Ciencias naturales, aislamiento y especulación en Cartas de Amambay y otros textos sobre el Paraguay de Lucio Mansilla

Authors

  • Miguel Rosas Buendia Georgia Institute of Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18192/rceh.v44i3.6374

Abstract

This essay studies Cartas de Amambay (1878) and other pieces by Lucio Mansilla on Paraguay, where he unsuccessfully conducted gold exploration after the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), in order to elucidate the encounter between literature and natural sciences. Although a follower of the Alliance’s ideology, Mansilla elaborates a defense of literary autonomy regarding its capacity for the representation of and knowledge about the territory where he traveled. This defense has a dark side: its constitution and legitimization were based on the suppression of local heterogeneity, a process that could be regarded as equivalent to the subduing effects of multiple late nineteenth-century natural sciences on local knowledge and its agents.

Published

2022-06-04

Issue

Section

Articles