Text vs Text. The Materiality of the Archive or the Questioning of Capitalism and Violence in Hugo García Manríquez’s Documentary Poetry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/2035-7680/31557Keywords:
Mexican contemporary poetry; documentary poetry; archive as materiality; Hugo García Manríquez; Anti-HumboldtAbstract
Within the recent “archival” and “documentary” turns experienced in the arts, this essay examines the interaction of documents and poetry in Hugo García Manríquez’s documentary work. Focusing on Anti-Humboldt. Una lectura del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (2014), a bilingual artifact composed entirely of selectively extracted NAFTA passages, the poem reveals the treaty’s contradictions: historically, Mexico’s full immersion into neoliberalism; socially, the intensification of its diasporic condition. By resemanticizing the document, the work exposes these violent tensions, enacting a social and political resistance that repoliticizes poetic language while confronting readers with a textual battlefield that mirrors the rift between society, capital, and language.
Downloads
References
Adorno, Theodor. “On Lyric Poetry and Society.” Notes to Literature, Vol. I, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, Columbia University Press, 1991, pp. 37-54.
Areco, Macarena, et al., editors. Ficción – No ficción en América Latina. Éditions des Archives Contemporaines, 2024.
Ballester, Ignacio, and Alejandro Higashi. “Tachaduras y borraduras en la poesía mexicana contemporánea (Albarrán, Herbert, Alcantar).” Signos Literarios, vol. 13, no. 25, 2017, pp. 8-43.
Benvenuti, Giuliana. Il romanzo neostorico italiano. Carocci, 2012.
Borzutzky, Daniel. “Today or a Million Years Ago: An Interview with Raúl Zurita.” Poetry Foundation, 2015, https://bit.ly/3nBGJnZ. Accessed 02 Mar. 2026.
Cercas, Javier. Anatomía de un instante. Editorial Mondadori, 2009.
Cruz Arzabal, Roberto. “Writing and the Body: Interfaces of Violence in Neoliberal Mexico.”, in I. M. (ed.), Mexican Literature in Theory, edited by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, Bloomsbury, 2018, pp. 243-259.
---. “Escritura: Mediaciones a través de la fractura.” Fobias - Fonias - Fagias. Escritas Experimentais e Eletrónicas Ibero-Afro-Latinoamericanas, edited by Rui Torres and Claudia Kozak, Publicações Universidade Fernando Pessoa, 2019, pp. 42-49.
---. “Olvido y canon: mediaciones de archivo en el arte inespecífico.” Memoria cultural y culturas de rememoración en América Latina, edited by Ute Seydel, Bonilla Artiga Editores, 2020, pp. 337-365.
Demaria, Cristina. “‘Documentary turn’? La cultura visuale, il documentario e la testimonianza del ‘reale’.” Studi Culturali, vol. 8, no. 2, 2011, pp. 155-76.
Derrida, Jacques. Spectres de Marx. Éditions Galilée, 1993.
Dorfman, Daniela. “‘Denied in toto’. Documental Poetry and Archive Collectivization in Chile.” Aisthesis, no. 72, pp. 359-82.
Estrada, Oswaldo, and Laura Alicino, editors. Documentar la realidad: Cruce de géneros y fronteras en América Latina. Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2025.
Ferraris, Maurizio. Manifesto del nuovo realismo. Laterza, 2012.
---. Documentalità. Perché è importante lasciar tracce. Laterza, 2009.
Foster, Hal. “An Archival Impulse.” October, no. 110, 2004 pp. 3-22, https://direct.mit.edu/octo/article/doi/10.1162/0162287042379847/55948/An-Archival
-Impulse. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026
García Manríquez, Hugo. Anti-Humboldt. Una lectura del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, Aldus / Litmus, 2014.
---. L C M N, Meldadora, 2018.
Genette, Gérard. Soglie. I dintorni del testo. Einaudi, 1989.
Goldsmith, Kenneth. Uncreative Writing. Columbia University Press, 2011.
Gordon, Avery. Cose di fantasmi. Derive e Approdi, 2022.
Guillén, Paul. “Espectropolítica e intervenciones a la ley en el Anti-Humboldt y la Iuspoética.” Carátula, 1 april, 2021, https://www.caratula.net/espectropolitica-e-intervenciones-a-la-ley-en-el-anti-humboldt-y-la-iuspoetica/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026.
