones' (una sección en la que se presentan los nuevos temas con el fin de estimular nuevos debates), ensayos de reseña, reseñas de libros, y críticas de cine. Los artículos se publican en línea poco después de haber sido aceptados.¡Suscríbase a nuestro boletín de noticias y lea nuestro último número!Números especiales: Heritage, protests and coloniality in contemporary Latin AmericaViolent configurations of power in MexicoVenezuela's crisis from global perspectivesElite and popular responses to a left in crisisMega-projects, contentious action, and policy change in Latin America

Middle Maastrichtian vertebrates (fishes, amphibians, dinosaurs and other reptiles, mammals) from Pajcha Pata (Bolivia). Biostratigraphic, palaeoecologic and palaeobiogeographic implications

The Pajcha Pata fossil locality in south central Bolivia, in the upper part of the Lower Member of the El Molino Formation, is the first late Cretaceous fauna in South America which has yielded, in addition to some invertebrates and plants, all kinds of vertebrates except birds, but including dinosaurs and mammals. Its middle Maastrichtian age, indicated by geochronologic data, is consistent with the fauna, including the marine ichthyofauna. The vertebrate fossils reported here come from the main fossiliferous level which includes terrestrial, freshwater and marine taxa: vertebrates, Mammalia (both tribosphenic and non-tribosphenic therians), Theropoda (Coelurosauria and Sauropoda), Crocodylia, Squamata (Serpentes), Chelonia, Amphibia (Anura, Gymnophiona, Caudata) and fish (Dipnoi, Teleostei, Actinopteri, Cladistia, Chondrostei); invertebrates (Gastropoda, Bryozoa) and plants (charophytes). Amongst these taxa are the earliest records of some fish, Amphibia and tribosphenic Mammalia in South America and/or in the world. The fish concerned are: Polypteriformes (Latinopollia suarezi), Siluriformes of the family Andinichthyidae (Andinichthys) and two new families, Osteoglossiformes of the subfamily Heterotidinae (Osteoglossidae), Perciformes of the family Latidae, Dipnoi of the family Lepidosirenidae (Lepidosiren cf. paradoxa). The Amphibia concerned are: indeterminate Gymnophiona, Noterpetontidae (Noterpeton bolivianum). Pajcha Pata is the only known locality in South America with both non-tribosphenic and tribosphenic therian mammals. The depositional environment was probably estuarian or lagoonal as indicated by a mixed continental, freshwater, and marine fauna. Comparison of this local fauna with faunas of the same age at localities belonging to the same proximal part of the El Molino basin on one hand, and with others belonging to the distal part on the other hand, shows that the two continental areas seem to have their own endemic freshwater fish fauna (except the Characidae and the Lepisosteidae, known in all levels of Bolivia). However, these two areas have the same marine taxa. This implies some influence of the sea in the whole basin. Calculated temperatures of the marine waters range from 13 to 17° for a latitute of about 22°S, implying a southern Pacific upwelling. The El Molino Basin could have been also connected with the open sea through present-day Argentina and not only Venezuela as thought until now.

Buenos Aires and Mental Health

Buenos Aires was originally founded, by the Spanish, on the banks of the River Plate (which was believed to be the sea because of its width) in 1 535. The city was destroyed and later founded again, in 1580, to secure an open water route to the Spanish settlements in Paraguay. For two centuries there was restricted growth in the city because of the lack of mineral riches; but in 1776, exports of raw hides and distribution of European imports made the city grow and become the capital of the Viceroyalty of the River Plate. As the political, economic, and administrative center of a vast territory comprising most of present-day Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia, the cityport was the natural birthplace for the revolution in 1810 that marked the end of Spanish colonial domination throughout the region. Independence was declared in 1816. There was a long struggle between the affluent city-port and the various provincial economies distant from the great port until 1880, when the city was declared federal capital of the republic. Its citizens lost the right to elect their own mayor, who for 115 years thereafter was appointed by the federal government. Only after amendments to the national constitution were voted in 1994 did the people of Buenos Aires again enjoy the right to elect their own officials. During the twentieth century, Buenos Aires became one of the richest cities in the world; but the country itself has been less successful, though it has developed as a center of agrarian exports and imported manufactures, which are distributed through a railway network from the port of Buenos Aires. This has made the city the entrance door to the country. When analyzing Buenos Aires, it is important to understand that Argentina is a macrocephalous country: the city is the head of the country from every viewpoint political, social, economic, cultural. A third of

