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From the observatory in India: Julio Cortázar´s Kaleidoscopic Gaze

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Lucía Caminada Rossetti

Tenured Professor, Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, Argentina. Email: lucia.caminada@comunidad.unne.edu.ar

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–13. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.10

First published: October 8, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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From the observatory in India: Julio Cortázar´s Kaleidoscopic Gaze

Abstract

This article investigates two texts that the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar produced in relation to his experience and trips to India:  Prose of the observatory (1972) and the text Turismo aconsejable [Advisable tourism] included in Último round (1969). Both texts contain photographs, which generate a kaleidoscopic gaze characterized by cultural distance and closeness, as well as aesthetic experience. The hypothesis is that a kind of observatory is generated from which the writer observes, perceives and interprets the sensitivity of Latin American and Indian cultures in dialogue. The objective of this study is to identify the Cortazarian kaleidoscopic gaze that permanently generates both an approach and a distance, through the reading of these hybrid texts whose photographs and words produce a playful and experimental space.

Keywords: Julio Cortázar, Prose of the Observatory, India, kaleidoscopic gaze, photography

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Raw Materials. Half Creatures and Complete Nature in Shelley’s Frankenstein and Homunculus in Goethe’s Faust II

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Siv Frøydis Berg

Associate professor, Ph.D., National Library of Norway. Email: siv.berg@nb.no

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–8. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.09

First published: October 7, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the General Area)
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Raw Materials. Half Creatures and Complete Nature in Shelley’s Frankenstein and Homunculus in Goethe’s Faust II

Abstract

Why did Mary Shelley’s famous Creature meet its ends in the eternal ice of the Arctic Sea? What made it possible for Goethe’s Homunculus to finally break free in the Classic Walpurgis Night? Both remote places fulfill the destinies of two of the most famous laboratory-made artificial human beings in Western literature, the Creature of Frankenstein, and the “little man”, Homunculus. They are born as half-creatures: Shelley’s Monster as pure body, Homunculus as pure spirit, locked up in a phial. Their lives on earth circle around one purpose: to create themselves as complete human beings, by achieving what they miss: a soul for Shelley’s Creature, a body for Goethe’s Homunculus. This article aims to present a systematic purification and comparison of the creations, lives, and ends of the Monster and Homunculus. My thesis is that each of them literally embodies two opposite and contemporary views of nature, identified in their own time as respectively materialistic and vitalistic positions. By comparing these life spans it is possible to shed light on Shelley’s and Goethe’s literary investment in the debate.

Keywords: Frankenstein, Homunculus, Goethe, Mary Shelley, materialistic and vitalistic, worldview.

Feature image  credit: Andy Mabbett, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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Representation of India in Travel Writings by Latin American Women in the 20th Century

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Mala Shikha1 & Ranjeeva Ranjan2

1Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish Studies, School of Languages, Doon University. Email id: malashikha@doonuniversity.ac.in

2Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education, Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile. Email id: ranjan@ucm.cl

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September-October 2022, Pages 1–8. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.08

First published: October 7, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Representation of India in Travel Writings by Latin American Women in the 20th Century

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of India in the works of Latin American women writers in the 20th Century. With the advent of Modernism in Latin America in the late 19th Century as a turn-of-the-century movement, Latin American intellectuals started engaging with India such as Rubén Darío in Azul (1888). However, it was Gabriela Mistral, a Nobel laureate from Chile, who although never travelled to India, may be considered the first Latin American woman writer who engaged with India through the appreciation of Tagore in her literary repertoire. Furthermore, in the 20th Century Cecília Meireles, one of the most famous Modernist poets from Brazil visited India in 1953 upon being invited by Jawaharlal Nehru. She noted in her diary that as paradoxical as it sounds, it is much easier to understand India if one knows Brazil. She drew similarities between the fundamental issues of the two countries then. She wrote the anthology Poemas Escritos Na Índia (1961). Another important performance artist is Josefina Báez who would combine yoga and her lived experience in the three spaces of New York, La Romana in the Dominican Republic and India to produce zany dance dramas like Dominicanish (2001). She uses the classical dance form of Kuchipudi originating in the south of India to restructure her Dominican cultural identity in New York. Another contemporary Mexican writer, Margo Glantz, wrote her work Coronada de Moscas (2012), which is a travelogue based on her three sojourns in India accompanied with photographs by Alina López Cámara. The paper analyses the works by the above-mentioned Latin American intellectuals vis-à-vis representation of India in them and focuses on what it is to travel to India and write on it for Latin American women in the 20th Century. This has been done using the theoretical perspective of bell hooks (Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 1984) and Mary Louise Pratt (Imperial Eyes, 1992).

