Overview
Between Two Waters expands upon existing studies of transculturation. Spitta not only introduces the question of gender into the debate, but also brings together previously disconnected media: the chronicles of the New World, the writings of the extirpators of idolatries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the paintings of the Cuzco School, and contemporary U.S. Latino narratives. Between Two Waters brings English-language readers into the post-colonial debate at the heart of Latin American literary criticism."Departs from the Cuban Fernando Ortiz's cultural theory of transculturation. Modifies Ortiz, following Angel Rama, to include all of Latin America, not just Cuba, as a culture defined and articulated by transculation processes. Chooses four moments - Cabeza de Vaca's Naufragios, extirpation of idolatries, the Cuzco School of Painting, and Josâe Marâia Arguedas - providing interesting discussions of each, relying on existing scholarship. Important here is the project's ambition and the series of works examined. The triumphalist tone of the proponents of transculturation has lately been dampened by forceful critiques of Rama's work and the implicit asymmetry of any transculturative situation. Important resource"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.