Forms of Dictatorship

Power, Narrative, and Authoritarianism in the Latina/o Novel

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Oxford Studies in American Literary History

Provides the first examination of the genre of Latina/o dictatorship novels
Considers Latina/o novels within the well-known and wide-ranging tradition of the Latin American dictator (or dictatorship) novel
Argues that these novels position authoritarianism on a continuum of domination alongside imperialism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, neoliberalism, and border militarization
Demonstrates how narrative form can critically represent dictatorial structures and power relations

New in Paperback

Forms of Dictatorship

Power, Narrative, and Authoritarianism in the Latina/o Novel

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Oxford Studies in American Literary History

Description

An intra-ethnic study of Latina/o fiction written in the United States from the early 1990s to the present, Forms of Dictatorship examines novels that depict the historical reality of dictatorship and exploit dictatorship as a literary trope. This literature constitutes a new sub-genre of Latina/o fiction, which the author calls the Latina/o dictatorship novel. The book illuminates Latina/os' central contributions to the literary history of the dictatorship novel by analyzing how Latina/o writers with national origin roots in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America imaginatively represent authoritarianism. The novels collectively generate what Harford Vargas terms a "Latina/o counter-dictatorial imaginary" that positions authoritarianism on a continuum of domination alongside imperialism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, neoliberalism, and border militarization. Focusing on novels by writers such as Junot Díaz, Héctor Tobar, Cristina García, Salvador Plascencia, and Francisco Goldman, the book reveals how Latina/o dictatorship novels foreground more ubiquitous modes of oppression to indict Latin American dictatorships, U.S. imperialism, and structural discrimination in the U.S., as well as repressive hierarchies of power in general. Harford Vargas simultaneously utilizes formalist analysis to investigate how Latina/o writers mobilize the genre of the novel and formal techniques such as footnotes, focalization, emplotment, and metafiction to depict dictatorial structures and relations. In building on narrative theories of character, plot, temporality, and perspective, Harford Vargas explores how the Latina/o dictatorship novel stages power dynamics. Forms of Dictatorship thus queries the relationship between different forms of power and the power of narrative form —- that is, between various instantiations of repressive power structures and the ways in which different narrative structures can reproduce and resist repressive power.

New in Paperback

Forms of Dictatorship

Power, Narrative, and Authoritarianism in the Latina/o Novel

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Oxford Studies in American Literary History

Forms of Dictatorship

Power, Narrative, and Authoritarianism in the Latina/o Novel

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Oxford Studies in American Literary History

Author Information

Jennifer Harford Vargas, Assistant Professor of English, Bryn Mawr College

Jennifer Harford Vargas is an Associate Professor of English at Bryn Mawr College.

New in Paperback

Forms of Dictatorship

Power, Narrative, and Authoritarianism in the Latina/o Novel

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Oxford Studies in American Literary History

Reviews and Awards

Winner of the 2019 Latino Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association Outstanding Book Award

"Forms of Dictatorship shows the critical payoffs that the careful analysis of content and form provides for Latinx literary studies. The book speaks to many contemporary issues, such as Central American migration, state-sanctioned violence against Afrodiasporic, Latinx, and indigenous people, and technologies of surveillance. Harford Vargas provides a blueprint for future scholars looking to apply a comparative American and trans-American framework to Latinx and Latin American studies." - Regina Marie Mills, Studies in the Novel

"Forms of Dictatorship makes a strong case for why and how Latina/o and Latin American studies can be productively brought into conversation. Harford Vargas takes seriously how the form of the novel, anti-colonial imaginaries, and questions of racial, class, gender, and sexual justice are represented on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border and beyond. The book offers a model for taking seriously the hemispheric connections between Latina/o studies and Latin American Studies." - David Vázquez, University of Oregon

"Elegantly written, with a series of striking analyses, Forms of Dictatorship draws together Latin American critical history of the dictatorship novel and US Latino/a novels about authoritarian regimes. Vargas' attention to formal innovation, combined with her breadth of knowledge of the literature of the Américas, makes Forms of Dictatorship a crucial contribution to the study of contemporary literature." - Mary Pat Brady, Cornell