Keywords: India, travel writings, Latin America, women, 20th century

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The Idea of the Border in the Digital Age

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Debra A. Castillo1 & Parthasarathi Bhaumik2

1Professor, Cornell University. Email id: dac9@cornell.edu. 2Associate Professor, Jadavpur University, India. Email: parthasarathi.bhaumik@jadavpuruniversity.in

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–16. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.07

First published: September 29, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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The Idea of the Border in the Digital Age

Abstract

Our history of border wars and entrenched positions has given us officially drawn lines, that notwithstanding their obvious irrationality, are so deeply embedded in our psyches that we no longer even register them. At the same time, during the digital age, the rise of different ways of looking at the borders in Mexico and South Asia has explicit and implicit relations to these brutal histories, defining ways we continue to negotiate national and transnational identities and ideological projects.  This contribution looks at theoretical and artistic examples from both continents to ask about the effects of new media on our experiences of our bodies and our sense of human agency.

Keywords: Border, Digital Age, Mexico, South Asia

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India as a Reference in Octavio Paz

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Benjamín Valdivia

University of Guanajuato (Mexico). 

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–8. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.06

First published: September 29, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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India as a Reference in Octavio Paz

Abstract

The Mexican poet, Octavio Paz is a major figure in contemporary literature. An important stage of his writing deals with personal experiences or philosophical and religious traditions from India. In this paper, we focus on a set of principal points and figures in which these influences appear inside his work. The Indian presence is visible not only in his poems of East Slope [Ladera este] but in other works he wrote specifically to clarify his points of view, knowledge, and feelings about this country. Other works in which India is a principal topic are In Light of India [Vislumbres de la India], and The Grammatical Monkey [El mono gramático]. The Double Flame [La llama doble] and some translations also connect with India. Octavio Paz had a particular interest in ancient Mexican culture, searching there for the deepest signification of being a Mexican, as he was. But, on the other side, Paz identifies himself as a citizen of the world, focused on languages, history, myths and arts from several countries or, at least, groups of countries. Ancestral manifestations from various places were particularly meaningful to him because of the links he found between them. In this way, a great amount of his work is based on comparisons and analogies.

Keywords: Octavio Paz, India-Mexico, cosmopolitanism, ancient culture

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Pablo Neruda and Juan Marín’s Diplomatic Trip: Some Prose Works on India

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Lorena P. López Torres1 & Marina Fierro Concha2

1Director, Department of Spanish Language and Literature, Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile.

2Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish Language and Literature, Universidad Católica del Maule, Chile.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.05

First published: September 20, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Pablo Neruda and Juan Marín’s Diplomatic Trip: Some Prose Works on India

Abstract

This paper analyses the representations of Indian culture in Pablo Neruda’s Confieso que he vivido (1974), and Juan Marín’s La India eterna (1956), both based on the Chilean intellectuals’ diplomatic trips to this country; the first one as Chilean consul in Burma (he travelled to India in 1928 and 1950), and the other as a consul in India (from 1949 to 1952). The aim is to study their prose to track the impressions, the imaginary, and the vision of the Oriental world that both writers display in the context of their own Western, particularly Latin-American, idiosyncrasy. Given the theoretical perspectives of Said, Gruzinski, Klengel, Ortiz, Kushigian, Nagy-Zekmi and Pinedo, this article compares the approach of Neuruda and Juan Marín towards the cultural elements of the country, as well as their brands of exploration of the history of India and its religious principles, exoticism, British colonialism, among others. Neruda and Marín tried to demonstrate the high complexity of this culture, as similar or more complex than Western culture.

Keywords: India, chronicles, Juan Marín, orientalism, Pablo Neruda, South-South.

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India in the Memoirs of the 19th-Century Mexican Traveler Ignacio Martínez

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Óscar Figueroa

Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–15. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.04

First published: September 20, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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India in the Memoirs of the 19th-Century Mexican Traveler Ignacio Martínez

Abstract

This is the first study ever on the chapter devoted to India included in the memoirs of the travel around the globe made in the nineteenth century by the Mexican physician and general Ignacio Martínez (1844-1891). Published in two versions, a short one called Viaje universal (1886) and a longer one called Alrededor del mundo (1888?), Martínez’s memoirs are one of the earliest recorded documents of a Mexican traveler in Asia during the independent period. Unlike twentieth-century Mexican intellectual circles, which perceived India as a source of literary, philosophical, and spiritual inspiration, the image displayed in Martínez’s account is framed in the ideals of material progress, rational objectivity, and anticlericalism. As I argue, these values guided Martínez’s recourse to European Orientalist motifs, but also produced a horizontal appreciation of India in light of his Mexican circumstances. This resulted in an ambivalent representation that fluctuates between appraisal of Indian material merits and deep aversion to its religious life.

