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Guardians of Discourse

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Kevin M. Anzzolin analyzes the role and representation of journalism in literary texts from Porfirian Mexico to argue that these writings created a literate, objective, refined, and informed public.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 9, 2024

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This video video is a discussion about the historical and cultural context of journalism in Mexico during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz, who ruled as both president and dictator for 31 years. The speaker reflects on personal motivations, the evolution of public discourse, and the significant role that the press played during this tumultuous period leading up to the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

Key points include:
- The speaker's background in Chicago, a Mexican-centric city, influences their perspective on Mexican studies.
- The decline of traditional newspapers coincides with a shift towards a new public sphere.
- Díaz is depicted as a controversial figure—an authoritarian leader characterized as a villain in Mexican history. His regime is marked by suppression of dissent, yet it also saw a flourishing of journalism that contributed to a unique public discourse.
- Journalism of this era is analyzed through various novels which reflect societal issues, and portrayals of journalists as both beneficial and problematic.
- The challenges journalists faced, including censorship and imprisonment, are contrasted with modern-day risks, emphasizing that while the nature of threats has evolved, the dangers of doing journalism in Mexico remain significant.
- This video video also explores how literary analysis intertwined with historical contexts enhances our understanding of this period and advocates for further exploration of archival resources.

Overall, the piece highlights the complexities of Díaz's rule, the interplay between journalism and power, and the importance of reconsidering how history is represented in literature.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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I suppose a lot of things motivated this

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both personal and academic.

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Um, for me, someone growing up in, Chicago, we know

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that Chicago is very much,

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a Mexican centric city at this current time, one out

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of five people in Mexico identify as Mexican.

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Um, I suppose, I came of age

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during a time when newspapers were in a certain

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sense, dying.

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Um, and we saw kind of, a new type of public sphere.

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Um, finally, I would suggest that this is very much,

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an academic, point, a very kind

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of enigmatic moment.

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Um, when we look out at, say, the study of Mexico,

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if we travel in Mexico, a lot of times

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the moment I study in Mexico is very much, something

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that's not talked about or talked about in a different way.

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Um, of course, the kind of the one of the, the,

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the kind of period that I deal with, the por fiato,

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we have por fidi as president, in Mexico.

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Um, he's a president slash dictator

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and he's in power for, about 31 years.

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Uh, he is oftentimes the, the villain,

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during the history of Mexico,

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his remains are still in Paris.

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He has not, his remains have not been brought back

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to Mexico, because of what happened afterwards.

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We have, of course, the Mexican Revolution of 1910,

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really begins kind of in 1911.

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Um, and so that was kind of an enigma for me.

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What is this point in Mexico? What is this?

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Who is this person? What was Mexico like during his period?

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Um, we have also kind of a, a, a, a kind of growth, a kind

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of, moment of, of, of great,

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really, a flowering of journalism

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during the time in Mexico, really takes around,

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takes place around all the world.

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Um, in a certain sense.

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Uh, we have the William Randolph Hearst in the world.

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Uh, we have of course, the Penny press

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that grows all in all parts of the world.

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Mexico is not different in that sense either.

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Um, but it's something that hadn't been studied really from

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with the novels that I studied really,

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at the moment I'd studied.

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Um, and finally thinking about,

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just our common knowledge of, of, of

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what these texts, are doing.

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Um, certainly I would say that these novels, the novels

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that form part of Guardians of Discourse are not,

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the most known texts.

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And so it was a lot of archive.

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It was a lot of exploring, letting my mind wander,

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and always digging through newspapers, constantly digging

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through newspapers to see what are they talking about?

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What are the kind of, how are they trying to,

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to talk about this thing that is the press,

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and this moment that we're living, that they were living in,

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which the press suddenly begins

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to grow. And, and, and people

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Start reading. And

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there's such a thing as, a public sphere.

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Research brought me everywhere. It began in a small way,

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of course, in Chicago, where I did my graduate studies in,

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the library.

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The library is still one of the best in the world,

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of course, at that time.

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And still, I would say that again, the University

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of Chicago is, we'll say a, a hotbed

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for people dealing with, with Mexico.

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And that has to do with, again, the demographics

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of the city,

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but also about who the scholars are there, scholars

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that are far more prolific and,

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and far more brilliant than I am.

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Um, people like Mauricio Tenorio, people like Emilio Kuri.

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Um, it's really a, a kind of hub

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for these types of considerations.

