Updates of Neobaroque on the works of Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and Camila Sosa Villada

Image and counter-conquest in contemporary Baroque

Abstract

This research examines the Baroque aesthetic in Latin America and its updates on contemporary literature. The Argentinean novels Slum Virgin (2009) and The adventures of China Iron (2017) by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara as well as The Queens of Sarmiento Park (2019) by Camila Sosa Villada enable a Baroque reading that brings up the questions regarding the categories of image and counter-conquest. This research puts forward the image and visual games as central to the Baroque, combined with the Latin American tensioned syncretism that becomes insurrection and counter-conquest. José Lezama Lima’s notions of indiátide and counter-conquest, in addition to the Severo Sarduy’s categories and systematization of the Neobaroque theory, are the core of
this research. Throughout this work I articulate concepts such as the anachronistic image (Georges Didi-Huberman), retombeé (Sarduy) and resonance (Lezama Lima). Current studies on the Neobaroque field such as the works of Valentín Díaz and Mabel Moraña provide the necessary openness to establish points of contact between the aesthetic issues within Didi-Huberman’s approach and the theoretical journey proposed by Lezama Lima and Severo Sarduy.