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Article: Struggle against determinism: a conversation with Carlos Monsivais.
- Article from:
- Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine
- Article date:
- October 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Parachute Contemporary Art. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The work of Carlos Monsivais epitomizes post-modern writing in Latin America. Books like Dias de Guardar (1970), Amor perdido (1977), Los Rituales del caos (1995) and Aires de familia (2000) marked him as the leading chronicler of Mexico's social upheavals, subcultural waves, literary fashions, TV and film myths and political mores over the last four decades. In Monsivais's texts Roland Barthes and Bertolt Brecht meet Cantinflas, and the Beats, Warhol and McLuhan frame his readings of Bolero songs and the 1968 Mexican student movement. One could say he's either the least academic practitioner of cultural studies or the most intellectually sophisticated leftist critic in ...