Anti‐Communism,Communism, and Anti‐Interventionism in Narratives Surrounding the Student Massacre on Tlatelolco Square (Mexico, 1968)

Shortly before the Mexico Olympics, on 2 October 1968, student demonstrators were shot by the military on Tlatelolco Square in Mexico City, thus ending the local student movement and its mass protests. This paper explores the government's use of anti‐communism to ideologically justify this massacre in the context of the Cold War. The student movement was presented as a foreign, communist intervention that threatened Mexico's sovereignty. The paper analyses the weaknesses and contradictions of this official narrative by contrasting public and confidential reports. Finally, the marginal role of communism in the movement and its internal divisions are also outlined.     

Models of Discourse and Hermeneutics in Octavio Paz's El Laberinto de la Soledad

This article explores how certain presuppositions govern our interpretations of this canonical text by Octavio Paz. I trace its biographical and textual origins, the book's peculiar reception, some of its multiple intellectual sources, and the problem of genre and how these hermeneutic discourses and epistemological tools interact. Structure (the relationship between psychology and history), rhetorical strategies and central symbols and metaphors that give the book its unity and complexity are also discussed. I conclude that we can read this hybrid work simultaneously as essay, narrative text, autobiography and modern epic myth: it is both an analytic or ironic deconstruction and an imaginative, symbolic construction of individual and collective identity.     

“Like photographs of ghosts”: representing post-apartheid South Africa in Ivan Vladislavić’s Double Negative

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) heard its first testimony in April of 1996. Two years later, in 1998, the first volume of the report of the commission was published. While it aims to be a document representing closure in terms of the history of apartheid, the TRC report is rife with gaps and omissions across the long history of apartheid. Approaching this history and its legacy in literary prose, Ivan Vladislavi?’s Double Negative (2010) serves as a counter-history to the TRC’s narrative of closure. Extending formal strategies from his earlier works, including composite literary form and performative modes of writing, Vladislavi? employs photography and ghosts within his text to unsettle official history and to offer a melancholic approach to the past of apartheid and its ongoing effects in post-apartheid South Africa.     

Power tug of war: hegemonic and posthegemonic text control in Gustavo Sainz's Obsesivos días circulares (1969)

This article examines the novel Obsesivos días circulares (1969) by Gustavo Sainz from the point of view of the narrator's and characters' attempts to control the text. It analyses the distribution of influence on the text between the first-person narrator (Terencio) and one of the key characters (Leticia), and the changing locus of text control in the narrative line that includes Leticia. First, I examine Terencio's letters to Leticia and determine whether the text construct Leticia is created and manipulated through them. Secondly, I concentrate upon a section of Chapter 3 which appears to be a non-sequitur in the context of the narrative as a whole; it contains a vignette of a party where an apparently enigmatic exchange takes place between Terencio and Leticia. Finally, the article will address the changes in the narrator's character as a result of this encounter and the subsequent shift and split of the locus of text control between the narrator and one of the characters. Since the article explores various means of the distribution of text control, the theoretical foundation used here will include hegemonic masculinity and the relationship between hegemony and posthegemony in the context of text control.     

The Echo of Tlatelolco in Contemporary Mexican Protest Poetry

The shooting of a student demonstration in La Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco district of Mexico City on 2 October 1968 has been the subject of many literary works, among which the Tlatelolco poetry addresses not only the event itself but also the aftermath of the massacre. Both approaches examine the relationship between the 'yo'/'nosotros' and 'ellos' constructs, focusing on the 'nosotros' construct as the result of this interaction. The following analysis of this process is based on the theory of self and Other, especially René Girard's theory of the mimetics of violence and the process of scapegoating as a basis for the relationship between the individual and society within the context of a violent conflict.     

