LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION (LASA): Congreso Internacional

En las postrimerías de mayo pasado, se celebró en la Ciudad de Nueva York el congreso internacional de LASA. Al unísono de cientos de mesas redondas y paneles académicos, una de ellas organizada por quien suscribe esta narración, miles de académicos de todas las calañas se congregaron en el Hilton Midtown y el Sheraton Times Square para discutir asuntos relacionados con Latinoamérica desde una diversidad de enfoques intelectuales, creativos y académicos que sería bochornoso enumerar aquí. Por ejemplo, asistí a una mesa de difusión sobre los retos de los estudios del siglo diecinueve: “Hay que hacer todavía más evidente que los fenómenos culturales del siglo veinte y veintiuno pertenecen a procesos que atraviesan el siglo diecinueve”, dijo uno de los ponentes. Yo, como soy decimonónico por vocación y pasión, aplaudí en silencio, pensando que tan pronto como fuera posible debía ceñirme a mi trabajo en torno a Romero, Alamán y los proto-decadentistas mexicanos de finales del XIX, como Sierra Méndez, Alegría, Ceballos o Rebolledo.

“Avezarme sólo al diecinueve, eso es que lo tengo que hacer”, escribí en mi Moleskine. Esa noche envié al editor la versión corregida de un artículo académico sobre Amado Nervo y los momentos narrativos de disidentificación (término original de Judith Butler, aunque yo empleo la versión de José Esteban Muñoz) que la revista Cincinnati Romance Review ya ha aceptado para su publicación este año.

Entre los muchos encuentros y rituales de salutación que moldearon mi presencia en el congreso de LASA, creo oportuno asentar que saludar a Christopher Conway y William Acree fue instructivo y ameno en varios sentidos. También tuve la oportunidad de conversar con varias personas, entre amigos, académicos y escritores: platicar con Carlos Labbé y Mónica Ríos en el bar del Hilton Midtown representó la misión cumplida de mi presencia en LASA. Sin embargo, la interacción más extraña, e incluso iluminadora, que sostuve fue una breve conversación con la Dra. Mabel Moraña, reconocida profesora de la Universidad de Washington en San Luis; todos los que tenemos cercanía con los Estudios Culturales en Latinoamérica hemos leído algo de la profesora Moraña. Fue un encuentro al azar: ambos buscábamos un lugar donde sentarnos a esperar en el lobby del Hilton, donde la habitación más económica es alquilada por más de tres mil pesos mexicanos la noche, es decir, todavía más que el salario mínimo mensual. 

“¿Cómo está, Dra. Moraña?”, yo sonriendo, muy atento a su respuesta.

“¿Puedes imaginar que aquí en el Hilton, con lo que cuesta, no hay lugar para sentarse?” 

Es muy cierto, en un lobby con dos bares, café independiente y me parece que uno o dos restaurantes (una cerveza Budweiser cuesta nueve dólares), las pocas butacas dobles de mármol que adornaban el vestíbulo no daban abasto a la cantidad de nalgas que buscaban un sitio para posarse. 

“El neoliberalismo”, respondí, sin dejar de sonreír como un pajarraco feliz. 

La Dra. Moraña volteó a verme directo a los ojos sin dejar de sonreír. “Así es”, exclamó, mirándome con la misma cordialidad que un adulto le prodiga al niño que, de pronto, reconoce que llevar las agujetas desamarradas puede ser un obstáculo para intentar correr. 

“¿Estás en Pittsburgh, no?”, me preguntó, buscando en derredor a una persona que no llegaba; yo también estaba en medio del proceso de encontrarme con el Murciano, quien en ese momento, me enteré más tarde, fumaba como chacuaco afuerita del hotel, mirando el tránsito cansino de Avenida de las Américas.  

“Sí, estoy en Pittsburgh, bonita ciudad”, respondí, la cabeza de pronto nublada de sorpresa, niebla, puesto que nunca en mi vida había establecido contacto con la Dra. Moraña, aunque sí sabía que había sido profesora del departamento de Estudios Hispánicos de la Universidad de Pittsburgh. 

“Entonces habrás escuchado muchas cosas negativas sobre mí”, replicó la reconocida intelectual uruguaya. 

“No, nunca”, respondí con la verdad, porque cada vez que he tenido la oportunidad de conversar con los doctores Branche, Beverley, Duchesne, Balderston y Monasterios, he aprovechado el tiempo para hacerles preguntas de índole académica o intelectual, como “¿qué debo leer para aproximarme a la posibilidad de un malungaje en México?” o “¿es posible formularse como intelectual subalterno?”, siempre preguntas de este tipo.

“Estoy en el departamento de inglés, terminaré el MFA el próximo semestre, paso más tiempo con la Dra. Shalini Puri...”, agregué, con la intención de expresar que mi estancia en Pittsburgh discurre por meandros académicos e intelectuales.

“Eres un coleccionista de títulos universitarios...”, afirmó, siempre con un tono cordial.

Respondí sólo con una sonrisa, musitando algo que ni yo pude escuchar y ahora no recuerdo sobre el mercado laboral de los académicos, luego nos pusimos de pie, nos despedimos deseándonos buena suerte y una agradable estancia, y cada uno retomó su camino para consumar un encuentro pactado con antelación.

