| Figurative Inquisitions: Conversion, Torture, and Truth in the Luso-Hispanic Atlantic Subjects: Latin American literature -- History and criticism; Portuguese literature -- History and criticism; Torture in literature; Inquisition in literature; Torture in motion pictures; Inquisition in motion pictures; Torture -- Social aspects; Winner, 2015 LAJSA Best Book in Latin American Jewish Studies This book investigates the uncanny presence of the Inquisition and marranismo (crypto-Judaism) in modern literature, theater, and film from Mexico, Brazil, and Portugal. Through a critique of fictional scenes of interrogation, it underscores the vital role of the literary in deconstructing the relation between torture and truth. Figurative Inquisitions traces the contours of a relationship among aesthetics, ethics, and politics in an account of the "Inquisitional logic" that continues to haunt contemporary political forms. In so doing, the book offers a unique humanistic perspective on current torture debates. Erin Graff Zivin is an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese and of comparative literature at the University of Southern California. |