This work reflects on the sense of immediacy and permeability of cultural practices that have already passed, as in the case of late nineteenth century literary magazines associated with modernism. The book dialogues with literary criticism about modernism but also with history and sociology to analyze the complexity of that period. This study contributes to literary criticism on modernism by recapturing its well-known cosmopolitan and art-puristic condition in relation to the foundational narratives of Latin American literature, politics, and the dynamics of the emergent cultural industry.