Between Civilization and Barbarism: Women, Nation, and Literary Culture in Modern Argentina

Masiello's book 'sheds light on a relatively little-known group of extremely interesting women in the formative period of a major literature...[It] breaks new ground and will be a standard reference for the subject' - Margaret Sayers Peden. Evoking the famous watchwords of Argentine president Domingo Sarmiento (1868-74), Between Civilization and Barbarism explores the positioning of women within the Argentine nation and argues that women neither sought alliance with the 'civilizing' agenda of leading statesmen nor found identity in the extreme poses of 'barbarism', to which some intellectuals had condemned them. Instead, women used literary and political texts to surpass the tightly outlined roles assigned to them. Beginning with literary and journalistic texts written by and about women from the time of Sarmiento, Francine Masiello traces strategic shifts in the discourse on gender at moments of national crisis.She considers not only novels and guides to female behavior written by and for privileged women but also newspapers and political tracts produced by women of the working class. Extending her study into the urban expansion and modernization of the 1920s, Masiello explores the nature of gender relations posited in treatises on crime and public disorder and in the texts of avant-garde and social-realist writers. In addressing such representations of women, as well as the effects of ideology and history on writing, Masiello offers bold new insights into the development of Latin American women's literature and illuminates the role of women in forming the culture of present-day Argentina. Francine Masiello is an associate professor of Spanish and comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Lenguaje e ideologia: las escuelas argentinas de vanguardia (1986) and coauthor of Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America (1990).

Parody and Decadence: Laforgue's Moralités Légendaires by Michele Hannoosh (review)

Book Reviews257 DAVID WILLIAM FOSTER. The Argentine Generation of 1880: Ideology and Cultural Texts. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990. 204 p. David William Foster is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished Latin American scholars living and writing in the United States. His contributions in several fields, among them bibliographical and cultural studies, are thought provoking and challenging. His recent study, The Argentine Generation of1880, is a fascinatingjourney into the field ofArgentine cultural as well as literary history. The book begins by tracing the defeat of Argentine dictator Juan Manuel Rosas in 1851 and the way in which several intellectuals, especially writers, began to create a new Argentina where the values of liberalism and democracy were essential. The unique generation of 1880 flourished and to date it constitutes one ofthe most outstanding historical and literary movements of Argentine society. Through key readings of the period, such as La Gran Aldea, La Bolsa, Sin Rumbo, and Memorias de un Vigilante, Foster's study attempts and splendidly succeeds in presenting an integral vision of the period, especially the way in which these works, together with these writers, shaped the world they lived in. The representation of literary texts as well as the role literary ideology played during this crucial generation are the most important contributions of this study. I strongly recommend this well written, well conceived book, especially because through Foster's perception we can understand the way in which the intellectual generation of 1880 was shaped— a generation whose impact and validity can still be felt in present-day Argentina. MARJORIE AGOSIN Wellesley College MICHELE HANNOOSH. Parody and Decadence: Laforgue's Moralités Légendaires. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989. 275 p. The Moralités Légendaires were written between 1883 and 1887, the last years ofLaforgue's brieflife. They are the only substantial prose work of a poet who died at 27, having nonetheless managed to survive Romanticism, Symbolism, positivism, atheism, Darwinism, and even the Decadent movement of which he was a member. As we are entering the last decade of our own century, it may be of value to look back at this other fin de siècle that seems so long ago, and in this book Michèle Hannoosh is making a major contribution to both the study ofLaforgue and the understanding ofour equally, ifnot more, difficult time. The bulk ofcriticism on Jules Laforgue, most ofit not very recent, has dealt primarily with the decadent characteristics of his poetry, the elegant melancholy, the ennui of the intellect, the nocturnal, shimmering imagery of his verse and his very personal touch of irony and gentle self-mockery, with the poet emerging as a sort of Pierrot Lunaire. However, as we read it today 258Rocky Mountain Review with a fresh mind, it is possible to think that its true originality lies in an unprecedented, cosmic feeling for the endangered, perishable planet Earth. Now that the threats have become so clear and precise, a poem like the "Funeral March for the Death ofthe Earth" takes on new meaning. In it, the whole universe, a solemn procession oîsoleils magnifiques, mourns and grieves for a small dead planet, with accents of passionate tenderness that have not been matched, except maybe in the music of Gustav Mahler or the outcry of young écologiste. However, in the Moralités, Laforgue is not so much preoccupied with the ultimate mortality as he is with salvaging something of the past for an uncertain future, survival in fact. Taking hold of some important or even sacred items in our cultural heritage, giving them a new twist by way of parody, and finding or implying modern meanings in them without being barbaric or destructive, this is the tour de force accomplished by Jules Laforgue. The analysis of this process, which allows literature to go on, is the subject of this brilliant book by Hannoosh, a most serious book, also. Six tales were told, written in outrageous, sparkling, witty, luxuriant style. "Hamlet, ou les suites de la piété filiale," "Le Miracle des Roses" (based on a medieval legend), "Lohengrin, fils de Parsifal," "Salomé," "Persée et Andromède ou le plus heureux des trois" (which was used for...

