Background
José Vasconcelos was born on February 27, 1882, in Oaxaca, but the family soon moved to Piedras Negras. José's mother, who was a pious Catholic, died when José was sixteen.
(El autor de «La raza cósmica» inicia el relato cuando el ...)
El autor de «La raza cósmica» inicia el relato cuando el barco arribó a las costas de la provincia de La Romana, y describiendo sus impresiones acerca de esa parte del este de la isla: «El barco atracó en el muelle de La Romana. Una entrada bien protegida, costas ligeramente elevadas, campo verde, palmeras y casas de madera, colores vivos, automóviles, buenos pavimentos, gente con vestidos ligeros y muy aseada.»
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( In this influential 1925 essay, presented here in Spani...)
In this influential 1925 essay, presented here in Spanish and English, José Vasconcelos predicted the coming of a new age, the Aesthetic Era, in which joy, love, fantasy, and creativity would prevail over the rationalism he saw as dominating the present age. In this new age, marriages would no longer be dictated by necessity or convenience, but by love and beauty; ethnic obstacles, already in the process of being broken down, especially in Latin America, would disappear altogether, giving birth to a fully mixed race, a "cosmic race," in which all the better qualities of each race would persist by the natural selection of love.
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(Ulises Criollo cubre los treinta y tres primeros años del...)
Ulises Criollo cubre los treinta y tres primeros años del autor, hasta el golpe militar de Victoriano Huerta, y los preparativos de Vasconcelos para integrarse a la acción revolucionaria. Esta obra es el relato de una larga marcha hacia el fondo de sí mismo, que parte del estado inmediatamente postnatal, de donde emergen sus más viejos recuerdos, hasta los momentos de afirmación de una personalidad independiente. Este libro aparece normalmente incluido en las recopilaciones de la novela de la revolución; y efectivamente puede ser una novela cuyo protagonista es José Vasconcelos, quien novela sus circunstancias, su atmósfera, se detiene en el amor a la madre y en otros amores, narra su iniciación en un universo estético y mil otras situaciones. Esta obra también es el registro de una iniciacion en el mundo de la cultura, de un trato con las ideas, de una trayectoria espiritual, del camino, en fin, hacia las estrellas.
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(El filosofo y politico mexicano Jose Vasconcelos publico ...)
El filosofo y politico mexicano Jose Vasconcelos publico su obra mas conocida: La raza cosmica, en 1925. En ella, su autor lleva a cabo un analisis utopico-futurista sobre la humanidad, en especial de la sudamericana, y plantea que dada la herencia cultural que esta region posee tratandose de mestizaje, seria ahi donde surgiria una nueva raza: la cosmica. Conforme al ideal de este ensayista de llevar la educacion a toda la nacion, hecho que ademas desarrollo durante su desempeno como secretario de Educacion en el periodo de 1921 a 1924, es que plantea que sobre esa nueva civilizacion que habria de ser conocida con el nombre de Universopolis, Espana habria de tener una jurisdiccion con caracteristicas muy peculiares y en donde la extension de la educacion y de la cultura serian los objetivos principales de dicha civilizacion.
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essayist historian philosopher sociologist
José Vasconcelos was born on February 27, 1882, in Oaxaca, but the family soon moved to Piedras Negras. José's mother, who was a pious Catholic, died when José was sixteen.
When José started to school, he walked across the bridge each day to attend classes on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. Later the family moved to various other Mexican cities, and for a time he attended the Instituto Campechano (Campeche Institute) and then, in Mexico City, the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School) and the law school, receiving his law degree in 1907.
Vasconcelos belonged to the Ateneo de la Juventud (Athenaeum for Young People) and participated in the Mexican Revolution on the side of Francisco Madero and Pancho Villa, meanwhile publishing numerous articles on the activities of Mexican intellectuals.
In 1925 he published La raza cósmica (The Cosmic Race), followed by Indologia (Indology) in 1926, in both of which he dealt with the culture of Hispanic America. Because of political difficulties, Vasconcelos had to leave Mexico several times, so he traveled in Europe and the United States.