“Industrial Defence Against the Whole World”: Deakinite New Protection as Narrative of Global Modernity

As it evolved towards the New Protection program from 1906, Deakinite protectionism manifested as a historicised narrative of modernity: an attempt to impose a rationale of nation-building over the heterogeneous and unstable impact of new economic relations and technologies, and the tense dynamics of competition between nations. History was invoked by actors fashioning the nation-building task in post Federation Australia as they claimed to make decisive breaks with past practice, reflected in innovative government strategies and social reforms. The anxieties and opportunities stimulated by global industrial modernity defined New Protection policy, evident in the formation of political narrative and parliamentary legislation, and government intervention in the conduct of business enterprise and industrial relations. The objectives and contradictions of New Protection were clarified in the political narratives and policy interventions constructed to secure the future of the Sunshine Harvester enterprise and its workforce.     

Official Language Policies in Multilingual Societies: Evidence from the United States,South Africa,and Canada

This paper explores the resonance between Coetzee’s first novel Dusklands and McCarthy’s fifth novel Blood Meridian through a discussion of how scenes of violence are represented and rationalised in these two texts. Where Coetzee is impatient of realism and preoccupied with history as a discourse, McCarthy’s narrative seems photorealistic in its evocation of the real, but this effect is destabilised by stylised formal features and the trickster figure of Judge Holden. It is shown that in Coetzee’s egocentric protagonists the desire for detached power over others is expressed in the fantasy of an unchallenged gaze that conveys a broader anxiety about authorship and the writing of history, while in McCarthy’s text the narrator’s contextualisation of the characters’ violence against a harsh and indifferent desert environment limits psychological insight and underscores the impernanence of any historical record. Holden and Jacobus Coetzee, finally, are shown to be akin in enabling the metafictional reflections of these two novels.     

Inmigrantes laborales y flujo en tránsito en la Frontera Sur de México: dos manifestaciones del proceso y una política migratoria

This text presents a characterization of Guatemalan labor immigration into Mexico, its historical perspective and processes of change in relation to new places of destination, crossings and labor insertions. It also sets out the most fundamental traits of migrants who cross Mexican territory when in transit from Central America, new crossing trajectories and social costs in terms of human rights, within a framework of greater social vulnerability. It analyzes the role that the Mexican state has played in relation to the establishment of a new migration policy set forth in the last two administrations (2001–2012) by the Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party), institutional and legislative arrandos gements, progress and unresolved matters with respect to the proclamation of human and labor rights. It is concluded that even though unprecedented progress has been made in terms of immigration regulations, these policies still have serious shortcomings with regards to Central American immigration into Mexico, be it labor immigration or migrants in transit. This migration has taken on new forms and has registered qualitative and quantitative changes in crossing, in an environment of greater risk in Mexican territory.     

Negotiating Difference Across Time: The Temporal Meanings of the Sydney Mardi Gras in Lesbian and Gay Life Narratives

This paper examines the temporal meanings of the annual LGBTI pride event, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Drawing on findings from a large-scale oral history project, the paper explores ways in which Australian lesbians and gay men place Mardi Gras within life narratives. Three temporal frameworks were commonly used by our interviewees. First, Mardi Gras acted as an annual temporal marker through which to plan a year. Second, changing personal understandings of Mardi Gras were used by interviewees to position themselves within the life course. Third, the shifting meanings of Mardi Gras were deployed as a means of narrating broader historical changes in the LGBTI community. We argue that, although lesbian and gay identities might now be considered increasingly mainstream and even “ordinary”, each of these temporal frameworks represents the continued differing experiences of time and space between homosexual and heterosexual lives.     

《红楼梦》与《源氏物语》三类线性时间叙写

线性时间叙事是中日古典文学叙事基本特征,文本撰作的线性时间可分为朝代纪年、世代时间、人物年纪,三者指向明确且不可回溯。《源氏物语》原文古典当中并没有明确标明这三类时间标识,《红楼梦》更是有意识地模糊、弱化、消除这三类时间标识,开篇采用倒叙,篇中多次打乱时间流变次序。但,三类时间标识的的确确涵括于两书文本,不加细辨,难以识别。本论通过文本细读与反复举证,明确两文本当中三类时间标识,勘校过往两书研究当中的相关舛误,并将这三类时间标识的叙写技巧进行逐类比较。     