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It began in small ways, thinking about the press,

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getting my hands a bit dirty.

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Um, you know, we had, you mentioned this,

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what, what is a newspaper?

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And that's very true. At that time, there was such a thing

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as a, as a microfilm machine with these old,

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you put in the reel

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and you'd go through the, the newspaper.

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Um, that moment is changing.

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Um, and so those machines are, are strangely disappearing.

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It began, of course, with that.

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And then finally, those types of machines would finally kind

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of take me to, to Mexico, to Mexico City, Oaxaca, of course,

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in the case of Mexico,

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because of the interesting, unique history of, of, of kind

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of state formation or, or,

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or nationhood, because of money.

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Uh, we see that the archive also flows with money.

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And so many of the things are found in, in, in Mexico City,

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in various archives.

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For me, it's a city built on archives in a certain sense.

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Um, they're always going

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through new papers that they're finding.

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Um, it's, it's really incredible.

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It's, it's, for me, it's a treat just flipping

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through old newspapers and, and finding something new.

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Um, so in a real sense, everywhere, Oaxaca,

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Mexico City, there's interesting things online

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that are being digitized.

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Uh, what's the rub there?

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The, the rub there is, of course, who's going to fund these,

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these, this digitization process for these old newspapers.

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Um, in a real sense, we live in a moment where there

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we can see that, that, that there may be no,

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no more secrets left.

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At the same time, we keep thinking about these secrets,

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those become more appealing to us.

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Um, and finally, as a, as a, as a final comment, you know,

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during my first years of writing this,

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Google Books was different.

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Um, Google Books had uploaded a lot of different sources.

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Who knows what the apparatus was behind this?

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Who knows what the mechanism was behind this.

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But a lot of those sources have since disappeared.

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Um, but it's, it's, it's a bouncing ball.

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And I think we need to task ourselves to think about

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what are the unknowns?

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What does the archive give us?

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And, and, and what are some of the gaps that, that,

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that we would like to fill?

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It's 30 years under Diaz.

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I, I hope that my guardians of discourse is not,

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an apology for his presidency slash dictatorship.

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He was a military man, a general who, rose

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through the ranks in, in, from Oaxaca from the south

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of Mexico, and made his name,

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during some very big battles in the case of Mexico,

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still to this day, again,

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because of what came afterwards, the revolution of 1910,

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he still thought of as a villain.

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Um, and again, his remains still are at rest in,

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I think it's mon Parnas, cemetery in Paris.

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Um, but oftentimes he's been categorized, at least at

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that first moment when we see a kind of cultural revolution,

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a real revolution, but also a cultural revolution.

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At the beginning of the, the, the 20th century, when the,

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the pre what is known as the, the,

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the parti revolutionary institutionally

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in Mexico really kind of consolidates.

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Um, their job is kind of to cast Diaz as this, this kind

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of dark moment, this, this, this dictator.

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He is the man at the helm at this time.

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He changed the constitution so he can be elected again.

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Um, he would be what is kind of thought of as a,

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a liberal dictator.

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Um, and in his, under his government,

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people are being locked.

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Journalists are being locked up. Is it directly tied to him?

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Not exactly. Um, you know,

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a small journalist publishes something that is unfavorable

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to a local politician.

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The local politician may talk to a local deputy,

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a local law enforcement agent,

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and suddenly said, journalist is, is in jail.

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Um, what really is transformed in the press in Mexico

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is that under Diaz, Diaz

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and his government of technocrats are able

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to funnel money into one single major newspaper Ill

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and Parial the impartial, which was anything

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but impartial a certain sense.

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But it had another moment for newspapers.

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It had another, it created another moment

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for journalism when you would have informative articles

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rather than politically driven articles.

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The idea was to maintain Diaz in power

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and remain a, maintain a certain sense of, of peace.

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And so people have often talked about the, the pucks por

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and all this moment where, he does rise to power

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with a group of lettered, elite lettered class,

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certainly with the help of, of the military.

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And the question that remains during his whole reign is

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what will happen afterwards.

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We can all agree about this one,

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guy at the helm, but he's getting old.

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He's gonna be 80 years old,

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and he eventually died at the age of 80, again,

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in Paris having, fled the country,

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having seen the pyramids of, of Egypt.

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Um, he spends the,

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His last days in exile.

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And so for me as a writer, it was thinking about,

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how do I give, you know, this, this, this,

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this moment in history takes his name.

