Cultural Studies in the Curriculum: Teaching Latin America by Danny J. Anderson, Jill S. Kuhnheim

Abstract

548 Reviews Cultural Studies in theCurriculum: Teaching Latin America. Ed. by DANNY J.AN DERSON and JILL S. KUHNHEIM. New York: Modern Language Association of America. 2003. X+249PP. $22. ISBN 978-o-87352-802-3. Always earnest and occasionally self-important, but often engaging and sometimes thought-provoking, this entertaining volume acts as a kind ofmanifesto forcultural studies understood as a practice which brings out tensions rather than resolves them, and is therefore attuned to promoting intellectual enquiry via an awareness of cul tural difference. Such pieties as this are, of course, nowadays repeated endlessly in classrooms and inpublications on both sides of theAtlantic. However, stridency and tub-thumping, ifsometimes off-putting, do not make the claims of cultural studies any less valuable. There is no doubt that developments inLatin American studies over the lastcouple of decades (particularly inwhat have traditionally been Language and Literature departments) have significantlyextended students' concepts of culture and raised key issues about the creation and uses of cultural artefacts or practices, inways thathave definitively sunk long-cherished notions of artistic quality and the purity of disinterested critical enquiry. This is all surely a good thing. Whether this always promotes genuine intellectual development in students-as thisbook seems to take forgranted-is anothermatter.While it tackles full-on the lament of disciplinary fragmentation in some quarters, thebook does not always reallydemonstrate how in tellectual depth can be achieved without long-term specialization. There is a danger too of creating inverse hierarchies, where once canonical texts are reduced to cultural relicswhile popular practices (a sometimes dubious notion) are implicitly celebrated. Sound judgements may be at risk if it is assumed thatwhat matters is amove away from 'cultural monuments' to 'more compelling social practices and cultural acts' (p. i i) (whatever thatmight mean). The shift fromcultural objectification to think ingof cultural practice has been awelcome development in many ways, but it would be devastatingly reductive andmisguided toundermine thevalue and significance of, say, literatureand the realities ofmainstream developments and global success in thename of giving a voice tosupposedly marginalized perspectives. In fairness, the relationship between literaryand cultural studies isnot avoided here and is indeed approached di rectly in a number of pieces, including JillS. Kuhnheim's own one on teaching poetry. Yet, despite thenuancing and display of openness, the spectre of so-called progressive politics defining the value of criticism is almost always in the background. The ap parent fetishization of 'younger scholars' (p. 15) and theassumption of being in touch with theneeds of a 'new generation of students'(p. 5) should be regardedwith a degree of caution, as should the seeming assumption that, instudent education, 'genuine pro ficiency in speaking' is more important than 'reading knowledge' (p. 7): theword 'ge nuine' only seems tounderline the sense of unacknowledged assumption rather than knowing distinction. It isalways a problem when cultural criticism isdriven by itsown political assumptions or displays thehabit of caricaturing other approaches, precisely as itseeks toquestion assumption-driven criticism or demonstrate broad-mindedness. This book, though, isnot primarily concerned with theoretical debates about the nature of cultural studies. Instead itoffers a series of rathermore practical examples of ways inwhich certain university teachers in theUnited States use cultural stu dies to teach about the languages and cultural production of Latin America. The essays are often infectiously enthusiastic and are appropriately wide-ranging. They cover, among other things, colonial studies, literature,gender and sexuality, chicano narratives, Brazilian culture, and even business Spanish (some are complemented by an appendix of sample syllabuses, some of which seem really quite exciting). And thequality isoften very high: two colonialists, Luis Fernando Restrepo and Gustavo Verdesio, particularly capture theattention. Robert McKee Irwin,meantime, despite some sweeping assumptions, offers awell-made plea forcultural studies in a context MLR, I02.2, 2007 549 of teaching about gender and sexuality,while Piers Armstrong proposes an attractive model forBrazilian cultural studies in a competitive higher-education marketplace. Co-editor Danny J.Anderson clearly has a good course on business Spanish and seems pleased to appear to be challenging goal-oriented students. Elsewhere, Jesse Aleman talks about Mexican-American literature,Kirwin R. Shaffer uses filmand popular culture to contest external constructions of theCaribbean, and JoyLogan appears to get her...