FHI, Graduate Working Groups | Negative Worldliness: Augusto Higa and the limits of celebratory, cosmopolitan models of World Literature

The FHI Graduate Working Group Latin America and Asia: Orientalisms from Colombus to Today invites you to a talk with Dr. Ignacio López-Calvo, Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at the University of California, Merced.

In his testimonial Japón no da dos oportunidades (1994), his works on Peruvian Nikkei (La iluminación de Katzuo Nakamatsu [2008] and Okinawa existe [2013]), and in his work on Japanese immigrants in Peru (Gaijin [2014]), Augusto Higa deploys a perspectivism that allows him to observe historical episodes and contemporary events from different angles: the dominant Peruvian perspective, the Nikkei perspective (both in Peru and in Japan), and that of Japanese immigrants in Peru.

Although these perspectives do not necessarily lead to international commercial success or increased translation and circulation, Higa's ability to look beyond national borders and across distant cultures brings his writing-and Asian-Latin American literature more broadly-closer to world literature. Nevertheless, in contrast to its apparent cosmopolitanism, his work also reveals a critique of anti-Japanese racism in Peru, while at the same time his Nikkei and Japanese protagonists openly display their own racism toward Indigenous or mestizo Peruvians.

Ignacio López-Calvo is a Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture, Presidential Endowed Chair in the Humanities at the University of California, Merced, and Director of the Center for the Humanities. He is the co-executive director of the academic journalTransmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World and co-editor of the Palgrave-Macmillan Book Series "Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia"; the Anthem Press book series "Anthem Studies in Latin American Literature and Culture Series," and the Tamesis/Boydell and Brewer Press series "China and Latin America."

This hybrid event will take place in-person at the FHI PhD Lab and on Zoom.