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How do I make the book about this moment,

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but also not make it about him?

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And so, it's about those who are

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crafting the Mexican nation state, via their novels,

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via their newspapers, via their, lithographs.

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Um, and in a certain sense, I would say,

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supporting his government.

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During this time, we have, a, a kind of, group

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of kind of bohemian, gentlemen who are thinking about

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what does a nation state need.

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Um, one of the things a nation state needs are,

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are good institutions, organizations, a strong economy.

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Uh, and the kind of figures that I'm looking at, the,

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and their novels primarily are about what journalist

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and journalism should look like,

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what the press should look like, what the idea

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of a public sphere should look like.

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Um, and so, strangely enough, they start going

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through different types of scenarios with these characters

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and with these, these representations of journalists.

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And so, some types of journalism is cast

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as unhygienic.

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Uh, some types of journalists are cast as,

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lascivious, kind of sex crazy,

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you know, du Wells.

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Um, sometimes,

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it has been many of my books.

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We have a, a a question about what is the role of women?

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Um, what types of readerly habits should women have?

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What types of novels should, women not read?

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What types should they read?

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Oftentimes these novels are about fallen women, women

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who, effectively hook up with the wrong type

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of journalists, the type of journalists

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who are writing sensational or rag sheet papers.

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Um, so there's, you know, it really begins for me,

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with, Amelia Reba's text Labola

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After that, he, there's, there's an attempt to kind

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of recreate this text in different types

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of iterations throughout the por fiato, to try

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to create this sense of what,

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what journalists are, what they aren't.

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Um, and finally, with that final chapter, we see how

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that kind of falls off the rails.

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We have a moment where,

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por di there's an attempt on porphyria diaz's life

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during a parade, and suddenly the main publication

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of the day, the main newspaper of the day,

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that is subsidized heavily by the via the government,

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has to, it, it's suspected

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that they're covering something up. They're

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Covering something up maybe within the government about

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who attempted to assassinate Diaz.

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Um, it's not exactly certain exactly who

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promulgated the attack on Diaz,

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but it is, it, it does involve journalism in a real way,

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because you always have to spin the story.

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Um, and so that finally comes acro, that kind of falls

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we see kind of like the machinations

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of power fall apart at the end of,

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of guardians of, of discourse.

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But these are unexplored texts.

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Um, the texts take us to very different places

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around Mexico, city, city.

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We go to brothels.

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We go to kind of the dirty, swampy parts

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of the city where the lower class live.

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We go to the local markets where people,

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buy their tobacco and their sweetss.

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Um, we have discussions of, of race even,

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and how that plays into the life world of the por fiato.

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And so it really kind of, these novels take us to, to kind

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of, they provide a, a kind of modern day kind of map of

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what Mexico City was like during this moment in time.

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Delgado is great. Um, you know, they're, they,

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they all mean so much to me.

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With, with, with Delgado was an interesting guy.

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He was, to my mind, he was a bit more,

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conservative minded than a lot of the other type

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of liberal figures during, his moment.

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He writes this story,

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called La La Calandria, which, is a fun word in Spanish

13:33.025 --> 13:36.105
because La Calandria, as I suggest in my book,

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means not only a a type of carriage,

13:40.245 --> 13:42.465
but also it's a lark.

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It's a lark. And so, basically the, the,

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the story's about a, a, a, a female character who again,

13:50.905 --> 13:54.905
gets, gets, he falls in love with all these kind of,

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swarthy, lascivious, rabbel rousing,

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this kind of underworld of journalism.

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And she gets very enamored with this,

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and she eventually gives herself over to,

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this bad lot of of folks.

14:12.405 --> 14:13.985
Uh, and the story is about her,

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ultimately about her, her downfall.

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She ends up in, I believe, a convent, where she has to,

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of course, repent for her,

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her wrong ways.

14:26.605 --> 14:30.065
Um, but again, that's kind of the, the, the fear.

14:30.485 --> 14:33.345
And that's kind of the, the, the purpose of these guardians

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of discourse to kind of create an image of

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what journalism could be, what the press should be,

14:39.965 --> 14:44.705
and at times, give, give warnings to those,

14:45.125 --> 14:47.905
who the Ians would deem,

14:49.295 --> 14:50.835
susceptible. Um,

14:51.185 --> 14:53.245
And that's an unpleasant thought in our world, obviously,

14:53.245 --> 14:56.165
but they would deem, female readers

14:56.185 --> 14:58.165
as completely susceptible.