Posdata

Carlos Labbé, cuando nos despedíamos, soltó al aire un “deberíamos escribir una novela a seis manos”. Hay que hacerlo, Carlos. 

TEXTOS RECOMENDADOS

De Mabel Moraña: “El boom del subalterno” 

De Jerome Branche: “Malungaje: Hacia una poética de la diáspora africana”

De John Beverley: Entrevista  

De Shalini Puri: “Alternatives and Aesthetics” 

     

  

Anyone Can Play Guitar

I was driving back home, after teaching my intro to fiction class, and when I saw the Giant Eagle’s lights I thought, like an arrow, “tonight I am going to make a ten-song anthology of Radiohead, my very favorites, starting with Airbag, or even better: with a song from the Pablo Honey album, but not Creep because everyone has been down there at least once in a lifetime,” but then I arrived home and, after enjoying time with my beloved Tessa, I sat and revised a short story, then I wrote a grant application involving archival research and fieldwork in my hometown, ‘cause sometimes I sort of forget the smell of the darkness of Mexico City, it feels kind of foggy, like a grisaille. By the way, “grisaille” is a word that I had to learn myself in order to describe what I used to see as a surrounding force when I was a fat child, somewhere between ten and thirteen years of age, back then I also spent my evenings listening to the gunshots and the shrieks from the street with an enciclopedia between my hands, my father had to sell books when I was born and that was the origin of all of those books, including Proteus, an animal enciclopedia with manatees, antelopes, different snakes, an enciclopedia of "universal literature," there I read Santha Rama Rau, Katherine Mansfield, Daphne Du Maurier, Asturias, stuff like that, authors perhaps not copiously read in the United States, it was like growing up in a militarized zone, but against pirated merchandise, music CDs, DVDs, tennis shoes, watches, in Tepito I bought the complete works of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, Relics by Pink Floyd, I even got this extremely rare compilation of the yelling voice of Janice Joplin. Then, after my grant application, I also started writing the first words of a flash-fiction collection in English, because now I am studying the syntax and lexicon of Nabokov. "Let Down," that’s a cool song even for tonight, or what do you think Carlos or Tahsin? It does not have to be a pessimistic lullaby, Let Down also has a promise, just like when we get to remember the names of people from our childhood, or the buzzing of the tontorrones dying on the fresh grass of a baseball field; when I was a child I played baseball in a little league called Anáhuac, like in Valle de Anáhuac, where my father played himself as a child, then he was hired by a professional team at the age of fifteen, apparently my father was some sort of baseball genius, but a bit crazy or extremely passionate about the sport, its rules, the honor implied in playing baseball, although the truth is that who gives a shit about baseball in Mexico? Growing up baseball was popular, but when I turned nineteen-yold the television companies invested millions in Mexican soccer, baseball was killed with a national financial failure called TRI. But going back to my father, after three years of playing AA professional ball, when he turned 18 he was immediately signed by a top professional team, Los Tigres de México, XXX level with prospects of being eyed by a scout from MLB, Mike Britto was often at the Mexico City stadium looking for Mexican pitchers to play for The Dodger’s, the next Fernando Valenzuela was throwing balls at El Parque del Seguro Social, by that time my father's arm had been throwing too many fireballs, and just like that my father got his arm injured, “smoking ball,” that’s how my Crazy Uncle used to call my dad, my father went from baseball prodigy to a man who gave his childhood and teenage years to the baseball profession, later on he worked for a national television channel commenting the baseball games, Imevisión, that’s the name of the television company, the boss of my father was a man named José Ramón Fernández, a very controversial thinker of Mexican sports, of Spanish descent, as tall as a ten-yold person, for that I had to be punished and baseball was imposed upon me, as a Christic cross charged beforehand on my back, but eventually I found my way out of the King of the Sports, in Mexico old men wearing suits used to call baseball the King of the Sports, some even compare it to chess, for that my father also played chess like a nut head, he used to play against himself with a book in his hand, “I am studying,” he used to say, half smiling, while my mother was yelling at him for spending the afternoons playing against himself, my father even became a professional chess player and got ranked in some specialized chess magazine. Someday we should play chess, it is boring, but I bet that with a Negra Modelo the game gets more interesting. (When I was young like the people who do not give a fuck about being young I used to spend hours a day writing and reading any book around, even stuff like writings by Karl Popper or Melvin DeFleur or Giovanni Sartori or Algebra by A. Baldor or the biographies of Rocky Marciano or Johnny Unitas. I was always reading Nietzsche, I used to read Nietzsche on the subway, pure performance; on Sundays, some nights I traveled the whole green line, from Universidad to Indios Verdes, roundtrip, while reading and writing in a tiny notebook with a Bic pen. In Acapulco I enchanted a few girls and even a guy (potential fan) with the poems written in that notebook. I disintegrated that notebook by submerging it in water. No Surprises is a better first song. Once I got along with a Canadian girl due to a poem in French by Henri Michaux that I copied on my notebook, when she asked me “did you write this?,” I replied “do you think it's good?" Ha. Mexico City is a great place, it takes years to understand its rhythms and smells. I have been in more than forty different nations, and my brother, my only brother, has never left Mexico neither once, he says that he was born and still lives in Mexico City, “why would I have to go to places like Paris or San Francisco? You already went and came back saying that Paris and his people suck and that San Francisco does not even have a real subway.”