Criticism and Power: Ángel Rama and Latinoamericanism

Abstract

This article focuses on the development of “Latin Americanism” as a discipline in the second half of the 20th century through the activities of its most relevant critics, focusing on the rich documentary archive provided by Ángel Rama's letters and diaries. Forms of critical intervention and articulation with politics are studied. The central hypothesis investigates the attempts to found a critique and a theory that, from Latin America, challenges the centers of hegemonic critical thought and that are sustained in Latin American particularities. Although the project had a limited life, in conclusion, a panorama of certain continuities of critical thinking based on the continent is described through contemporary feminist criticism, which redesigns the intervention of Latin American discourse in the global theoretical discussion.