Embodying Argentina

In 2001 Argentina faced its most serious economic crisis in years. At this turbulent time in Argentina’s history, the question “What is argentinidad?” is more important than ever. The symbols of Argentina’s national culture that are now revered came about during another time of economic and political unrest in the second half of the nineteenth century and were captured by writers who understood authorship as a political matter.
This book examines Argentine literary narratives from 1850 to 1880, including Amalia (1851) by José Mármol, Recuerdos de provincia (1850) by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Una excursión a los indios ranqueles (1870) by Lucio V. Mansilla and Martín Fierro (1872, 1879) by José Hernández, and the changing relationship between ideas of citizenship, the body, and national space. The author argues that in each of the literary narratives she discusses, the ideas embodied by the emblematic citizen are articulated clearly in scenes in which the relationship between the gendered body and concepts of nation-space—the spaces, lands or territories where struggles over national identity are represented—comes into play. The work of Rosa Guerra and Eduarda Mansilla de García, who do not have canonical status but were widely read in their time and dealt with the colonial-era myth of the “first” white women held captive by native Argentines, is also explored.

Nancy Hanway is an associate professor of Latin American literature and culture at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota.

Nancy Hanway
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 192
Bibliographic Info: photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2003
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1457-4
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8245-0
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments     v

Introduction     1

1 The Body in the Museum:

Amalia and Pueyrredón     19

2 The Degraded Mother:

Recuerdos de provincia and El médico de San Luis     51

3 Valuable White Property:

Two Versions of the Myth of Lucía Miranda      85

4 Men Around the Campfire, Women in the Stars:

Una excursión a los indios ranqueles and “El ramito de romero”     123

5 The Injured Body

Martín Fierro and the Public Hygiene Movement     149

Bibliography     173

Index     181

“a fascinating account…recommended”—Choice.