The New Federalism in Mexico and Foreign Economic Policy: An Alternative Two-Level Game Analysis of the Metalclad Case

This article examines, through a two-level game model, the case of the first investment dispute under NAFTA between a private U.S. firm and the Mexican government. It argues that the clue to understanding why the Mexican president could not cooperate with the U.S. president lies in Mexico's domestic "ratification" process. The analysis yields two theoretical propositions. First, federalism represents an important variable in explaining foreign economic policy. Second, two-level game logic should not be applied only to formal international negotiation situations; instead, by specifying the dependent variable as cooperation or noncooperation, these models connecting domestic and international politics can be productively applied to study foreign economic policy.     

The Battle of Gökdepe in the Turkmen post-Soviet historical discourse

The Battle of Gökdepe (1881) is considered to be a turning point in Turkmenistan's contemporary historiography. It led to the then independent Turkmen (Akhal Tekke in this case) tribes coming under Russian control. Almost immediately after the event the battle became a controversial point of interpretation starting from Turkmen sources (rarely known to us), an immense number of Russian (mostly military) sources, up to the Soviet historians. The post-Soviet official Turkmen historiography of the event came from these foundations, but used its own mythological approach. As a result, the contemporary narrative of the Gökdepe defeat turned into a victory for the Akhal Tekke (and broadly Turkmen) nation. Additionally, this paper argues that the first and partly the second presidents of Turkmenistan incorporated the battle into their own personality cults, a fact which is still specific to the Central Asian context, albeit not unique in world history. In particular, the first president usurped the myth and connected it with his own historical narrative. The second president continues this in the frames of the already settled political culture in the country, adapting the Gökdepe myth to create his own ideological story. Therefore, the appropriation of the historical event in Turkmenistan represents a specific (albeit not unique) case of this kind and shows the way of thinking about the leader in current Turkmenistan.     

Ana Clavel’s “outlaw” desires in Las ninfas a veces sonríen

As a writer whose fiction is known for its transgressive themes and forms, it is no surprise that the Mexican author Ana Clavel has continued to revel in such contraventions in her novella Las ninfas a veces sonríen (2012). In this article I seek to examine how these, also new transgressions, materialize in the novella specifically within a queer framework. The queer showcases Las ninfas’ exploration of “outlaw” sexual desires as well as the fantastical and intertextual genre-bending. By defying heteronormative sexual normalcy, Clavel is seen to challenge certain “givens” within (Mexican) society, whether these be religious, moral, sexual, or cultural, and thus creating a fascinating representation of society’s particular fears, anxieties, and disavowed desires. In the context of the female character’s sexual experiences, transgressive queereness can be understood by making reference to various theories including those of Kristeva’s abjection/uncanny and Creed’s/Braidotti’s monstrous feminine, whereby the female is positioned in terms of an ambiguous oscillation between unthreatening object of male desire, monstrosity, and celebratory female sexual agency. Ultimately by thus delving into outlawed “no-deseos”, Las ninfas can be posited as a prime example of a Barthesian text of “jouissance” which disrupts the reader’s pleasurable reading experience.     

Imposing Identity against Social Catastrophes. The Strategies of (Re)Generation of Meaning of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Argentina)

This article explores the processes of definition, construction and social management of collective identity in situations of social catastrophe such as that defined in the Southern Cone of Latin America following the grave human rights violations that occurred in the 1970s, especially those deriving from the forced disappearance of persons. This form of repression creates deep wounds in the social fabric affected and, besides this, produces what could be called a ‘catastrophe’, that is, a permanent confusion of the mechanisms of social construction of meaning and subjectivity within which one lives. In this case, the catastrophe affects several collective goods and, principally, the social bases of modern identity construction. In order to manage these catastrophes, the subjects that inhabit the social spaces formed around them – in this case those who live in the field of the detained–disappeared – develop very different strategies, with the most widespread in the Argentinean case being what I will call the ‘narrative of meaning’. This is a hard and conservative strategy that confronts the catastrophe of identity by employing identity constructions supported on old narratives of the family and biological heritage. This article is dedicated to an analysis of this socially successfully strategy and studies the form it adopts in the work of constructing identity of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.     

