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WORK TITLE: Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America
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http://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=ae817ce31bcaa3db090dfd2f3e9c73d65a77807f * http://www.bucknell.edu/script/upress/book.asp?f=s&id=3284
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1978.
EDUCATION:Macalester College, B.A.; University of Cambridge, M.Phil.; Stanford University, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Scholar, historian, educator, and writer. Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, assistant professor of Latin American literature and culture.
AWARDS:Recipient of grants and scholarships.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Comparative Media Studies in Latin America, Hispanic Review, Journal of Latin American and Iberian Studies, Journal of Screenwriting, and Revista de Estudios Hispánicos.
SIDELIGHTS
Jeronimo Arellano is a scholar whose interests include twentieth- and twenty-first century Latin American literature and culture, Colonial Latin American studies, and comparative media. His research revolves around two main areas. the first is the exploration of affect and emotion as guiding concepts for literary history. The second revolves around the remapping of literary studies in relation to media studies and comparative media. In his first book Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America, Arrelano focuses on magical realist fiction in Latin America, primarily in relation to historical shifts in the function and value of forms of emotional experience, particularly pertaining to wonder and enchantment. In the process, he reevaluates the rise and fall of this literary genre in Latin America. Writing in the introduction to Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America, Arellano notes: “This book grows out of an exploration of the affective and emotional dimensions of magical realism, a narrative form whose defined forms of sentimentality have generally escaped critical scrutiny despite being frequently noted.”
Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America is broken up into sections. The first section, “Wonder in the Colonial Heart,” chronicles the first manifestations of wonder in the New World. In the process Arellano compares the relationship between the wonder discourse associated with the New World Chronicles and the Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, which arose in the hid-sixteenth-century Europe. These Wunderkammerns basically served as repositories for a wide variety of wondrous an exotic objects and represented an interception of science and superstition. In Arellano’s estimation, the Wunderkammer was part of the same need to establish a public emotion concerning the colonial world and, in the process, take in the wonderment associated with the new world.
The second part of Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America, titled “The Afterlife of Feelings,” focuses on a reinterpretation of magical realism texts. Arellano primarily examines three works. The first is the Cuban novelist and essayist Alejo Carpentier’s essay “lo real maravilloso Americano,” which translates into “the marvelous American reality” and was first published in 1949. The second work is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic magical realism novel Cien anos de soledad, better known in North America as One Hundred Years of Solitude. The third work discussed by Arellano is the novel El Mago, which means “the magician,” by Cesar Aira.
Throughout Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America, Arellano examines magical realist narratives in terms of reimagining the public and collective forms of feeling. He is interest in these feelings especially as they pertain the colonial history of wonder following the first voyages to the New World. In addressing this reconceptualization of magical realism, Arellano makes his case that a new reading is needed of the fall of magical realism in contemporary Latin American literature. According to Arellano, magical realism is much more than an effort to recapture the first colonial wonderment and the intimate aspects of magical realism. He presents his case that magical realism often contains a politically charged narrative as well that involves Latin American writers reflecting on their colonial past.
Arellano also studies the changing opinion on magical realism is symptomatic of an evolution of feelings. As noted by a contributor to the Forum for Modern Language Studies, according to Arellano the turning point in the popularity of magical realism is related to “an evolution of the dissemination of feelings more broadly.” The Forum for Modern Language Studies contributor also noted: “This study sheds a novel light on an already extensively researched topic.” I. Portaro, writing in Choice, called Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America “an excellent scholarly contribution that does not limit itself to regional contexts and instead traces transcultural and transnational connections.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Arellano, Geronimo, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America, Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg, PA), copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Group, Inc. (Langham, MD), 2015.
PERIODICALS
Choice, April, 2016, I. Portaro, review of Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America, p. 1172.
Forum for Modern Language Studies, April, 2016, review of Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America.
ONLINE
Brandeis University Web site, http://www.brandeis.edu/ (March 14, 2017), author faculty profile.*
LC control no.: n 2015012908
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Arellano, Jeronimo, 1978-
Birth date: 19781003
Found in: Magical realism and the history of the emotions in Latin
America, 2015: CIP t.p. (Jeronimo Arellano) data view
("birth date: 10/3/1978")
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
Jerónimo Arellano
Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture
Jerónimo Arellano
jarellan@brandeis.edu
781-736-3231
Shiffman Humanities Center, 113
Departments/Programs
English
Latin American and Latino Studies
Romance Studies
Degrees
Stanford University, Ph.D.
University of Cambridge, M.Phil.
Macalester College, B.A.
Expertise
20th- & 21st-Century Latin American Literature and Culture; Colonial Latin American Studies; Comparative Media
Profile
My research clusters around two main lines: the exploration of affect and emotion as guiding concepts for literary history, and the remapping of literary studies in relation to media studies and comparative media. My first book, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America (Bucknell University Press, 2015), rethinks the genealogy, emergence, and current eclipse of magical realist fiction in Latin America in light of historical shifts in the function and value of forms of emotional experience, particularly wonder and enchantment. A special issue I edited for Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, "Comparative Media Studies in Latin America" (2016), focuses on approaches to intermediality, transmediality, and transitional media in Latin Americanist critical thought.
Current work in progress includes a book manuscript on screenplay forms and screenwriting practices emerging at the intersection of multiple media in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century, and a study of colonial affect and affective creativity in the Americas across historical periods.
