University of Missouri | skip navigation | University of Missouri |
 |
French Italian Portuguese Spanish |
|
|
Erick Blandón |
||
<< back to Faculty PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 2001 Dr. Blandon is a poet, scholar and creative writer. As a poet he has published three books that have been compiled in one volume: Las maltratadas palabras (Editorial Vanguardia, 1990) His general field of research is Latin American Literature (Modernismo y Vanguardia). He specializes in Central American literature and cultural artifacts under the scope of Cultural Studies. Since the publication of his book of short stories, Misterios gozosos (Editorial Vanguardia, 1994) he has maintained a continual interest in the disjunction between hegemonic discourse and the cultural practices of subaltern groups in Central America. His novel Vuelo de cuervos (Centro Nicaragüense de Escritores, 1997) recreates the culmination of the encounter between the Sandinista revolutionary project and the racially and ethnically diverse cultures of the Caribbean coast. The Sandinista project was a modernizing one which, in its zeal for social and economic equality, ignored the cultural differences of the Central-North Regions and the Caribbean coast, particularly those of the Miskito Indians. Blandón reinterprets this encounter using carnivalesque and grotesque codes, thus achieving a portrait of high dramatic tension, throbbing with the undercurrent of war. In his work, the author challenges the extant political, economic, and military interpretations that have been used to explain the failure of the Sandinista Revolution and proposes that the causes of failure can be located in the misunderstanding and erasure of differences. For example in his book, Barroco descalzo: Colonialidad, sexualidad, género y raza en la construcción de la hegemonía cultural en Nicaragua (Managua, URACCAN, 2003) explores issues of race, ethnicity, gender and otherness in connection with power and hegemony. It examines the process of coloniality on Amerindian knowledge in Central America, and argues that the views held by the conquerors on gender, sexuality and race has largely remained entrenched, even during the Sandinista Revolution. Such epistemology is the base of the canonic discourse that has pervaded the lettered culture since the Colonial period through the present day. He analyzes the State’s baroque, in relation to the celebrations held for Carlos IV’s ascension to the throne in 1793, and more importantly, coloniality in the construction of the discourse of hegemonic culture. The core of the book is a detailed study of El Güegüense o Macho Ratón – a Meso-American piece of street theater from the Colonial period that serves as an example of the popular baroque. While the play’s protagonist, el Güegüense, was held up as a symbol of Nicaraguan identity by members of the “Movimiento de Vanguardia” and the lettered elite, he argues that a heterogenic formation, such as the Nicaraguan one, is not adequately represented by the construction of such a fixed and hegemonic identity. On the other hand, Dr. Blandon studies El Toroveando, a popular festival, as a performative space that allows for representations of subaltern cultures, not just in terms of ethnicity, but also in terms of anomalous sexualities. He concludes the book with an analysis of the displacement of the heroic figure of Augusto C. Sandino by the picaresque represented in El Güegüense, as an allegory for the post revolutionary and neo-liberal era. This critical approach to Nicaraguan culture has opened a new line of theoretical inquiry in the study of the cultura letrada and popular classes, questioning canonical interpretations that privilege mestizaje and ignore the presence of other ethnicities in the process of nation formation. Currently, Dr. Blandón is researching the critical reception of Rubén Darío in Central America. Specifically, he examines the process of the canonization of Rubén Darío as a symbol of Catholic culture in Nicaragua, in spite of the poet’s contradictory and ambiguous religious conceptions. Dr. Blandón teaches a variety of classes, including a seminar on Hispanic American modernismo from a transatlantic perspective, an introductory class on Hispanic Literatures, and courses focusing on dictatorship and Literature in the Hispanic World, as well as 20th Century Revolutions and Literature in Latin America. El Güegüense: |
Contact: |
|
|
copyright © 2004 Curators of the University of Missouri last update: 13-November-2009 Department of Romance Languages & Literatures . College of Arts & Science . University of Missouri
Contact the webmaster: haessigd@missouri.edu |
|