A book by Rubén Gallo,
assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese languages and cultures at
Princeton, has been chosen for the Modern Language Association's
Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize.
"Mexican Modernity: The Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution,"
published in 2005 by MIT Press, was selected for the award for an
outstanding book published in English in the field of Latin American
and Spanish literatures and cultures. The $1,000 prize will be
presented on Dec. 28 during the association's annual convention in
Philadelphia.
The book is a study of how five artifacts -- cameras, typewriters,
radio, cement and stadiums -- shaped the representation of modernity in
Mexican art and literature of the post-revolutionary period. In
selecting the volume, a committee of the association said: "Dynamically
written, strikingly conceived and beautifully executed, 'Mexican
Modernity' is a highly original contribution to our understanding of
the post-revolutionary period in Mexico, with suggestive resonance for
the rest of Latin America as well. … [The book] is certain to have as
lasting an influence on the field as the turn-of-the-century
technological innovations Gallo describes."
Gallo has been a faculty member at Princeton since 2002.
