Seeing politics otherwise : vision in Latin American and Iberian fiction / / Patrícia Vieira

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910462551803321
• Autore: Vieira Patricia I. <1977->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Toronto, [Canada] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2011; ©2011
• ISBN: 1-4426-9528-5
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (209 p.)
• Collana: University of Toronto Romance
• Disciplina: 869.3/4209358
• Soggetti: Latin American fiction - 20th century - History and criticism; Portuguese fiction - 20th century - History and criticism; Blindness in literature; Latin American literature - Political aspects; Political violence in motion pictures; Blindness in motion pictures; Vision in literature; Vision in motion pictures; Motion pictures - Political aspects - Latin America; Art - Political aspects - Latin America; Portuguese literature - Political aspects; Political violence in literature; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Shadows of Vision -- 1. At the Blink of an Eye: Vision, Ethics, and Politics -- 2. Darkness and the Animal in Graciliano Ramos's Memórias do Cárcere (Memoirs of Prison) -- 3. Twists of the Blindfold in Art, Fiction, and Film -- 4. The Reason of Vision: Variations on Subjectivity in José Saramago's Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (Blindness) -- Conclusion Readings in the Dark: Shades of Criticism -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: When confronting twentieth-century political oppression and violence, writers and artists in Portugal and South America have often emphasized the complex relationship between freedom and tyranny. In Seeing Politics Otherwise, Patricia Vieira uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore the interrelation of politics and representations of vision and blindness in Latin American and Iberian literature, film, and art.Vieira's discussion focuses on three literary works: Graciliano Ramos's Memoirs of Prison, Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, and José Saramago's Blindness, with supplemental analyses of sculpture and film by Ana Maria Pacheco, Bruno Barreto, and Marco Bechis. These artists use metaphors of blindness to denounce the totalizing gaze of dictatorial regimes. Rather than equating blindness with deprivation, Vieira argues that shadows, blindfolds, and blindness are necessary elements for re-imagining the political world and re-acquiring a political voice. Seeing Politics Otherwise offers a compelling analysis of vision and its forcible deprivation in the context of art and political protest.