Years ago I remember leafing through something titled The Book of Lists. It was a scrapbook of various lists, most of which were distinguished by nothing more than the fame of the contributor. Which is probably as it should be. What list of knowledge or objects (or even people) in and of itself, has any enduring value? (The Ten Commandments?) For the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would want to buy a book of lists. The only lesson I'm willing to concede might be worthwhile is the demonstrably transitory character of hierarchies and ordering. That, and the seemingly innate human impulse to make lists, whether they have ultimate value or not.

I should include this current project in my general disdain. After all, what have I done but make a List of Books? But what is any canon of literature? And there's no dearth of canons, nor debates over them.

The proliferation of personal reading lists on the web is mind boggling. A common element on many home pages, they function like a bookshelf in a living room, as a means of measuring up someone's interests or values I suppose. I wonder how long it will be before somebody starts surveying these floating lists for marketing purposes?

Editor’s note: This last remark proved prophetic. Amazon.com has since utilized readers’ lists as a marketing tool.

Reading Lists

http://web.utk.edu/~spanport/Spanish/Spag/spnphrl.html

in the humanities and the social sciences there are usually two final hoops to jump through before getting an advanced degree: an examination and a dissertation. Because the written work of the thesis or dissertation is the last of these two hurdles it seems to get most of the attention, but the cumulative exam can also be a pretty harrowing ordeal. It's supposed to force the student to corral a broad knowledge in the field, gained from course work and independent effort, to demonstrate familiarity if not mastery. To allay the terrors of facing such an open-ended interrogation faculty have often prepared reading lists that presumably represent main currents of thought, theoretical vogues, historical markers, well-known dead ends, and the like. In this manner the canons take shape. Here is one such list provided to doctoral students in the Spanish program at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

http://csgwww.uwaterloo.ca/~drug/yo/lecturas.html

Daniel German is trying to get a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Waterloo in Ontario. He's quite a whiz on the web. Nevertheless, he's wondering whether he's making the right career choice. Clearly he'd rather be reading books. His list is an interesting snapshot of the international scope of the literature that's caught the attention of one young Mexican. As you might expect, he has a taste for science fiction.

Editor’s note: Apparently Daniel did finish his degree and is now teaching at the University of Victoria, where he has migrated his old site, (and his reading list) now accessible at the following address: http://www.turingmachine.org/~dmg/yo/lecturas.html

Literary Journals

http://www.americas-society.org/

this is where you'll find information about Review: Latin American Literature and the Arts as well as some of the art projects undertaken by the Americas Society. Unfortunately the page for Review does little more than list the special topics in each of the 55 issues. I was surprised to see that they have published a cumulative index. Some of the other pages at this site may be more interesting, particularly the collection of editorials that their board members have been firing off this past fall.

http://www.thecaribbeanwriter.com/

here is the web site for The Caribbean Writer, an annual literary journal published by the University of the Virgin Islands. It's possible to view the table of contents for all 11 of their previous issues. You'll also find thumbnail biographies for a number of their contributors. This journal is one example of a publication undergoing the transitions of adaptation to the web. The editor has started an on-line version of the journal with selections of poetry and short-stories that appeared in the last two issues. There's also an interesting personal essay by Edwidge Danticat. The most unusual item is a brief contribution about Surinamese fiction. This is the only such stuff I have ever seen. What literature has been written in the Dutch language of Surinam and Curaçao has rarely been translated into English.

Booksellers

www.newbeacon-books.com/nbhome/nbhome.htm

this London bookstore would really be something to visit in person. They describe themselves as "Specialists in books about Black Britain and Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, African-America and Asia." The site is linked under an umbrella of book dealers (The International Mall) all of whom specialize in something. Anyway, the Caribbean titles at New Beacon are quite interesting. The ones you can browse have been posted within the last year. Under each title is a short description of the book. Looming unseen (at least on-line) are the 20,000 other books they have in their shop. The "Beacon" in their name is taken from the literary journal that C.L.R. James founded in Trinidad in the 1930's.

Editor’s note: For the time being the online version of the bookstore isn’t available on the web. My sense is that the umbrella seller (now called “inter Books”) is in transition. Fortunately, the old site is still visible on The Wayback machine.

General

http://www.sas.ac.uk/ilas/default.htm

this address will put you at the home page for the University of London's Institute of Latin American Studies. Here you'll find course descriptions for their various programs. Each course for the master's degree in Cultural Studies and Literature is followed by a reading list.

At this site you'll also find a collection of web resources for the "Latin Americanist." (I think this is the term I've seen used by teachers in this field.) Many of their categories simply point the user to lanic (the Latin American studies program at the University of Texas), however there are some unique entries, for example the listing of Latin American resources in London.

They also have a linked list of other Latin American studies programs in the U.K. and the U.S.--something I have never seen before. The sites for these other schools, in turn offer some diverting explorations. I have no idea how many graduate programs for Latin American studies there are in the United States, but my guess is that this list includes the best known if not the majority. These are the places where most of the critical or interpretive material is being manufactured (books like those under "Cultural Studies" at the New Beacon Bookstore). More than one Latin American intellectual has been lured to these programs, but... oddly enough, mere writers would seem to be rarely invited. The Latin American writers brought to the U.S. are apparently confined to literature programs.

Publishers

http://www.alfaguara.com

Zona Latina, lanic, or any other number of sites offer links to the Latin American media, however none that I've seen connect with Latin American publishers. For this reason I thought it might be worth pointing out one example. Aguilar, Taurus, Alfaguara de Argentina must now own Spanish rights to Julio Cortázar. The site is as sophisticated as anything you'll find outside of South America.

-November 26, 1997

© Copyright 2003 Eric Metcalf