| 摘要、提要註: |
"Codas are by definition short interventions. Codas constitute an attempt to reach a satisfactory, though perhaps always temporary, closing to the musical piece unfolding. The Blackwell Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture did, in the first edition as it does in this second edition, represent, a kind of musical composition where pleats fold and unfold into inner and forward creases, tucks and crevices that seem never ending. Conceived as such, a coda at this moment in history acquires the hue of a paradox, in that it both closes and opens the discussion on Latin American culture writ large. Great change has occurred in Latin America in the last quarter century. Besides a turn to the left that never took place, people in Brazil and Spanish America along with many Indigenous communities living within the borders of various nation-states have experienced and continue to undergo the transformation brought about by the digital forces in play today. The forces of globalization, of which the digital age is only a part, have exacerbated during the 2020 pandemic as people have been forced to communicate and interact more intensely in the internet, making use of every platform available for multiple purposes of exchange. Together, the pandemic and the digital transformation have repositioned subjects, fractured borders, reconfigured modes of production and realigned personal, social and political relations. In this context the paradoxical valance of a coda, as both summary ending but also opening onto uncharted waters, seems justified as a brief introduction to the new and enlightening chapters that comprise the volume in this second edition"-- |