ILAS Cultural Studies

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Jos Enrique Rod (1871-1917) is a key figure in the history of Latin American culture. His best known work is Ariel, an influential essay published a hundred years ago in his native Montevideo. Partly inspired by Spains defeat over Cuba and Puerto Rico two years earlier, Ariel is the subcontinents foremost call for a concerted Latin Americanism to counter the cultural impact of the United States, and has influenced later interpretations of that relationship.

The essays gathered in this volume provide a complex view of Rod: an idealist who praised aesthetics over practical issues of political import, but also a cautious intellectual concerned with the moral uses of art; a con-servative insufficiently sensitive to the plight of the native peoples of his subcontinent, and yet one whose ideas not only engaged one of the sharp-est minds in Spain, Miguel de Unamuno, but also provided inspiration to a remarkable British socialist, Aneurin Bevan. These essays make a signifi-cant contribution to the current renewal of interest in the work of a writer whose message is likely to need further reinterpreting efforts well into the second centenary of Ariel.

CONTRIBUTORS: Iain A.D. Stewart, Jason Wilson, Gordon Brotherston, Stephen M. Hart, Stephen G.H. Roberts, Gustavo San Romn.

Borges and Europe Revisited
Evelyn Fishburn (ed.) (1998)
ISBN 1 900039 21 4
UK 12.00
US $19.95

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This compilation of essays takes a fresh look at Borgess work. The word Europe in the title is taken in its widest sense, as the central and authoritative mental space within which and against which world literature was written during Borgess formative years. The present collection was not conceived as an overview of Borgess relationship with Europe, but as an eclectic response by a number of authors with different interests to a subject that had become importantly refocused. A wide variety of topics, ranging from the European avant-garde to the impact of European science upon Argentine literature, is discussed from a multiplicity of angles - the only unifying factor being the year 1996, when nearly all the essays were written. Most of them were presented as papers at a one-day conference held at the Institute of Romance Studies, in conjunction with the Institute of Latin American Studies. The purpose was to re-examine the work of Borges in the wake of the great changes in reading that theory had brought about and which Borges had somehow foreshadowed, though of course not systematised.

CONTRIBUTORS: Daniel Balderston, Malcolm Bowie, Evelyn Fishburn, Gabriel Josipovici, Bernard McGuirk, Sylvia Molloy, Eduardo L. Ortiz, William Rowe,
Jason Wilson.

Latin Americas in London: A select list of prominant Latin Americans in London, 1810-1997
Pam Decho & Claire Diamond, with an introduction by Rory Miller (1998)
ISBN 1 900039 16 8
UK 12.00
US $19.95

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Since the Independence period, and even before, London has been home to a variety of Latin Americans. Yet London, as the administrative, financial and cultural capital of the United Kingdom, has offered its visitors from Latin America many different advantages. While some came to London during periods of exile, others were attracted by its business opportunities, its financial connections or its cultural diversity and literary traditions.

This publication profiles many of the prominent Latin Americans who have used London as their base since 1810. In addition to well-known figures, such as Francisco Miranda and Simn Bolvar, there are portraits of 19th-century financiers, 20th-century exiles and famous contemporaries. Each profile emphasises as far as possible the impact of London on the lives of the visitors, while the introduction analyses the historical background and bilateral relationship that has unfolded between Britain and Latin America in the last two centuries.