Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion, 2018
This study examines how biographical narratives mediate our understanding of Las Casas, leaving u... more This study examines how biographical narratives mediate our understanding of Las Casas, leaving us a monumental humanitarian figure that is built upon the narratives of nameless suffering others. This is a pattern present in humanitarian narratives that affirms pastoral politics rather than equal human rights. An ethical aperture is identified in narratives where the writing subject is responding to the demands of the suffering other. It is argued that Las Casas’ life-long writings undergoes a critical transformation, from the external narrator of the early memoriales to the later texts, where the writer reflects on his own mortality when considering the lives of vulnerable others, resulting in an ethical response that goes beyond the will of the self-fashioned humanist writer. The first part of the essay examines two recent biographies of Las Casas, Bernard Lavallé’s Bartolomé de las Casas: Entre la espada y la cruz (2009) and Lawrence Clayton’s Bartolome de Las Casas: A Biography (2012). In the second part, the transformations of the narrator are traced in Las Casas texts, from the early memoriales to the later texts. In general, it examines the differences between humanism, humanitarianism and human rights.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Molina: The World’s Window on
Chile. New York: Peter Lang. 2002.
318 pp.
ORGANIZADO POR LOS PROFESORES JUAN VITULLI Y CARLOS JAUREGUI
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville
April 11-13
https://act.mla.org/crm?page=CiviCRM&q=civicrm%2Fmailing%2Fview&reset=1&id=257d8a112df26b98
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7FFJCBB