Technology as metaphor: Representations of modernity in Mexican art and literature, 1920--1940 (Tina Modotti, Jose Vasconcelos, Jaime Torres Bodet, Luis Quintanilla, Federico Sanchez Fogarty)

This dissertation examines the representations of technology in the art and literature produced during the two decades following the Mexican Revolution. Emphasizing the often paradoxical relationship between the representation of technology and the artistic and literary techniques used for that representation, I examine the works of five figures—Tina Modotti, José Vasconcelos, Jaime Torres Bodet, Luis Quintanilla, and Federico Sánchez Fogarty—and their depiction of five technological artifacts: cameras, stadiums, typewriters, radio, and cement. I demonstrate how each of these figures imagined a technological utopia where machines and modern inventions served as powerful symbols of post-Revolutionary unity, stability, and progress. Chapter One, “Cameras” discusses Tina Modotti's technological photographs and their relationship to debates about photography's status as a mechanical art. Chapter Two, “Stadiums,” considers the history of José Vasconcelos' National Stadium in Mexico City and argues that this building should be seen as an extension of the technological theories presented in La raza cósmica. Chapter Three, “The Typewriter,” argues that the typewriter emerged as a prominent symbol of modern narrative techniques in the Twentieth-Century Mexican novel, and traces the representations of this artifact from the novels of Mariano Azuela to the texts of Jaime Torres Bodet. Chapter Four, “Radio,” demonstrates that wireless broadcasting was one of the most prominent themes in the Estridentista poems and essays by Luis Quintanilla and Manuel Maples Arce. Chapter Five, “Cement,” documents Federico Sánchez Fogarty's endeavors to promote an aesthetics of cement through literary magazines and artistic competitions, and unveils cement as a powerful symbol of post-Revolutionary unity and stability.