14:58.305 --> 15:01.525
Um, that's to say that, that they're really a danger, women,

15:02.005 --> 15:03.605
children, but also everyday folk.

15:04.045 --> 15:07.325
Everyday folk also need to be told what, reading,

15:07.475 --> 15:09.045
what the creation of a public sphere,

15:09.235 --> 15:12.965
what talking in public, should be, should be like.

15:13.585 --> 15:16.245
Um, but absolutely, like Calandria.

15:16.385 --> 15:19.325
Of course, the main metaphor then is not that, that,

15:19.325 --> 15:20.925
that she's, she sings beautifully.

15:20.975 --> 15:23.445
She's a lark. She's of course this, this,

15:23.595 --> 15:25.645
this beautiful woman, but at the same time,

15:25.645 --> 15:28.245
she's like the calandria that is the, say a carriage.

15:28.545 --> 15:29.685
She wants to continue.

15:29.745 --> 15:31.565
She wants to progress in life socially.

15:31.625 --> 15:35.125
She wants to, improve her lot

15:35.745 --> 15:39.045
via these journalists, but ultimately ends up badly for her.

15:39.105 --> 15:40.365
So it's a story about movement.

15:40.545 --> 15:43.245
We see her change during over time, thinking

15:43.245 --> 15:46.125
that she can again, move up in the social world,

15:46.665 --> 15:48.765
but ultimately failing miserably.

15:49.245 --> 15:50.725
I imagine we need to remember

15:50.725 --> 15:52.765
that the reading world was so small.

15:53.225 --> 15:55.845
Um, and that's part of the purpose of these books too.

15:56.345 --> 15:58.605
How do we get someone else to listen to me?

15:58.665 --> 16:02.445
And they oftentimes call each other out, almost by name

16:02.745 --> 16:05.925
and kind of they wink at each other at this time,

16:06.145 --> 16:09.285
via certain, illusions in the text.

16:10.025 --> 16:14.805
Um, oftentimes these gentleman writers would have,

16:15.945 --> 16:17.805
pen names that they would use.

16:18.065 --> 16:20.645
And so you would either be in the know or not in the know.

16:21.355 --> 16:22.805
Very different in that sense.

16:23.085 --> 16:25.805
I would say that, you know, if we think about parallels

16:25.805 --> 16:29.885
between now and the poor fto, I would say that the place

16:29.885 --> 16:32.165
of journalism is still very contentious, right?

16:32.305 --> 16:35.645
We have, you know, even today,

16:35.645 --> 16:39.495
Mexico is a very dangerous place to do journalism,

16:39.495 --> 16:43.175
perhaps more dangerous than it was during the por fto.

16:43.595 --> 16:46.885
Um, but today it looks very different in the sense

16:46.885 --> 16:51.215
that you publish something, you send out a, a tweet,

16:51.395 --> 16:53.695
and suddenly it can go all across the world.

16:54.125 --> 16:55.775
That wasn't the world that they were living in.

16:55.775 --> 16:58.935
There's a scarcity of paper. There's no funds.

16:59.525 --> 17:04.495
Only say 40% of Mexico City is literate by the end of the,

17:05.695 --> 17:09.375
I would say that if we look at all of Mexico, perhaps 10%

17:09.375 --> 17:11.495
of the population could, could read, right?

17:11.715 --> 17:14.375
And so, again, part of the purpose of these,

17:14.375 --> 17:15.495
gentlemen writers, is

17:15.495 --> 17:17.575
to create this public wink at each other.

17:18.155 --> 17:20.615
Oh, did you know that? So-and-so is going

17:20.675 --> 17:21.895
by this pen name now.

17:22.315 --> 17:25.495
Oh, you don't know that they're going by this pen name now.

17:25.955 --> 17:29.335
Um, it's a bit of a secret society, again, with the idea

17:29.355 --> 17:30.815
of who's listening to me.

17:30.995 --> 17:32.935
Is someone listening to me? Who am I writing for?

17:33.355 --> 17:35.015
Is someone going to respond if I write?

17:35.595 --> 17:38.855
Um, and so it, in that sense, it's, it,

17:38.995 --> 17:40.175
it feels very different,

17:40.195 --> 17:43.175
and it's even hard to imagine, that world.

17:43.195 --> 17:45.015
And that's, that was part of the magic for me as I,

17:45.015 --> 17:46.735
as I explored these things.

