Collecting from the Margins:
Collecting in Latin American Literature and Culture (edited volume)

Proposal deadline: June 30, 2010. Paper deadline: September 30, 2010

Historically, collecting has played an important role in colonial enterprises and has functioned as a strategy for the deployment of western power over "primitive" cultures. Objects from non European or U.S.-American societies have populated museums and private collections, where they have simultaneously been used to define those societies as well as shape the west's understanding of itself. Latin America has long participated in this scheme as a subaltern culture, and while the position of collecting subject has been reserved for Europe and the United States, it has usually appeared in the western collection in the role of collected object.

The proposed anthology seeks to explore what happens in those cases in which the collector is Latin American. Is the model described above questioned or maintained? What functions does collecting fulfill in a Latin American context? How is collecting (both individual and institutional) practiced and/or imagined? What is its role in the formation of national and/or personal identities? What are the aesthetics and the politics of collecting in Latin America?

Submissions that address various aspects of the subject of collecting in Latin America are welcome. Articles may address literary, cinematic, or historical cases, from colonial times to the present. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. Please e-mail 300-500-word proposals and a brief biography by June 30 to:

María M. Andrade
Associate Professor
Departmento de Humanidades y Literatura
Universidad de los Andes
Bogotá, Colombia
maandrad@uniandes.edu.co