- 286 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
Honorable Mention for the 2025 LASA Mexico Section for Best Book in the Humanities
During Porfirio Díaz’s thirty-year rule, Mexico dealt with the press in disparate ways in hopes of forging an informed and, above all, orderly citizenry. Even as innumerable journalists were sent to prison on exaggerated and unfair charges of defamation or slander, Díaz’s government subsidized multiple newspapers to expand literacy and to aggrandize the image of the regime.
In Guardians of Discourse Kevin M. Anzzolin analyzes the role and representation of journalism in literary texts from Porfirian Mexico to argue that these writings created a literate, objective, refined, and informed public. By exploring works by Porfirian writers such as Emilio Rabasa, Ángel del Campo, Rafael Delgado, Laura Méndez de Cuenca, and Salvador Quevedo y Zubieta, Anzzolin demonstrates that a primary goal of the lettered class was to define and shape the character of public life, establish the social position of citizens, and interrogate the character of civil institutions.
These elite letrados—whom Anzzolin refers to as “guardians of discourse”—aimed to define the type of discourses that would buttress the transformed Mexico of the Díaz regime to forge a truly national literature that could be discussed among an expanded coterie of lettered thinkers. In addition, these Porfirian guardians hoped to construct an extensive and active public able to debate political and social issues via a press befitting a modern nation-state and create a press that would be independent, illuminating, and distinguished. Through an innovative look at Mexico’s public sphere via literary fiction in the Porfirian era, Anzzolin contributes to our knowledge of Mexican and Latin American political, cultural, and literary history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
During Porfirio Díaz’s thirty-year rule, Mexico dealt with the press in disparate ways in hopes of forging an informed and, above all, orderly citizenry. Even as innumerable journalists were sent to prison on exaggerated and unfair charges of defamation or slander, Díaz’s government subsidized multiple newspapers to expand literacy and to aggrandize the image of the regime.
In Guardians of Discourse Kevin M. Anzzolin analyzes the role and representation of journalism in literary texts from Porfirian Mexico to argue that these writings created a literate, objective, refined, and informed public. By exploring works by Porfirian writers such as Emilio Rabasa, Ángel del Campo, Rafael Delgado, Laura Méndez de Cuenca, and Salvador Quevedo y Zubieta, Anzzolin demonstrates that a primary goal of the lettered class was to define and shape the character of public life, establish the social position of citizens, and interrogate the character of civil institutions.
These elite letrados—whom Anzzolin refers to as “guardians of discourse”—aimed to define the type of discourses that would buttress the transformed Mexico of the Díaz regime to forge a truly national literature that could be discussed among an expanded coterie of lettered thinkers. In addition, these Porfirian guardians hoped to construct an extensive and active public able to debate political and social issues via a press befitting a modern nation-state and create a press that would be independent, illuminating, and distinguished. Through an innovative look at Mexico’s public sphere via literary fiction in the Porfirian era, Anzzolin contributes to our knowledge of Mexican and Latin American political, cultural, and literary history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Guardians of Discourse by Kevin M. Anzzolin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Mexican History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Insane Journalism in Novelas mexicanas and Reproducciones
- 2. Insalubrious Journalism in Pacotillas and La cuarta plana
- 3. Reporterism as Social Death in La Rumba and La Calandria
- 4. Yellow Journalism and Female Sociability in the Narrative of Laura Méndez de Cuenca
- 5. Arnulfo Arroyo, the Subsidized Press, and Illocutionary Acts in Quevedo y Zubieta’s La camada
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- About Kevin M. Anzzolin