17:47.055 --> 17:48.815
I hope they take from this, that,

17:49.265 --> 17:52.245
Uh, the porphyria, this moment in Mexico, his,

17:52.305 --> 17:56.045
the Mexican history, has a lot more to offer us.

17:56.245 --> 17:58.925
I hope that they take with, with them that,

18:00.605 --> 18:04.655
that good literary analysis also has a, a, a decent touch

18:04.715 --> 18:06.415
of history involved.

18:07.075 --> 18:09.535
Um, and that we need to return to the archive, I think,

18:09.535 --> 18:10.655
as a kind of methodology.

18:11.235 --> 18:14.735
Um, I really appreciate that about my, my book, the kind

18:14.735 --> 18:18.215
of archival research that I've done in terms of,

18:19.035 --> 18:23.215
you know, a message, obviously, you know,

18:23.215 --> 18:25.335
free speech is, is still an issue today.

18:25.965 --> 18:29.815
Obviously, journalists still live under certain,

18:29.995 --> 18:31.775
di certain face dire straits,

18:31.775 --> 18:33.495
certainly in Mexico and beyond.

18:34.155 --> 18:37.095
Um, and different moments dealt with this differently.

18:37.865 --> 18:40.415
Maybe the al dealt with this in a certain sense better.

18:40.795 --> 18:42.215
Um, that's to say that today,

18:43.455 --> 18:46.095
although it's quite sobering, we know of cases

18:46.185 --> 18:49.975
where many journalists end up, murdered,

18:49.995 --> 18:51.815
during the por fiato was a bit different.

18:51.815 --> 18:53.415
Journalists would end up in jail.

18:53.915 --> 18:56.095
Uh, certainly it wasn't a fun place to be.

18:56.555 --> 19:00.615
Uh, were they murdered? I we can't see any cases of that.

19:01.235 --> 19:04.495
Um, were there duals between journalists? Absolutely.

19:04.675 --> 19:06.535
Um, and this has been studied by other people,

19:06.555 --> 19:09.735
and also is, is a decent section of, of my book, the,

19:09.795 --> 19:12.455
the kind of the sword fighting that would take place when,

19:12.455 --> 19:15.935
when journalists, effectively disagreed

19:15.935 --> 19:17.655
with each other on, across the printed page

19:18.155 --> 19:21.055
and had to finally dual it out on,

19:21.315 --> 19:23.415
in a cemetery at the break of dawn.

19:23.605 --> 19:26.975
Very, very strange. Very, very different than our moment.

19:28.175 --> 19:30.495
I would say the Ians never believed that

19:31.135 --> 19:32.175
a type of public sphere.

19:32.235 --> 19:34.575
That's to say that if we think about a public sphere being a

19:34.575 --> 19:35.975
place where people can talk about things

19:36.705 --> 19:37.895
apart from the government

19:37.995 --> 19:41.695
and then, input their ideas into the government,

19:41.725 --> 19:43.655
they never believed that those worlds needed

19:43.655 --> 19:44.895
to be exactly separate.

19:45.555 --> 19:48.415
Um, that's to say that the financialization,

19:48.795 --> 19:53.495
the subsidization of journalism needed to happen

19:53.495 --> 19:54.775
during the phyto

19:55.195 --> 19:58.655
and in the case of at least America, it has been suggested

19:58.855 --> 20:03.775
that maybe the Federalists, maybe people like, you know,

20:03.785 --> 20:07.335
James Madison, the founding fathers, maybe they also believe

20:07.335 --> 20:10.255
that there didn't need to be such a clear distinction

20:10.255 --> 20:13.935
between, funding for an act of press

20:14.755 --> 20:18.975
and, what is talked about in the press.

20:19.395 --> 20:21.095
And maybe that's not about propaganda.

20:21.095 --> 20:23.855
Maybe you can have a scenario in which journalism

20:24.705 --> 20:26.575
think about the crisis of journalism today.

20:26.605 --> 20:29.815
Journalists can be, funded by the state,

20:30.555 --> 20:32.135
can be given this helping hand by the state,

20:32.355 --> 20:34.135
but also that also remains,

20:34.135 --> 20:37.055
that also preserves a type of freedom of speech.

20:37.155 --> 20:38.895
And so that's a kind of interesting scenario.

20:39.005 --> 20:42.215
It's an interesting solution to a problem that we still,

20:42.675 --> 20:43.895
are living in a certain sense.

Exploring Journalism and Identity in Mexico

00:00:00 - I suppose a lot of things motivated this both personal and academic. for me, someone growing up in, Chicago, we know that Chicago is very much, a Mexican centric city at this current time, one out of five people in Mexico identify as Mexican. I suppose, I came of age during a time when newspapers were in a certain sense, dying. and we saw kind of, a new type of public sphere.
00:00:34 - an academic, point, a very kind of enigmatic moment. when we look out at, say, the study of Mexico, if we travel in Mexico, a lot of times the moment I study in Mexico is very much, something that's not talked about or talked about in a different way. of course, the kind of the one of the, the, the kind of period that I deal with, the por fiato,
00:01:05 - he's a president slash dictator and he's in power for, about 31 years. he is oftentimes the, the villain, during the history of Mexico, his remains are still in Paris. He has not, his remains have not been brought back to Mexico, because of what happened afterwards. We have, of course, the Mexican Revolution of 1910, really begins kind of in 1911. and so that was kind of an enigma for me.
00:01:35 - Who is this person? What was Mexico like during his period? we have also kind of a, a, a, a kind of growth, a kind of, moment of, of, of great, really, a flowering of journalism during the time in Mexico, really takes around, takes place around all the world. in a certain sense. we have the William Randolph Hearst in the world.
00:02:05 - that grows all in all parts of the world. Mexico is not different in that sense either. but it's something that hadn't been studied really from with the novels that I studied really, at the moment I'd studied. and finally thinking about, just our common knowledge of, of, of what these texts, are doing. certainly I would say that these novels, the novels that form part of Guardians of Discourse are not,
00:02:35 - And so it was a lot of archive. It was a lot of exploring, letting my mind wander, and always digging through newspapers, constantly digging through newspapers to see what are they talking about? What are the kind of, how are they trying to, to talk about this thing that is the press, and this moment that we're living, that they were living in, which the press suddenly begins to grow. And, and, and people Start reading. And there's such a thing as, a public sphere.

Exploring Archives: Mexico and Journalism History

00:03:06 - of course, in Chicago, where I did my graduate studies in, the library. The library is still one of the best in the world, of course, at that time. And still, I would say that again, the University of Chicago is, we'll say a, a hotbed for people dealing with, with Mexico. And that has to do with, again, the demographics of the city, but also about who the scholars are there, scholars that are far more prolific and, and far more brilliant than I am. people like Mauricio Tenorio, people like Emilio Kuri.
00:03:39 - for these types of considerations. It began in small ways, thinking about the press, getting my hands a bit dirty. you know, we had, you mentioned this, what, what is a newspaper? And that's very true. At that time, there was such a thing as a, as a microfilm machine with these old, you put in the reel and you'd go through the, the newspaper. that moment is changing. and so those machines are, are strangely disappearing.
00:04:10 - And then finally, those types of machines would finally kind of take me to, to Mexico, to Mexico City, Oaxaca, of course, in the case of Mexico, because of the interesting, unique history of, of, of kind of state formation or, or, or nationhood, because of money. we see that the archive also flows with money. And so many of the things are found in, in, in Mexico City, in various archives. For me, it's a city built on archives in a certain sense.
00:04:41 - through new papers that they're finding. it's, it's really incredible. It's, it's, for me, it's a treat just flipping through old newspapers and, and finding something new. so in a real sense, everywhere, Oaxaca, Mexico City, there's interesting things online that are being digitized. what's the rub there? The, the rub there is, of course, who's going to fund these, these, this digitization process for these old newspapers.
00:05:13 - we can see that, that, that there may be no, no more secrets left. At the same time, we keep thinking about these secrets, those become more appealing to us. and finally, as a, as a, as a final comment, you know, during my first years of writing this, Google Books was different. Google Books had uploaded a lot of different sources. Who knows what the apparatus was behind this? Who knows what the mechanism was behind this.
00:05:42 - but it's, it's, it's a bouncing ball. And I think we need to task ourselves to think about what are the unknowns? What does the archive give us? And, and, and what are some of the gaps that, that, that we would like to fill? It's 30 years under Diaz. I, I hope that my guardians of discourse is not, an apology for his presidency slash dictatorship. He was a military man, a general who, rose through the ranks in, in, from Oaxaca from the south of Mexico, and made his name,

