Violentologies

Critics of U.S. Latinidades have sustained an overt or covert ethnonationalist perspective that Olguín exposes by undertaking a violentological archival, interpretive, political, and theoretical project that sustains an anti-imperialist and anti-settler colonialist critique. He reads against the grain of a patriarchal teleological ideology, following the lead of groundbreaking Chicana and Latina feminists, and thus further breaks down the logic of violentology. Olguín's critique of the field is a magnificent tour de force, and he challenges all of us to undertake a paradigm shift. After reading his arguments throughout texts I strongly agree with him. * Norma Alarcón, Professor Emerita, University of California, Berkeley, Founder, Third Woman Press *
What does a materialist history of violence in Latina/o modes of being and knowing teach us about power, identity, and agency? Olguín answers this question by providing a compelling and original analysis of a wide range of cultural texts mapping the profound centrality of the landscape of violence (from war to psychic and emotional violence) in Latina/o life. Violentologies calls for nothing less than a thorough restructuring of the prevailing frameworks of Latina/o Studies. A powerful and unsettling book that belongs on the bookshelves of cultural critics, scholar-activists, and teachers committed to confronting the inevitable fault-lines of violence in our everyday lives. * Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Distinguished Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Syracuse University. Author of Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Duke University) *
Violentologies is a brilliant and sweeping book by one of the most intellectually formidable cultural and literary theorists of our times. Olguín explores how modes of violence in Latinx imaginative and testimonial writings are central to the proliferation of Latinx subjectivities or Latininades, from the nineteenth century to the present. This book is both urgent and important in understanding the shifting field-imaginary of Latinx studies, and its evolving intersections with allied fields and area studies. * José David Saldívar, Leon Sloss, Jr. Professor, Stanford University. Author of Trans-Americanity: Subaltern Modernities, Global Coloniality, and the Cultures of Greater Mexico (Duke University, 2011) *
Violentologies teaches readers to perceive differently the horrors, hurts, and sufferings of war; to diagnose and treat the sociality-of-violence that imbues our lives; and to allow glimpses of the social physics of peace. Olguín encourages and inspires us to engage in a form of auto-criticality that is derived from Anzaldúan, Freirean, and Fanonian insistences on critical thinking/doing/being. At every level, Violentologies is an original and landmark theoretical and methodological intervention that takes up, and goes beyond, previous contributions to revolutionary thinking. Arrayed here are original theories and methods that will advance any academic discipline committed to the study and deployment of liberation. * Chela Sandoval, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara. Author of Author of Methodology of the Oppressed (University of Minnesota, 2000) *