The Experience of Literature Before Literature: Presence, Printing, and Publics in Spanish-Mexican California and Texas
7:30 p.m.–9 p.m.
In this talk, literary and intellectual historian Raúl Coronado, professor at UC Berkeley, asks, "what does literature offer us?" He turns to the history of print and visual culture in Texas and California to understand how Spanish-speaking communities have sought to create a sense of presence and a desire for playful, creative yet transcendent meaning.
Historians have documented in meticulous detail the arrival of the press and emergence of printing in what is today the U.S. Southwest. They have done so, primarily, by focusing on each state. The press arrives in Texas, for example, in 1813, as a weapon to be used during the wars of Mexican independence from Spain. But with the Spanish defeat of the Texas-Mexican revolutionaries, so too did this first press meet its demise. Another press would not arrive until 1823. This time establishing a sustained print culture. The press arrives in California under very different, quite peaceful circumstances in 1833.
This is the Ritchie Distinguished Fellow Lecture.
At the speaker's request this event will not be recorded.