Porfirio Díaz: Legacy of a Controversial Dictator

00:06:16 - still to this day, again, because of what came afterwards, the revolution of 1910, he still thought of as a villain. and again, his remains still are at rest in, I think it's mon Parnas, cemetery in Paris. but oftentimes he's been categorized, at least at that first moment when we see a kind of cultural revolution, a real revolution, but also a cultural revolution.
00:06:44 - the pre what is known as the, the, the parti revolutionary institutionally in Mexico really kind of consolidates. their job is kind of to cast Diaz as this, this kind of dark moment, this, this, this dictator. He is the man at the helm at this time. He changed the constitution so he can be elected again. he would be what is kind of thought of as a, a liberal dictator. and in his, under his government,
00:07:16 - Journalists are being locked up. Is it directly tied to him? Not exactly. you know, a small journalist publishes something that is unfavorable to a local politician. The local politician may talk to a local deputy, a local law enforcement agent, and suddenly said, journalist is, is in jail. what really is transformed in the press in Mexico is that under Diaz, Diaz
00:07:50 - to funnel money into one single major newspaper Ill and Parial the impartial, which was anything but impartial a certain sense. But it had another moment for newspapers. It had another, it created another moment for journalism when you would have informative articles rather than politically driven articles. The idea was to maintain Diaz in power and remain a, maintain a certain sense of, of peace. And so people have often talked about the, the pucks por
00:08:23 - with a group of lettered, elite lettered class, certainly with the help of, of the military. And the question that remains during his whole reign is what will happen afterwards. We can all agree about this one, guy at the helm, but he's getting old. He's gonna be 80 years old, and he eventually died at the age of 80, again, in Paris having, fled the country,
00:08:53 - he spends the, His last days in exile. And so for me as a writer, it was thinking about, how do I give, you know, this, this, this, this moment in history takes his name. How do I make the book about this moment, but also not make it about him? And so, it's about those who are crafting the Mexican nation state, via their novels, via their newspapers, via their, lithographs.

Journalism's Role in Nation-State Formation

00:09:25 - supporting his government. During this time, we have, a, a kind of, group of kind of bohemian, gentlemen who are thinking about what does a nation state need. one of the things a nation state needs are, are good institutions, organizations, a strong economy. and the kind of figures that I'm looking at, the, and their novels primarily are about what journalist and journalism should look like,
00:09:56 - of a public sphere should look like. and so, strangely enough, they start going through different types of scenarios with these characters and with these, these representations of journalists. And so, some types of journalism is cast as unhygienic. some types of journalists are cast as, lascivious, kind of sex crazy,
00:10:29 - sometimes, it has been many of my books. We have a, a a question about what is the role of women? what types of readerly habits should women have? What types of novels should, women not read? What types should they read? Oftentimes these novels are about fallen women, women who, effectively hook up with the wrong type
00:10:58 - who are writing sensational or rag sheet papers. so there's, you know, it really begins for me, with, Amelia Reba's text Labola After that, he, there's, there's an attempt to kind of recreate this text in different types of iterations throughout the por fiato, to try to create this sense of what, what journalists are, what they aren't. and finally, with that final chapter, we see how
00:11:30 - We have a moment where, por di there's an attempt on porphyria diaz's life during a parade, and suddenly the main publication of the day, the main newspaper of the day, that is subsidized heavily by the via the government, has to, it, it's suspected that they're covering something up. They're Covering something up maybe within the government about who attempted to assassinate Diaz.
00:12:05 - promulgated the attack on Diaz, but it is, it, it does involve journalism in a real way, because you always have to spin the story. and so that finally comes acro, that kind of falls we see kind of like the machinations of power fall apart at the end of, of guardians of, of discourse. But these are unexplored texts. the texts take us to very different places