Harrington, Joseph. “Docupoetry and Archive Desire.” Jacket2, 27 Oct. 2011, https://jacket2.org/article/docupoetry-and-archive-desire. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026
hooks, bell. Art on My Mind: Visual Politics. The New Press, 1995.
Huerta, Marco Antonio. “From legalese into nothingness. A review of Hugo García Manríquez’s Anti-Humboldt.” Jacket 2, 7 Sep. 2017, https://jacket2.org/reviews/legalese-nothingness. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026.
Klein, Paula. “Poéticas del archivo: el ‘giro documental’ en la narrativa rioplatense reciente.” Cuadernos LIRICO, no. 20, 2019, pp. 1-13.
Kohut, Karl. “El nuevo realismo: temas y conceptos.” América. Cahiers du CRICCAL, no. 24, 2000, pp. 9-21.
Ludmer, Josefina. “Literaturas postautónomas 2.0.” Propuesta Educativa 32, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 41-45.
Magaña GCantón, Isaac. “Contradiscurso del Anti-Humboldt al Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte.” Literatura Mexicana, vol. 31, no. 1, 2020, pp. 207-223.
Marazzi, Christian. Capitale & linguaggio: dalla new economy all’economia di guerra. Derive Approdi, 2002.
Mari, Lorenzo, and Gianluca Rizzo. “Poesia, prima persona plurale.” Le parole e le cose2, 24 Nov. 2022, https://www.leparoleelecose.it/?p=45566. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026.
---, editors. “Poesia, prima persona plurale/2: Charles Barnstein.” Le parole e le cose2, 15 Mar. 2023, https://www.leparoleelecose.it/?p=46357. Accessed 10 Jan 2026.
Moraña, Mabel. Políticas de la escritura en América Latina: de la colonia a la modernidad. Ediciones eXcultura, 1997.
Nash, Mark. “Reality in the Age of Aesthetics.” Frieze, no. 114, 2008, frieze.com/article/reality-age-aesthetics. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026.
Padilla, José Ignacio. “Imantaciones.” Laboratorio de escrituras, no. 13, 2015, https://laboratoriodeescrituras.udp.cl/imantaciones/. Accessed 10 Jan 2026.
Papademetriou, Demetrios, et. al. La promesa y la realidad del TLCAN: lecciones de México para el hemisferio. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003 https://carnegieendowment.org/2004/01/26/es-pub-1447. Accessed 21 Apr. 2026
Perloff, Marjorie. Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century. The University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Puyana, Alicia. “Del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte al Acuerdo México-Estados Unidos-Canadá. ¿Nuevo capítulo de la integración México-Estados Unidos?” El Trimestre Económico, vol. 87, no. 347, 2020, pp. 635–668.
Quintana, Cécile, and Sandra Coudassot-Ramírez. Ficción-no ficción del 68 en México. Ediciones y Gráficos Eón, 2019.
Rivera Garza, Cristina. Los muertos indóciles. Necroescrituras y desapropiación.Tusquets, 2013.
---. Escrituras geológicas. Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2022.
Rodríguez-Luis, Julio. El enfoque documental en la narrativa hispanoamericana: estudio taxonómico. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1997.
Rouquié, Alain. “México y el TLCAN, veinte años después.” Foro internacional, vol. 55, no. 2, 2015, pp. 433-453.
Segade, Laura. “El giro documental en algunas producciones literarias y cinematográficas de hijos de desaparecidos en Argentina.” Cuadernos de Literatura, vol. 22, no. 44, 2018, pp. 77-100.
Shields, David. Reality hunger: a manifesto. Knopf, 2010.
Victor, Dyvia. “Miscreants & Miscreative writing: On Hugo García Manríquez’s Anti-Humboldt.” Poetry Foundation, 28 Apr. 2014, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/featured-blogger/70356/miscreants-miscreative-writing-on-hugo-garcia-manriquezs-anti-humboldt-. Accessed 10 Jan. 2026.
Zavala, Oswaldo. Los cárteles no existen. Narcotráfico y cultura en México. Malpaso, 2018.
Zurita, Raúl. Purgatorio. Editorial Universitaria, 1979.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Questa opera è pubblicata sotto 