The Singer's Needle: An Undisciplined History of Panamá
Ezer Vierba
Abstract
The Singer’s Needle looks at the relationship between form, subject-formation and power in three historical settings in twentieth century Panama. It analyzes the Liberal reform and its aftermath (1912-1935) by looking at the flagship of its punitive apparatus: the penal colony on the Island of Coiba. It then examines the rule of José Antonio Remón and the judicial drama that followed his assassination (1947-58). Finally, it explores the “disappearance” of Father Héctor Gallego, a radical who transformed the mountainous region of Santa Fe (1966-72). The book argues that in these three historica ... More
The Singer’s Needle looks at the relationship between form, subject-formation and power in three historical settings in twentieth century Panama. It analyzes the Liberal reform and its aftermath (1912-1935) by looking at the flagship of its punitive apparatus: the penal colony on the Island of Coiba. It then examines the rule of José Antonio Remón and the judicial drama that followed his assassination (1947-58). Finally, it explores the “disappearance” of Father Héctor Gallego, a radical who transformed the mountainous region of Santa Fe (1966-72). The book argues that in these three historical settings, forms of writing and symbolic social behavior were crucial for the maintenance of power relations or their undoing. Extending Michel Foucault’s notion that power and knowledge are tied, the book grapples with the question of how to write about power formations without becoming complicit in their functioning. Written as a pastiche of traditional history and prose fiction, the book juxtaposes various interpretative and aesthetic frameworks and brings to the surface of the text various layers of historical meaning. This approach offers new insights into the nature of subjectivity and the role that historical narratives themselves play in perpetuating regimes of knowledge and power, while deconstructing the role of authorship in the text itself.
Keywords:
Coiba,
Belisario Porras,
prisons,
liberalism,
polyphonic history,
political trials,
legal consciousness,
Jose Antonio Remon,
Omar Torrijos,
Hector Gallego
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2021 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226342313 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: September 2021 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226342597.001.0001 |
