.@airplanereader on writing about place

…saturated with memories, associations, tracks and traces, more layers than a medieval palimpsest, unstable boundaries…I took pains excavating those layers in Little Dorrit (dss chapter) but don't manage so well writing about my own personal places, falling back on images, links to the efforts of others…this blog…

It's impossible to write about place.

I was chatting with my friend Ian the other day and he mentioned in passing, "writing is impossible." We had been talking about how hard it really is to write clear coherent prose. It is. Difficult, I mean. Just try following your thoughts and sensations for five minutes, and putting them into neat prose.

Then you add a topic, or god forbid a 'theme', and it gets harder still. Focus, attention, word by word, sentence to paragraph. Logical propositions. What was I talking about again?



It's impossible to write about place.

 Read the rest at What is literature?: Writing about place

the view from Latin America

 A new issue of Critical Reviews of Latin American Research is out. Jose H. Bortoluci and Robert S. Jansen (Michigan): "Toward a Postcolonial Sociology: The View From Latin America." Erin Graff Zivin (USC): "Beyond Inquisitional Logic, or, Toward an An-archaeological Latin Americanism."



Matiias Bargsted, Juan Carlos Castillo, and Nicolas M. Somma (UC-CL): "Political Trust in Latin America." Naomi Roht-Arriaza (Hastings): "After Amnesties Are Gone: Latin American National Courts and the New Contours of the Fight Against Impunity." Roberto Laver (Harvard): "Judicial Independence in Latin America and the (Conflicting) Influence of Cultural Norms."



Juan Cristaldo and Lorena Silvero (UNA): "Maps of Our Shared Territory." Tanya Golash-Boza (UC-Merced) and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Duke):"Rethinking Race, Racism, Identity and Ideology in Latin America." From the International Journal of Multicultural Education, a special issue on Globalization and Educational Equity in Latin America



and much more at the view from latin america - bookforum.com / omnivore