Intellectuals, books and culture. Interview with Adriana Petra

Abstract

Adriana Petra is a historian, teacher and researcher. She’s dedicated to intellectual history, the history of the left and political cultures. In her work she addresses issues such as intellectuals, magazines, the history of books and publishing, transnational circulations and the history of communism. Her book Intelectuales y cultura comunista. Itinerarios, problemas y debates en la Argentina de posguerra was published in 2017 by Fondo de Cultura Económica and this year it will be translated into English by Palgrave Macmillan. In 2018 she participated in the III Coloquio Argentino de Estudios sobre el Libro y la Edición (CAELE) that was held in Buenos Aires. At the closing conference she spoke on the issue of the political book and the place of political and militant publishing in that field of studies. On that occasion she chatted for the first time at her home in Buenos Aires with the Brazilian librarian José Renato Galvão. Among the issues discussed in the interview are Petra’s work in the archives, her academic career and her research in the field of editorial and intellectual history, and also her new challenge as director of the Center for Latin American Studies of the National University of San Martin (UNSAM).