Stefan Rinke
Biography
Stefan Rinke is a profesor of Latin American history at the Institute of Latin American Studies - which he directed from 2007 to 2009 - and the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin. He has published seven books, edited 11 and wrote many articles for journals in Europe, the US and Latin America on the region's history from 1492 to today. At present, he is Vice-President of the European Association of Historians of Latin America (AHILA).
Title of Paper
Polyvalent Actors: The Global and the Lure of the Modern in Early Twentieth Century Latin America
Abstract
The article will focus on the actors of cultural globalization in some Latin American countries at the beginning of the 20th century. It will focus on their polyvalence in different settings considered to be “modern”. Thus we will take a look at Brazilian football managers who are also excelling in “automotive raids”, at Chilean journalists who are starring in films and flying airplanes or at Argentinian cartoonists whose expertise in football was superb. What did they have in common? What was their view of the world? In how far did they present and perceive of themselves as a homogeneous group? And finally, what image – or map – of the wider world had they in mind when they staunchly defended their way of life because to them there was no alternative to being modern.