The New Ruralism

An Epistemology of Transformed Space

Joan Ramon Resina, William Viestenz (eds.)

Throughout the world modernization implied the abandonment of ancestral modes of life adapted to the land and their transformation through processes of social abstraction. During the 20th century entire cultures have vanished into the urban magma of the World’s megalopolis. The classic city, perfectly defined against a rural background, has spilled over its boundaries and merged with the country in a vast sprawl. Vanishing references affect cultures in profound ways and force a reconsideration of time-hallowed dichotomies such as the country and the city. The New Ruralism is not a neo-romantic return to nature or a revaluation of traditional customs. It is an effort to think through the epistemological and artistic implications of the modern antinomy’s demise, whereby the non-city ceases to be the city’s absolute other and breeds new forms of representation that challenge the modern distribution of temporalities.

Joan Ramon Resina is Professor of Comparative Literature and Iberian Cultures at Stanford University.

William R. Viestenz is Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota.