‘HIGH-SPEED ENLIGHTENMENT’

Drawing upon studies of media history and print culture, this article analyzes the relationship among early-nineteenth-century Latin American periodicals, literary institutions, and new experiences of time and history. Framing these periodicals as a new medium which boomed during and immediately after the wars of independence, it underscores their impact upon forms of reading and writing, as well as their importance for concurrent and later debates on the norms governing literary institutions, including the status and definition of literature. Ultimately, this new medium gave rise not only to a new prose—which was described as accelerated and therefore ‘modern’—but also to new forms of discursive authority and to an unprecedented legitimacy for literary genres such as the novel. As such, this article departs from the nation-building paradigms that have governed studies of the Latin American nineteenth century, establishing instead a dialog between periodicals of the whole region, with an emphasis on Cuba, Chile, and the Río de la Plata.