“A truly Mexican character”: world models, historiography and postcolonialism in El Álbum mexicano (1849)

Abstract

Considering the theoretical and methodological parameters of criticism as sabotage, this article analyzes El Álbum mexicano (1849), an illustrated newspaper of the 19th century which acted as a “modeling system” to create an account of the new Mexican nation. Geographical writings, biographies, literature, among other genres, operated in the same ideological direction to design a sole “world model” inspired by the ideals of the Creole bourgeoisie.
Likewise, this article establishes a dialogue between criticism as sabotage and postcolonialism, with which the aforementioned theory dialogues directly.