Event Highlights: Arqueología y literatura en México: Una conversación virtual con Juan Villoro | Latin American Studies

Event Highlights: Arqueología y literatura en México: Una conversación virtual con Juan Villoro

On Wednesday, April 29, Mexican novelist, playwright, and journalist Juan Villoro analyzed the relationship between Archeology and Literature in Mexico in a virtual conversation at Boston University. Through literary works by Mexican authors such as Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Garro, José Emilio Pacheco, and Carlos Pellicer, as well as his own chronicles, Villoro reflected on the role of literature in continuous re-interpretation of an ever-open past, building bridges from the present to a lost indigenous world, and filling out the enigmatic gaps of the past with imagination. He also highlighted how indigenous communities are often thought of as in the past, lacking recognition of their contemporaneity. The debate following his talk focused on the connections between identity and temporality, and how to re-think the place of the indigenous past in Mexican identity in connection with colonialism and capitalism.

This event was organized by David Colmenares, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, and sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences.

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