This dissertation proposes an interpretation of José Martí’s texts in relation to New York City during the Nineteenth Century. This work is a multidisciplinary approach to the discursive and spatial representation of modern cities as a key element in understanding cultural texts. The concepts of culture and city both share a textual condition which allows their decoding.
American cities, especially New York, evolved in a very peculiar way of modernity. José Martí witnessed this process while living in the city for almost fifteen years. His readings of the cultural text are scattered along his writing and he always expressed his judgements about culture and society in New York through his ethical axiology.
Martí’s cultural readings are frequently controversial because of the social role, the moral context and/or the stage of evolution of his discourse. His vision of New York approaches different sides of the culture and its spatiality, including sites which are emblematic of its urban modernity and the evolution of its institutions and intellectual life. The dissertation also studies his polemic affective rapport with the city.
