Simn Bolvar

One of Latin Americas most famous historical figures, Simn Bolvar has become a mythic symbol for many nations, empires, and revolutions used to support wildly diversesometimes oppositeideas. From colonial Cuba to Nazi-occupied France to Cold Warera Slovenia, the image of El Libertador has variously signified loyalty, national unity, liberation, freedom, and revolt. In this volume, an array of international and interdisciplinary scholars shows the ways Bolvar has appeared over the last two centuries in painting, fiction, poetry, music, film, festival, dance, city planning, and even reliquary adoration. They illustrate how Bolvars body has been exalted, reimagined, or fragmented in different contexts, taking on a range of meanings to represent the politics and poetics of todays national bodies. By critically analyzing many examples of cultural Bolivarianisms, or cults of Bolvar, this collection demonstrates the capacity of the arts and humanities to challenge and reinvent hegemonic icons and narratives and, therefore, to be vital to democracy.