José Francisco Robles

Winner of the 2022 Louis Gottschalk Prize for the best scholarly book on an eighteenth-century subject awarded by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)

Taking a multisided approach to Mexican culture of the era, this book’s analysis of literary texts engages with an exploration of such concepts as the Republic of Letters and the archive, as well as their connections to transatlantic polemics on knowledge production in the New World and debates on philosophical systems of learning. It furthermore draws upon the history of science in Mexico in order to trace the development of scientific thought and its influence on culture, religion, and fiction. This study proposes that eighteenth-century Mexican writers sought to establish a place within a global scholarly community for their local literary republic through the formation of scholarly networks, the historical exploration of the past and present, and the creation of new epistemological approaches to literary production inspired by Enlightenment ideas.

Read the Table of Contents here

Where to buy it: Oxford University Press, Amazon, Blackwell’s, Barnes & Noble, Better World Books…

Reviews:

Brian R. Hamnett, Colonial Latin American Review, 31:3, 471-473. Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/10609164.2022.2036025

Stuart M. McManus, Hispanic American Historical Review (2023) 103 (1): 178–179. Link: https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-10277760

Miruna Achim, Revista Hispánica Moderna, Volume 76, Number 1, June 2023, pp. 107-109. Link: doi:10.1353/rhm.2023.0005