The Argentine Generation of 1880: Ideology and Cultural Texts by David William Foster (review)

Book Reviews257 DAVID WILLIAM FOSTER. The Argentine Generation of 1880: Ideology and Cultural Texts. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990. 204 p. David William Foster is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished Latin American scholars living and writing in the United States. His contributions in several fields, among them bibliographical and cultural studies, are thought provoking and challenging. His recent study, The Argentine Generation of1880, is a fascinatingjourney into the field ofArgentine cultural as well as literary history. The book begins by tracing the defeat of Argentine dictator Juan Manuel Rosas in 1851 and the way in which several intellectuals, especially writers, began to create a new Argentina where the values of liberalism and democracy were essential. The unique generation of 1880 flourished and to date it constitutes one ofthe most outstanding historical and literary movements of Argentine society. Through key readings of the period, such as La Gran Aldea, La Bolsa, Sin Rumbo, and Memorias de un Vigilante, Foster's study attempts and splendidly succeeds in presenting an integral vision of the period, especially the way in which these works, together with these writers, shaped the world they lived in. The representation of literary texts as well as the role literary ideology played during this crucial generation are the most important contributions of this study. I strongly recommend this well written, well conceived book, especially because through Foster's perception we can understand the way in which the intellectual generation of 1880 was shaped— a generation whose impact and validity can still be felt in present-day Argentina. MARJORIE AGOSIN Wellesley College MICHELE HANNOOSH. Parody and Decadence: Laforgue's Moralités Légendaires. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989. 275 p. The Moralités Légendaires were written between 1883 and 1887, the last years ofLaforgue's brieflife. They are the only substantial prose work of a poet who died at 27, having nonetheless managed to survive Romanticism, Symbolism, positivism, atheism, Darwinism, and even the Decadent movement of which he was a member. As we are entering the last decade of our own century, it may be of value to look back at this other fin de siècle that seems so long ago, and in this book Michèle Hannoosh is making a major contribution to both the study ofLaforgue and the understanding ofour equally, ifnot more, difficult time. The bulk ofcriticism on Jules Laforgue, most ofit not very recent, has dealt primarily with the decadent characteristics of his poetry, the elegant melancholy, the ennui of the intellect, the nocturnal, shimmering imagery of his verse and his very personal touch of irony and gentle self-mockery, with the poet emerging as a sort of Pierrot Lunaire. However, as we read it today ...

Governor Ribera and the War of Oranges on Paraguay's Frontiers

The great economic and political changes in the Río de la Plata of the late 1700s penetrated not only Buenos Aires and the interior of present-day Argentina, but upriver the hitherto neglected province of Paraguay shared the reforms of the Intendant system and economic liberalization. Those changes, along with the expulsion of the Jesuits, produced a shift in the economy of this region from the Paraná-Tebicuary area to the northern frontier of that province. The impelling economic motive for that shift was the north's greater ability to meet the demand for Paraguay's primary export, yerba mate. By the 1780s, northern Paraguay experienced a greater exploitation of yerbales, both to the benefit of independent entrepreneurs and government revenues.