For most of the 20th century, Latin American literature and art have contested political and cultural projects of homogenization of a manifestly diverse continent. Cultural Antagonism and the Crisis of Reality in Twentieth-Century Latin America explores literary and humanist experimentations and questions of gender, race, and ethnicity as well as the contradictions of capitalist development that belie such homogenization by reconfiguring the sense of the real in Latin America. Covering four key geographical areas, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and the Andes, every chapter delves into a question that has been central to the humanities in the last 20 years: Indigenous world-views, gender, race, neo-liberalism and visual culture. Legras illuminates these issues with a thorough consideration of the theoretical questions inherent to how new identities disrupt the imaginary stability of social formations.

In the twenty years of postrevolutionary rule in Mexico, the war remained fresh in the minds of those who participated in it, while the enigmas of the revolution remained obscured. Demonstrating how textuality helped to define the revolution, Culture and Revolution examines dozens of seemingly ahistorical artifacts to reveal the radical social shifts that emerged in the war's aftermath. Presented thematically, this expansive work explores radical changes that resulted from postrevolution culture, including new internal migrations; a collective imagining of the future; popular biographical narratives, such as that of the life of Frida Kahlo; and attempts to create a national history that united indigenous and creole elite society through literature and architecture. While cultural production in early twentieth-century Mexico has been well researched, a survey of the common roles and shared tasks within the various forms of expression has, until now, been unavailable. Examining a vast array of productions, including popular festivities, urban events, life stories, photographs, murals, literature, and scientific discourse (including fields as diverse as anthropology and philology), Horacio Legras shows how these expressions absorbed the idiosyncratic traits of the revolutionary movement. Tracing the formation of modern Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s, Legras also demonstrates that the proliferation of artifacts-extending from poetry and film production to labor organization and political apparatuses-gave unprecedented visibility to previously marginalized populations, who ensured that no revolutionary faction would unilaterally shape Mexico's historical process during these formative years.

In the twenty years of postrevolutionary rule in Mexico, the war remained fresh in the minds of those who participated in it, while the enigmas of the revolution remained obscured. Demonstrating how textuality helped to define the revolution, Culture and Revolution examines dozens of seemingly ahistorical artifacts to reveal the radical social shifts that emerged in the war's aftermath. Presented thematically, this expansive work explores radical changes that resulted from postrevolution culture, including new internal migrations; a collective imagining of the future; popular biographical narratives, such as that of the life of Frida Kahlo; and attempts to create a national history that united indigenous and creole elite society through literature and architecture. While cultural production in early twentieth-century Mexico has been well researched, a survey of the common roles and shared tasks within the various forms of expression has, until now, been unavailable. Examining a vast array of productions, including popular festivities, urban events, life stories, photographs, murals, literature, and scientific discourse (including fields as diverse as anthropology and philology), Horacio Legras shows how these expressions absorbed the idiosyncratic traits of the revolutionary movement. Tracing the formation of modern Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s, Legras also demonstrates that the proliferation of artifacts-extending from poetry and film production to labor organization and political apparatuses-gave unprecedented visibility to previously marginalized populations, who ensured that no revolutionary faction would unilaterally shape Mexico's historical process during these formative years.

Through theoretical, philosophical, cultural, political, and historical analysis, Horacio Legras views the myriad factors that have both formed and stifled the integration of peripheral experiences into Latin American literature. Despite these barriers, Legras reveals a handful of contemporary authors who have attempted in earnest to present marginalized voices to the Western world. Legras' deep and insightful analysis of key works by novelists Juan Jose Saer (""The Witness""), Nellie Campobello (""Cartucho""), Roa Bastos (""Son of Man""), and Jose Maria Arguedas (""The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below""), among others, provides a theoretical basis for understanding the plight of the author, the peripheral voice, and the confines of the literary medium. What emerges is an intricate discussion of the clash and subjugation of cultures and the tragedy of a lost worldview.