Sim鏮 Bol癉ar ─ Travels and Transformations of a Cultural Icon

“Shows us how and why Simon Bolivar is still a major icon in Latin American culture. Cinema, politics, painting, literature, religion, and opera are all touched and marked by ‘El Libertador’ who is still very much an active force in Latin America.”—Efrain Barradas, author of Mente, Mirada, Mano: Visiones y Revisiones de La Obra de Lorenzo Homar
 
“An indispensable resource for anyone interested in the myth and memory of Simon Bolivar.”—Sibylle Fischer, author ofModernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
 
One of Latin America’s most famous historical figures, Simon Bolivar has become a mythic symbol for many nations, empires, and revolutions, used to support wildly diverse—sometimes opposite—ideas. From colonial Cuba to Nazi-occupied France to Soviet Slovenia, the image of “El Libertador” has served a range of political and cultural purposes.

Here, an array of international and interdisciplinary scholars shows how Bolivar has appeared over the last two centuries in paintings, fiction, poetry, music, film, festivals, dance traditions, city planning, and even reliquary adoration. Whether exalted, reimagined, or fragmented, Bolivar’s body has taken on a range of different meanings to represent the politics and poetics of today’s national bodies. Through critical approaches to diverse cultural Bolivarianisms, this collection demonstrates the capacity of the arts and humanities to challenge and reinvent hegemonic narratives and thus vital dimensions of democracy.
 

Maureen G. Shanahan is professor of art history at James Madison University.Ana Maria Reyes is assistant professor of Latin American art history at Boston University.