Events

Weds, March 5, 2008, 12-2 pm

Song No is currently an assistant professor of Latin American Colonial Literature at Purdue University. His primary fields of research are Andean colonial literature and Spanish Golden Age literature. He is particularly interested in research into Trans-Atlantic cultural exchanges. Three particular strands are prominent in his teaching and research plans: a) orality and writing, with a special interest in cultural encounters of the indigenous and the European ; b) gender studies on women’s survival and participation in early modern Spain and colonial Latin America; c) transculturation processes, which include multilevel cultural interactions between Spain and the Spanish American colonies. Recently Song No has published several articles on Bartolomé de las Casas, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Titu Cusi Yupanqui, and Fernando Ortiz. An article entitled “La heterogeneidad suturada: Titu Cusi Yupanqui” was published in Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana in 2005. This year, his book-length study of Latin American cultural theories, entitled Cien años de contrahegemonía: Un análisis de transculturación, heterogeneidad e hibridez cultural, will be published by the National University of San Marcos, Peru.

Professor No writes: "My paper will study Pedro Salvino Zun Leng’s idealist philosophy and social activism.
Pedro Zulen, as he used to sign his name, was a Chinese-Peruvian philosopher in the first part of the 20th century. Despite his humble origins, Zulen was a recognized figure in his time, particularly in the criollo intellectual circle of Lima. His social status was doubly marginalized by his ethnic origin and low-middle-class background. He managed to rise above his sociopolitical limitations by excelling in the Peruvian academic system and energetically participating in liberal political activism. As a socially committed philosopher, he shunned the neocolonial modernity of Europe and North America, instead proposing alternative modernities. Through his activism in various rural areas of Peru, he attempted to help the indigenous people find their own modernity. My paper will focus on Zulen’s philosophy and activism. During his short life, Zulen left only four publications: The Philosophy of Inexpressibility [La filosofía de lo inexpresable (1920)], From Neo-Hegelianism to Neorealism [Del neohegeliansimo al neorrealismo (1924)], Programs of Psychology and Logics [Programas de psicología y lógica (1925)], The Unknown Elm of Snowfall [El olmo incierto de la nevada (1930)]. In my Toronto presentation, I will analyze his first two works, which reveal Zulen’s philosophical orientation. On the one hand, Zulen was much concerned with introducing new European and North American trends into the field of Latin American philosophy. On the other, he viscerally felt his social responsibility as an intellectual and allied himself with socio-political movements, especially with the Pro-Indigenous Association during his tenure at San Marcos. In the Peruvian cultural ambience of his time, Zulen symbolizes the epitome of the organic intellectual who overcame his own marginality and dedicated himself to work for the marginalized indigenous toward an idealist, sociopolitical liberation.

~ Latin American Studies Luncheon Series.

A light lunch will be provided to those who register online at http://webapp.mcis.utoronto.ca/EventDetails.aspx?eventid=4484 by 9AM on Monday March 3, 2008.