Courses Taught
COMH 201b Comparative Humanities Graduate Seminar
COML 164b Reading Screenplays
HISP 111b Introduction to Latin American Literature and Culture
HISP 167b Twice-Told Tales: Colonial Encounters and Postcolonial Fiction in the Americas
HISP 175b Contemporary Latin American Fiction
HISP 182a Narratives of the Drug Wars in Latin America
HISP 198a Experiential Research Seminar in Literary and Cultural Studies
Awards and Honors
Mandel Center for the Humanities Faculty Grant (2016)
Newhouse Center for the Humanities Fellowship, Wellesley College (2016 - 2017)
Gates Scholarship, University of Cambridge, U.K. (2005)
Scholarship
Arellano, Jerónimo. ""An Unsentimental Education: Affective Creativity in Contemporary Latin American Fiction"." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (2017). (forthcoming)
Arellano, Jerónimo, ed. Comparative Media Studies in Latin America (edited special issue). Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 50.2 2016.
Arellano, Jerónimo. "Gabriel García Márquez's Scriptwriting Workshop: Screenwriting Pedagogy and Collective Screenwriting in Latin America." Journal of Screenwriting 7. 2 (2016): 191-205.
Arellano, Jerónimo. "Introduction: Comparative Media Studies in Latin America." Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 50. 2 (2016): 281-291.
Arellano, Jerónimo. "The Screenplay in the Archive: Screenwriting, New Cinemas, and the Latin American "Boom"." Revista Hispánica Moderna 69. 2 (2016): 113-132.
Arellano, Jerónimo. Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2015.
Arellano, Jerónimo. "Writing on the Desert: Latin American Narrative and the Materiality of Media Forms." Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 46. 3 (2012): 405-425.
Arellano, Jerónimo. "From the Space of the Wunderkammer to Macondo’s Wonder Rooms. The Collection of Marvels in Cien años de soledad." Hispanic Review 78. 3 (2010): 369-386..
Arellano, Jerónimo. "Minor Affects and New Realisms in Latin America." Journal of Latin American and Iberian Studies 16. 2/3 (2010): 91-106.
Arellano, Jeronimo. Magical realism and the history of the emotions in Latin America
I. Portaro
53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1172.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Arellano, Jeronimo. Magical realism and the history of the emotions in Latin America. Bucknell, 2015. 211 p bibl Index afp ISBN 9781611486698 cloth, $80.00; ISBN 9781611486704 ebook, contact publisher for price
53-3421
PQ7082
2015-4511 CIP
In this seminal work Arellano (Brandeis) reevaluates the history and transmission of wonder in Latin American literature. His treatment is chronological: he starts with early chronicles of the New World, which he classifies as the first manifestations of wonder, and concludes with the relevance of wonder in contemporary magical realist narratives. Throughout the book, Arellano provides alternative readings of canonical texts, looking at them through the lens of affectivity and emotion, and he examines the cultural history of wonder and the practice of collecting, which he connects to the 16th-century Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities). Challenging the notion that postcolonial magical realist writers simply reproduce the discourse and motifs of colonial chronicles, the author demonstrates how texts dialogue with one another through time and space, reconceptualizing the motif of what he calls "the marvelous-as-ordinary." Through this exploration, Arellano delves into the discrepancies surrounding the definition, analysis, and evolution of magical realism in the literary history of Latin America. Overall, this is an excellent scholarly contribution that does not limit itself to regional contexts and instead traces transcultural and transnational connections in the study and reevaluation of the Latin American chronicle and magical realist narratives. Summing Up: **** Essential. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.--I. Portaro, Southern Utah University
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Portaro, I. "Arellano, Jeronimo. Magical realism and the history of the emotions in Latin America." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1172. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661552&it=r&asid=fc14db0dbd121d816c2fa43a31db3d5f. Accessed 22 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449661552
Arellano, Jerónimo. Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America.
Jerónimo Arellano. Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America . Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2015. 244 pp. $80.00. ISBN 978–1–61148–669–8
Forum Mod Lang Stud (2016) 52 (2): 234. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqw010
Published: 04 April 2016
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In Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America Jerónimo Arellano aims to explore the affective dimension of magical realism by reassessing its ties with the so-called New World Chronicles. Reflecting on the successful surge of magical realism and its subsequent decline, this study challenges the view that magical realism is a mere reproduction of the first colonial wonder. Arellano first calls for a reassessment of our perception of the colonial wonder, in the light of affective studies. He argues that wonder, alongside other emotions, does not only belong to the realm of the intimate, but can also be a politically-charged public construct. However, Arellano claims that viewing magical realism as a symptom of self-inflicted neo-colonial orientalism is a simplification which does not take into account the historical differences between colonial and postcolonial affective experiences. On the contrary, he makes a case for considering those twentieth-century magical realistic discourses as challenging deviations from the traditional discourse of coloniality, and as a way for Latin American artists to reflect on their colonial past. In addition, continuing along the lines of the collective affect, Arellano studies the changing opinion on magical realism as symptomatic of an evolution of the dissemination of feelings more broadly.
In the first part of the book, Arellano draws a parallel between the wonder discourse of the New World Chronicles and the exotic material culture of the Wunderkammer, which he sees as parts of the same impulse to manage and construct a public emotion toward the colonial encounter, and to appropriate the novelty and wonderfulness of the new world. In the second part, drawing from Alejo Carpentier’s De lo real maravilloso, Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad and César Airas’s El mago, Arellano examines how and to what effects the colonial wonder is re-appropriated in twentieth-century magical realist narratives. This study sheds a novel light on an already extensively researched topic. The argument is daring, subtle and remains engaging throughout the book.