Keywords: Ignacio Martínez (1844-1891), Viaje universal (1886), Mexican travel literature, India and Mexico, Orientalism.

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Argentine Women’s Contribution to the Knowledge of India in Latin America

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Gustavo Canzobre

Headmaster, Hastinapur Foundation, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–10. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.03

First published: September 20, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Argentine Women’s Contribution to the Knowledge of India in Latin America

Abstract

Argentina has been interested in the Eastern cultures in general, and in India in particular, since the very beginning of the nation. Although often not taken into account, that interest, and its subsequent influence, does not begin in the 20th century but goes back to the first half of the 19th century. Argentine intellectuals were influenced by European Orientalism, but they developed their own approach toward the Eastern world, free from any colonialist influence. The first half of 20th century shows the strong influence of Indian culture in Argentine culture. The contribution of men in this process is well recognized, however, women’s fundamental contribution to spread knowledge of India’s culture in Argentina has not received proper attention nor rightly emphasized. Half a dozen Argentine women, from Victoria Ocampo, born in 1890, to Adelina del Carril, Indra Devi, Myrta Barbie, and Ada Albrecht, still alive, have significantly contributed to understanding India not only in Argentina but also in all Latin America. In the current paper, this aspect will be discussed and an attempt will be made to present a proper trajectory of Argentine women’s contribution to the dissemination of Indian Knowledge in Latin America.

Keywords: Adelina del Carril, Ada Albrecht, Argentine women, India , Indra Devi, Latin America,  Victoria Ocampo

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Octavio Paz Meets Malay Roychoudhury: The History of El Corno Emplumado and the Evolution of a Poetics

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Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay1 & Alfredo Zárate-Flores2

1&2 Universidad de Guanajuato

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–10. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.02

First published: September 20, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Octavio Paz Meets Malay Roychoudhury: The History of El Corno Emplumado and the Evolution of a Poetics

Abstract

In this article, we explore how the destinies of some poets were intertwined in the history of publications of El Corno emplumado, a Spanish-English bilingual literary journal that was edited by Octavio Paz among others and published in Mexico from 1962 to 1969. The epistolary relationships that El Corno emplumado engendered contributed to the writing ethic of an entire generation. The poets developed the flipped metaphor as a descriptive fall for differential semantics, as a rhetorical figure or strategy which endows words with sensations that differ from the immediately embodied or corporeal moments they represent. El Corno thus unites Allen Ginsberg, Octavio Paz, Ernesto Cardenal, Malay Roychoudhury, Shakti Chattopadhyay, and others in the recognition of a global style or poetics. We discuss epistolary contents from within the orbit of El Corno Emplumado to understand how the dialogue between Paz and Malay offers hermeneutical insights into the surreal, Hungry poetics born in the middle of the last century. Above all the history of Malay Roychoudhury’s poetic rebellion, his incarceration, and the bitter protest against this incident in USA and Latin America strikes a chord of union in the dialogic narrative of the two vast continents of America and India.

Keywords: El Corno Emplumado, Eroticism, Interior experience, Hungryalist, Surrealism

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Leveraging India’s Goodwill in Latin America as ‘Soft Power’

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Hari Seshasayee

Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center, and Trade Advisor, ProColombia.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 1–10. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n3.01

First published: September 20, 2022 | Area: Latin America | License: CC BY-NC 4.0

(This article is published under the themed issue “Across Cultures: Ibero-America and India”)
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Leveraging India’s Goodwill in Latin America as ‘Soft Power’

Abstract

Although India commands considerable goodwill in the Latin American region, it does little to leverage this to conduct economic diplomacy. It is imperative to study the nature of India’s image and goodwill in Latin America, and subsequently, differentiate it from how the region views other countries, before examining if and how this can be leveraged as soft power. Based on interviews with select experts in Latin America, we can gather certain insights that separate India’s image from other countries in the region. Perhaps the biggest point of consensus amongst all the experts interviewed is the sheer lack of knowledge about India amongst the general population in Latin America – with the caveat that many niche segments, including businesspersons, journalists and academics have a reasonable amount of knowledge of India, including the contemporary, ‘New India.’ The Indian government can work together with stakeholders in Latin America to help increase awareness of the country, including the elements of the old and the new, be it yoga, Ayurveda and literature or the New India’s IT, pharmaceutical and manufacturing investments in the region, as well as the reach of Indian cinema and entertainment.

Keywords: goodwill, India, India-Latin America relations, Latin America, soft power

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