Title: Galápagos : imaginarios y evolución textual en Las Islas Encantadas /
Authors: Mayorga, Esteban, 1977-
Year: 2019
Subjects: National characteristics, Ecuadorian; Literature; National characteristics, Ecuadorian; Travel; Galapagos Islands History.; Galapagos Islands In literature.; Galapagos Islands Description and travel; Galapagos Islands
Abstract: "This book, written in Spanish, takes a literary and cultural studies model to explain the textual representation of the Galápagos Islands since their discovery until present day. The main argument suggests that the depiction of this crucial space for modernity in Western thought, given the rhetoric of travel and fiction writers, transforms the insular area with the intention of conceiving disparate forms of political displacement. Specifically, these depictions show several conflicts that arose from the seeking of identity in Ecuador during the nation-building project that took place at the time. As a result of colonial enterprises (scientific excursions, exile, tourism, journalistic pieces, expeditions, etc.), travel writings of the Galápagos condition the formation of the state and its national imagery because of the extreme symbolic capital of the archipelago and the desire of Latin American intellectuals to belong to a cosmopolitan territory"--
Contents: La primera crónica colonial de unas islas imaginarias: Carta a su majestad de Tomás de Berlanga -- Metahistoria en el archipiélago, la primera ficción colonial: Historia de Los Incas de Sarmiento de Gamboa -- La fluidez de la selección natural: The Voyage of the Beagle de Charles Darwin -- La relación entre el Transcendentalismo y las Galápagos: The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles de Herman Melville -- Los piratas en Galápagos y la formación del estado-nación: El pirata del Guayas de Manuel Bilbao -- La construcción de la identidad galapaguense y ecuatoriana: Galápagos a la vista de Bolívar Naveda -- La fuerza del mercado y la perspectiva ecocrítica: Galápagos: Huellas en el paraíso de Hugo Idrovo.