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The White LegendEdmundo O’Gorman, Hemispheric Studies, and the Paradigm of New World Exceptionalism

The White LegendEdmundo O’Gorman, Hemispheric Studies, and the Paradigm of New World Exceptionalism This position paper offers a reflection on Edmundo O’Gorman’s seminal La invención de América as a critique of the New World exceptionalism underwriting much of twentieth-century hemispheric American studies. It suggests that the paradigm of New World exceptionalism emerges, as a state of exception, from the modern Western (Protestant) idea that America was discovered by Europeans in the fifteenth century, or that America was ever “discovered” by anyone at all. This exceptionalist paradigm of discovery can be understood in terms of a “White Legend” that structurally depends on the idea of the “Black Legend” of the Spanish conquest, for, contrary to conventional wisdom, it was the conquest of America (not its “discovery”) that legitimated the modern idea of discovery in international law and science. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png English Language Notes Duke University Press

The White LegendEdmundo O’Gorman, Hemispheric Studies, and the Paradigm of New World Exceptionalism

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Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Regents of the University of Colorado
ISSN
0013-8282
eISSN
2573-3575
DOI
10.1215/00138282-6960735
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This position paper offers a reflection on Edmundo O’Gorman’s seminal La invención de América as a critique of the New World exceptionalism underwriting much of twentieth-century hemispheric American studies. It suggests that the paradigm of New World exceptionalism emerges, as a state of exception, from the modern Western (Protestant) idea that America was discovered by Europeans in the fifteenth century, or that America was ever “discovered” by anyone at all. This exceptionalist paradigm of discovery can be understood in terms of a “White Legend” that structurally depends on the idea of the “Black Legend” of the Spanish conquest, for, contrary to conventional wisdom, it was the conquest of America (not its “discovery”) that legitimated the modern idea of discovery in international law and science.

Journal

English Language Notes – Duke University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2018

References

  • Colonial Discourse and Early American Literary History: Ercilla, the Inca Garcilaso, and Joel Barlow’s Conception of a New World Epic
    Bauer, Ralph
  • Philosophy in Latin America in the Twentieth Century: Problems and Currents
    Dussel, Enrique Mendieta, Eduardo
  • Introduction
    Fleming, James Dougal Fleming, James Dougal
  • The Term ‘Anthropocene’ in the Context of Formal Geological Classification
    Gibbard, P. L. Walker, M. J. C.
  • Do the Americas Have a Common History?
    O’Gorman, Edmundo Hanke, Lewis
  • Colonial Discourse and Early American Literary History: Ercilla, the Inca Garcilaso, and Joel Barlow’s Conception of a New World Epic
    Bauer, Ralph
  • Philosophy in Latin America in the Twentieth Century: Problems and Currents
    Dussel, Enrique Mendieta, Eduardo
  • Introduction
    Fleming, James Dougal Fleming, James Dougal
  • The Term ‘Anthropocene’ in the Context of Formal Geological Classification
    Gibbard, P. L. Walker, M. J. C.
  • Do the Americas Have a Common History?
    O’Gorman, Edmundo Hanke, Lewis