Exploring Class and Gender in Literature

00:12:31 - We go to brothels. We go to kind of the dirty, swampy parts of the city where the lower class live. We go to the local markets where people, buy their tobacco and their sweetss. we have discussions of, of race even, and how that plays into the life world of the por fiato. And so it really kind of, these novels take us to, to kind of, they provide a, a kind of modern day kind of map of
00:13:08 - Delgado is great. you know, they're, they, they all mean so much to me. With, with, with Delgado was an interesting guy. He was, to my mind, he was a bit more, conservative minded than a lot of the other type of liberal figures during, his moment. He writes this story, called La La Calandria, which, is a fun word in Spanish because La Calandria, as I suggest in my book,
00:13:40 - but also it's a lark. It's a lark. And so, basically the, the, the story's about a, a, a, a female character who again, gets, gets, he falls in love with all these kind of, swarthy, lascivious, rabbel rousing, this kind of underworld of journalism. And she gets very enamored with this, and she eventually gives herself over to,
00:14:12 - and the story is about her, ultimately about her, her downfall. She ends up in, I believe, a convent, where she has to, of course, repent for her, her wrong ways. but again, that's kind of the, the, the fear. And that's kind of the, the, the purpose of these guardians of discourse to kind of create an image of what journalism could be, what the press should be,
00:14:45 - who the Ians would deem, susceptible. And that's an unpleasant thought in our world, obviously, but they would deem, female readers as completely susceptible. that's to say that, that they're really a danger, women, children, but also everyday folk. Everyday folk also need to be told what, reading, what the creation of a public sphere, what talking in public, should be, should be like.
00:15:16 - Of course, the main metaphor then is not that, that, that she's, she sings beautifully. She's a lark. She's of course this, this, this beautiful woman, but at the same time, she's like the calandria that is the, say a carriage. She wants to continue. She wants to progress in life socially. She wants to, improve her lot via these journalists, but ultimately ends up badly for her. So it's a story about movement. We see her change during over time, thinking that she can again, move up in the social world,

Echoes of Journalism: Then and Now

00:15:49 - I imagine we need to remember that the reading world was so small. and that's part of the purpose of these books too. How do we get someone else to listen to me? And they oftentimes call each other out, almost by name and kind of they wink at each other at this time, via certain, illusions in the text. oftentimes these gentleman writers would have, pen names that they would use.
00:16:21 - Very different in that sense. I would say that, you know, if we think about parallels between now and the poor fto, I would say that the place of journalism is still very contentious, right? We have, you know, even today, Mexico is a very dangerous place to do journalism, perhaps more dangerous than it was during the por fto. but today it looks very different in the sense that you publish something, you send out a, a tweet,
00:16:54 - That wasn't the world that they were living in. There's a scarcity of paper. There's no funds. Only say 40% of Mexico City is literate by the end of the, I would say that if we look at all of Mexico, perhaps 10% of the population could, could read, right? And so, again, part of the purpose of these, gentlemen writers, is to create this public wink at each other. did you know that? So-and-so is going by this pen name now.
00:17:25 - it's a bit of a secret society, again, with the idea of who's listening to me. Is someone listening to me? Who am I writing for? Is someone going to respond if I write? and so it, in that sense, it's, it, it feels very different, and it's even hard to imagine, that world. And that's, that was part of the magic for me as I, as I explored these things. I hope they take from this, that, the porphyria, this moment in Mexico, his, the Mexican history, has a lot more to offer us.
00:18:00 - that good literary analysis also has a, a, a decent touch of history involved. and that we need to return to the archive, I think, as a kind of methodology. I really appreciate that about my, my book, the kind of archival research that I've done in terms of, you know, a message, obviously, you know, free speech is, is still an issue today. Obviously, journalists still live under certain,
00:18:31 - certainly in Mexico and beyond. and different moments dealt with this differently. Maybe the al dealt with this in a certain sense better. that's to say that today, although it's quite sobering, we know of cases where many journalists end up, murdered, during the por fiato was a bit different. Journalists would end up in jail. certainly it wasn't a fun place to be. were they murdered? I we can't see any cases of that.

Journalism's Historical Struggles and Solutions

00:19:04 - and this has been studied by other people, and also is, is a decent section of, of my book, the, the kind of the sword fighting that would take place when, when journalists, effectively disagreed with each other on, across the printed page and had to finally dual it out on, in a cemetery at the break of dawn. Very, very strange. Very, very different than our moment. I would say the Ians never believed that a type of public sphere.
00:19:34 - place where people can talk about things apart from the government and then, input their ideas into the government, they never believed that those worlds needed to be exactly separate. that's to say that the financialization, the subsidization of journalism needed to happen during the phyto and in the case of at least America, it has been suggested that maybe the Federalists, maybe people like, you know,
00:20:07 - that there didn't need to be such a clear distinction between, funding for an act of press and, what is talked about in the press. And maybe that's not about propaganda. Maybe you can have a scenario in which journalism think about the crisis of journalism today. Journalists can be, funded by the state, can be given this helping hand by the state, but also that also remains,
00:20:42 - And so that's a kind of interesting scenario. It's an interesting solution to a problem that we still, are living in a certain sense.

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