Writing as poaching : interpellation and self-fashioning in colonial relaciones de méritos y servicios / by Robert Folger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Folger, Robert.

Series:

Medieval and early modern Iberian world ; v. 44.

The medieval and early modern Iberian world ; v. 44

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Autobiography.

History.

Patronage, Political.

Colonies.

Administration.

Spain--Colonies--America--Administration.

Spain.

Patronage, Political--Spain--History.

Autobiography--Political aspects--Spain--History.

Biography as a literary form.

America.

Physical Description:

x, 156 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2011.

Summary:

The relaciones de meritos y servicios are a category of Spanish colonial texts in which the writer would produce biographical accounts of service to Spain in hopes of state favor. In this work, Folger (Spanish, Utrecht U., the Netherlands) applies Louis Althusser's notion of "interpellation" (the process through which ideology produces the subject) and Michel de Certeau's concept of "tactics" (the means by which individuals navigate the "strategies" produced by structures of power) to readings of this genre in order to show how some authors "poached" from cultural spheres of natural and moral philosophy and historiography in order to tactically engage with the normalizing thrust of bureaucracy by bypassing officialdom in preference for the subject. This practice, he contends, portends the emergence of novelistic discourse and hence modern forms of literature. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

2 Strategic Interpellation and Tactical Writing in Colonial Historiography (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries) 13

2.1 Introduction 13

2.2 Relaciones de méritos y servicios 16

2.2.1 The Bureaucratic Dispositif: The Allocation of Offices and Privileges 18

2.2.2 The Archive: La Historiografía Indiana and the Monopolization of Historiographical Discourse 52

3 Tactical Appropriations 67

3.1 Dorantes de Carranza: Memoria y Papeles 67

3.2 The Arduous Work of Writing History: Alonso Borregán 95

3.3 Self and Archive: El Carnero de Juan Rodríguez Freyle 108.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9789004211094

9004211098

OCLC:

741549405