In 1929 he launched his campaign for the presidency of Mexico but was defeated and again went into exile, living in Europe, Asia, and South America. From Paris and Madrid he directed La antorcha (The Torch), a magazine which he published in the years following his presidential campaign. Vasconcelos is best known for the four volumes constituting his autobiography: Ulises criollo (1935; A Creole Ulysses), La tormenta (1936; The Storm), El desastre (1938; The Disaster), and El proconsulado (1939; The Proconsulate), of which the first two volumes are particularly outstanding.
In 1940 he returned to Mexico and became director of the Biblioteca México (Mexico Library), continuing in that position until his death. He belonged to countless cultural groups, both in Mexico and abroad, including the Colegio Nacional (National College) and the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua (Mexican Academy of the Spanish Language). He died in Mexico City on June 30, 1959.
( In this influential 1925 essay, presented here in Spani...)
(El autor de «La raza cósmica» inicia el relato cuando el ...)
(Ulises Criollo cubre los treinta y tres primeros años del...)
(El filosofo y politico mexicano Jose Vasconcelos publico ...)
(The life work of Jose Vasconcelos, Mexican politician who...)
(BOOKS IN SPANISH)
Under the term of "Creole, " Vasconcelos undertook to defend a Hispanic type of culture, both against a falsified indigenous cult and against Anglo-Saxon influence. Although Vasconcelos was interested in studying philosophy, Mexican universities during the Porfiriato focused on the sciences, influenced by French positivism.
Quotations:
". .. the leaders of Latin American independence . .. strove to free the slaves, declared the equality of all men by natural law; the social and civic equality of whites, blacks and Indians. In an instant of historical crisis, they formulated the transcendental mission assigned to that region of the Globe: the mission of fusing the peoples ethnically and spiritually. " (La raza cósmica, 1948)ƒ
"Each of the great nations of History has believed itself to be the final and chosen one. [. .. ] The Hebrews founded the belief in their superiority on oracles and divine promises. The English found theirs on observations relative to domestic animals. From the observation of cross-breeding and hereditary varieties in such animals, Darwinism emerged. First, as a modest zoological theory, then as social biology that confers definitive preponderance to the English above all races. Every imperialism needs a justifying philosophy". (La raza cósmica, 1948)
"Hitler, although he disposes of absolute power, finds himself a thousand leagues from Caesarism. Power does not come to Hitler from the military base, but from the book that inspires the troops from the top. Hitler's power is not owed to the troops, nor the battalions, but to his own discussions. .. Hitler represents, ultimately, an idea, the German idea, so often humiliated previously by French militarism and English perfidy. Truthfully, we find civilian governed 'democracies' fighting against Hitler. But they are democracies in name only". ("La Inteligencia se impone", Timon 16, June 8, 1940)
In law school, he became involved with radical students organized as the Ateneo de la Juventud (Youth Atheneum)
In this autobiography he reveals himself as a man of very strong, sometimes contradictory, feelings; but because of its spirit, this work is the most valuable document of its time and, in spite of itself, a literary work, especially in Ulises criollo, which recreates the years of his childhood, adolescence, and early manhood, bringing the story up to the events following the assassination of Madero.
He also influenced the point of view of Carlos Pellicer with respect to several aesthetic assumptions reflected in his books.
He married Serafina Miranda of Tlaxiaco in the state of Oaxaca in 1906, when he was twenty-four. With her he had children José Ignacio and Carmen. He also had a long-term relationship with Elena Arizmendi Mejia and through life, many other shorter liaisons, including one with Berta Singerman.
His troubled relationship with Antonieta Rivas Mercado led to her suicide inside Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral in 1931. When his wife of forty years died in 1942, their daughter Carmen is reported saying "When the coffin was lowered into the ground, Vasconcelos sobbed bitterly. At that moment he must have known and felt who he really had as a wife; perhaps they were tears of belated repentance. " He remarried pianist Esperanza Cruz and they had a child, Héctor.