Hydrocriticism and Colonialism in Latin America is organized around the critical and theoretical “turn” known as hydro-criticism, an innovative approach to the study of the ways in which bodies of water (oceans, seas, rivers, archipelagos, lakes, etc.) impact the study of history, culture, and society. This volume proposes a hydro-critical approach to issues related to the colonial period. The analysed texts demonstrate not only the presence of water and oceanic trajectories as metaphorical devices, but the inherent implication of navigation, ports, islandic territories, drainage systems, floodings and the like in configuration of collective imaginaries, from colonial times to the present. This book encompasses studies of the decisive role water played in the world view from/about the “New World” since the discovery, both for the monarchy and the church, and the impact of oceanic journeys for the advancement of colonization and slavery. In chapters that combine historical, linguistic, literary and ethnographic approaches, this volume constitutes an attempt to expand the scope and methodology of colonial studies. At the same time, the continuity of maritime perspectives reaches the analysis of contemporary literature, thus demonstrating the importance of this critical paradigm for the study of Caribbean cultures. In this respect, studies particularly illuminate the connection between popular beliefs and oceanic dimensions, as well as on issues of gender and ethnicity.
Author(s): Mabel Moraña
Series: Maritime Literature and Culture
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 201
City: Cham
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction: Texts, Textures, and Water Marks
I
II
III
IV
V
Works Cited
Chapter 2: The Pacific Ocean as a Space of Freedom, Danger, and Economic Success for the Colonial Project in Verdadera descripción de la Provincia y Tierra de Las Esmeraldas
Searching for a Route to the Pacific Ocean: A Political Mission in the Trappings of Evangelization
Danger of Contamination
Mystical Waters: Cabello Balboa’s Encounter with Native Communities
Works Cited
Chapter 3: English and Irish Missionaries in New Spain: A Hydrocolonial Reading of Religion and Empire
Works Cited
Chapter 4: On Paper Ships, Sailors, and Cosmographers: Spanish Maritime Narratives and Political Networks of an Imperial Project
Political Actors: Infantado, Galve, and Los Vélez
Political Agendas and Court Writers
The Rise of Sigüenza y Góngora
Seyxas y Lovera, from Court to Jail
From Sailor to Courtier Writer: Seyxas and the Marquis of Los Vélez
From the Court to Prison: Seyxas and the Count of Galve
Conclusion
Works Cited
Chapter 5: Imagining a Multi-Modal Digital Corpus of Early Modern Maritime Texts
Introduction
Oceanic Studies, Maritime Textuality, “Hydro-Imaginaries,” and Digital Methodologies
A Typology of Corpus Tools
Discourse and Data
Discovery and Context
Texts, Not Voyages
Conclusion
Digital Projects Mentioned in This Chapter
Works Cited
Chapter 6: Alonso Ramírez’s Circumnavigation of the World (1675–1689) and the Universal Claim to the American Spirit in the Open Seas
Drifting into Americanness
The European (English) Cannibal
Foretelling the End to Empire
Pirates Tell the Tallest Stories
The Peoples of the Seas and Their Compact of Silence
Running with the Wind
Liberty as the Pirate’s Loot
Selected Bibliography
Chapter 7: Pantitlán or Desagüe: Technology and Secularization in Colonial Mexico City
I
II
III
IV
Works Cited
Chapter 8: “Water, Only Water on All Parts”: Re/imagining the Middle Passage in Teresa Cárdenas’ Mãe Sereia
References
Index
