ABSTRACT
As a project of continental integration, Latin Americanism has existed for almost two centuries predominantly as a discourse articulated in the courses, journals, and book series that have imagined the region as a unified yet dependent political and cultural player on the global stage. At the turn of the twentieth century, José E. Rodó, José Martí, and Rubén Darío wrote some of the most influencial pieces on the subject, in which they provided dematerialized, aesthetically oriented, utopian formulations of continental integration to confront the growing hegemony of the United States in the region. This chapter explores an alternative history of Latin Americanisms—one founded on embodied performances, communications networks, and social activism. It focuses on how intellectuals such as Manuel Ugarte and Luis A. Sánchez developed populist, spectacularized, anti-lettered versions of Latin American unity by engaging in forms of militant travel and the use of the voice as crucial elements for the construction of regional connections and networks. The chapter concludes by briefly examining the work of mid- and late twentieth-century thinkers who have continued to confront Latin Americanism's lettered foundations by discussing its possible articulation with alternative forms of knowledge, social engagement, and politics on the ground.