Making History: the Australian history curriculum and national identity

History is a key site for the negotiation of national identity, with the ability to define the past shaping the national narrative on who “we” were, who “we” are, and, crucially, who “we” should be. As such, the teaching of history is a site of intense political debate. This paper examines the history module of the Australian Curriculum to understand the extent to which the history curriculum moves beyond Eurocentric, colonial imaginings of Australia's history towards a more inclusive, multi-cultural, globally-oriented, cosmopolitan vision of society. Both the curriculum and teaching resources were examined to ascertain the identities and orientations these materials could provide. The research finds that — despite improvements in presenting a diversity of representations, in particular a positive focus on the rights and contributions of Indigenous peoples in Australia and some orientation to diverse migrant histories, the environment, and Asia — the main thrust of the curriculum is a focus on the nation-state at the expense of global engagement. The funnel structure which deals with broader world history in earlier years, relegates the rest of the world to a temporal and spatial distance, leaving a somewhat myopic narrative that perpetuates traditional, Anglo-centric narratives, maintaining the perspectives of “Others” as peripheral.     

The Student Movement of 1968 and the Mexican Press: The Cases of Excélsior and Siempre!

The Student Movement of 1968 was a watershed in Mexican political history. This article explores how it was reported in the daily newspaper Excélsior and the weekly magazine Siempre! from August to October 1968. It analyses the work of specific journalists to reveal the extent to which criticism of the government was voiced in a climate of apprehension and oppression. In doing so the important role played by Carlos Monsiváis in promoting and sustaining the students' cause, and the commitment to impartial news coverage of editors Julio Scherer García and José Pagés Llergo, become evident.     

A cuarenta años del golpe militar en Chile. Reflexiones en torno a conmemoraciones y memorias

The commemoration of the Fortieth anniversary of the coup d'état in Chile in September 2013 was unexpectedly intense; even so that it forced a critical revision of the last four decades of Chilean history. Like never before in past commemorations, memory was, in many ways, the central theme of the cultural-political debate, which motivated society to make a conscience examination in order to face the individual, as well as the collective, responsibilities around the coup and the dictatorship that emerged from it. This text explores some of the reasons that guided said explosion of memory, marking a crucial turn in recent Chilean history.     

Measuring Skulls: Race and Science in Vicente Riva Palacio's México a través de los siglos

This article discusses the use of the term 'race' as a corpus of racial theories sustained by scientific knowledge of biological human evolution in late nineteenth-century Mexico. It also explores how scientific and political discourses have constructed equivalent notions of race and national subjects, and how racial thought is imbedded in nation-building processes within the context of knowledge and social differentials in Mexico's national history. This is carried out through an examination of the second chapter of the second volume of Mexico a través de los siglos (Mexico Throughout the Centuries), by Mexican historian Vicente Riva Palacio (1832–1896), seen through the perspective of cultural history.     

Forming “affective communities” and narrative forms of affection: Damon Galgut’s Arctic Summer

This article examines Arctic Summer (2014) by Damon Galgut, a biographical novel focused on a period in the life of British author E.M. Forster. My inquiry is concerned with narrative form and aesthetics that limn affiliations between the two authors’ creative and sexual sensibilities and struggles, and how forms of affective affiliations are forged through narration and narrative stylistics. I discuss critical responses to Galgut’s oeuvre and trends in South African literary production post-1994, to introduce ideas about his non-conformist creative impulses. I reflect on hybrid narrative form, generic ambiguities, and aesthetics to consider how affective affiliations are fashioned in Arctic Summer and beyond the boundaries of the text when compared to Galgut’s In a Strange Room (2010). Leela Gandhi’s thoughts on “affective communities” inform my argument that the representation of sexuality and bonds of affection in Arctic Summer enables formal and nonconformist affinities across temporal and spatial registers.