Against Utopia
Fantasies of Emancipation in Ana Teresa Torres'sNocturama(2006)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2170199 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rebecca Sarah Elizabeth Jarman, Rebecca Jarman (0000-0002-9332-5634, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 19-32 |
| Publication date | 2015-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1356-9325 • E-ISSN: 1469-9575 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13569325.2014.993309 |
| OpenAlex | W1981125997 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 14 |
Through its dual allegorical structure, Ana Teresa Torres's novel Nocturama (2006) negotiates the antagonisms between two conflicting ideologies at work in contemporary Venezuela. The novel is narrated by ‘Aspern’, a pseudo-intellectual who tells crude versions of Venezuelan Independence and Bolivarian Socialism in tandem. Aspern's foundational fable, which parodies the figure of Simón Bolívar, explores the demands of a primitive community in search of a collective political identity that, in turn, promises emancipation. Meanwhile, Aspern's accounts of the twenty-first century, as experienced by amnesiac Ulises, detail the restrictions to civil liberties upon the empowerment of the popular classes. Fleeing from encroached collectivity, Ulises escapes into a world of consumerism and privacy governed by marketisation. Theoretically, these narratives of common identity and individualism are at odds. Yet Torres's interweaving of the allegories in Nocturama prevents them to be understood separately. Read together, both stories emerge from Utopian visions that promise to their adherents absolute freedom upon their realisation. Rather than engender emancipation, however, Utopian thought as an ideological blueprint creates dystopian conditions. Against the notion that Utopian thought will liberate an oppressed society, Nocturama suggests that the recourse to Utopianism in ideology ultimately results in segregation and discontent
Aesthetics · Dystopia · Emancipation · Identity (music · Ideology · Individualism · Political science · Politics · Socialism · Sociology · Utopia · Vision · Anthropology · Cultural and political discourse analysis · Gender Studies · Latin American Literature Studies · Law · Literature, Magical Realism, García Márquez · Philosophy
Commonwealth
The Utopian Impulse in Latin America
The Story of Utopias, by Lewis Mumford
We Created Chavez
Empire
Who Mobilizes? Participatory Democracy in Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution
Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution
Media and multitude
The Democratization of Democracy and Social Organizations of the Opposition
Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2019 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |