Latin American Cultural Studies Research Articles

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Subjectivity, Agency, and the New Latin American History of Gender and Sexuality

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Subjectivity, Agency, and the New Latin American History of Gender and Sexuality

The Latin American Cultural Studies Reader

The Latin American Cultural Studies Reader brings together thirty-six field-defining essays by the most prominent theorists of Latin American cultural studies. Written over the past several decades, these essays provide an assessment of Latin American cultural studies, an account of the field’s historical formation, and an outline of its significant ideological and methodological trends and theoretical controversies. With many essays appearing in English for the first time, the collection offers a comprehensive view of the specific problems, topics, and methodologies that characterize Latin American cultural studies vis-a-vis British and U.S. cultural studies. Divided into sections preceded by brief introductory essays, this volumetraces the complex development of Latin American cultural studies from its roots in literary criticism and the economic, social, political, and cultural transformations wrought by neoliberal policies in the 1970s. It tracks the impassioned debates within the field during the early 1990s; explores different theoretical trends, including studies of postcolonialism, the subaltern, and globalization; and reflects on the significance of Latin American cultural studies for cultural studies projects outside Latin America. Considering literature, nationalism, soccer, cinema, postcolonialism, the Zapatistas, community radio, and much more, The Latin American Cultural Studies Reader is an invaluable resource for all those who want to understand the past, present, and future of Latin American cultural studies. Contributors. Hugo Achugar, Eduardo Archetti, John Beverley, Jose Joaquin Brunner, Antonio Candido, Debra A. Castillo, Antonio Cornejo Polar, Roman de la Campa, Ana Del Sarto, Roberto Fernandez Retamar, Juan Flores, Jean Franco, Nestor Garcia Canclini, Maria Gudelia Rangel Gomez, Adrian Gorelik, John Kraniauskas, Neil Larsen, Ana Lopez, Jesus Martin-Barbero, Francine Masiello, Daniel Mato, Walter D. Mignolo, Carlos Monsivais, Mabel Morana, Alberto Moreiras, Renato Ortiz, Jose Rabasa, Angel Rama, Gustavo A. Remedi, Darcy Ribeiro, Nelly Richard, Alicia Rios, Beatriz Sarlo, Roberto Schwarz, Irene Silverblatt, Graciela Silvestri, Armando Rosas Solis, Beatriz Gonzalez Stephan, Abril Trigo, George Yudice

Indigenous Media And The End Of The Lettered City

What can indigenous media – the booming production of documentaries, docudramas, fictions, and community television by indigenous movement organizations – contribute to understanding the logic of p...

Historias en curso: reconfiguraciones de los estudios culturales latinoamericanos

This essay examines the relationships between the politics of criticism, the sociohistorical conditions and the processes of institutionalization of Latin American cultural studies both in Latin America and in the US. In the US, Latin American cultural studies are materialized, with few exceptions, within the academic field. In Latin America, on the other hand, due to the history of academic intervention within the public sphere and civil society, Latin American cultural studies are generated from individual or collective, academic or para-academic, intellectual and artistic practices, which present diverse forms of institutionalization. If Latin American cultural studies, which emerged simultaneously in Latin America and the US in the 1980s, produced a great deal of commotion among the traditional disciplines of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, its later programmatic institutionalization is relatively insubstantial. Nevertheless, the impact of globalization, which started in the 1970s, brought into question the functions both fields had, exposing the limits of their respective interpretative theories and revealing the need for inter- and transdisciplinary practices. Even when these complex and polemic connections, on the one hand, question the existence of Latin American cultural studies as a transdisciplinary field, on the other hand, they keep it alive, always reconfiguring it according to the local contexts of intervention.

Contemporary Peruvian Narrative and Popular Culture: Jaime Bayly, Iván Thays and Jorge Eduardo Benavides (review)

Reviewed by: Contemporary Peruvian Narrative and Popular Culture: Jaime Bayly, Iván Thays and Jorge Eduardo Benavides Jean O'Bryan Knight Ruz, Robert . Contemporary Peruvian Narrative and Popular Culture: Jaime Bayly, Iván Thays and Jorge Eduardo Benavides. Woodbridge: Támesis, 2005. 130 pp. Given that Vargas Llosa is in his seventies, Bryce Echenique is not far behind, and Ribeyro is no longer with us, now is a good time to ask what's new in Peruvian [End Page 429] narrative. In Contemporary Peruvian Narrative and Popular Culture Robert Ruz offers us a well-structured response to this question based on the work of three successful novelists, all in their forties and all vibrant voices. Ruz situates his study of Peruvian narrative from 1994 to 2003 in a theoretical framework that includes perspectives from queer theory, postmodern thinking, and cultural studies. As the author explains, "a central preoccupation running through this book is to give a sense of the specificities of Peruvian cultural production and how theoretical readings might deal with them" (2). These two components of Ruz's project are apparent in the introduction, which incorporates phenomena from contemporary Peruvian culture (the baylyboom, vladivideos, and the "cholificación" of Lima), as well as theoretical concepts (Bourdieu's distinction between high and popular culture, García Canclini's understanding of the notion of teleparticipación, and various theorists' reflections on postmodernity). Readers in search of a more traditional literary studies approach may turn away at the introduction. Those who push on will discover that Ruz's book is as much about new approaches to narrative as it is about new narrative from Peru. The monograph consists of four chapters, the first two of which focus on the works of Jaime Bayly, the high profile talk-show host turned best-selling novelist, who is based in Lima and Miami. With seven novels, Bayly is by far the most productive of the group, so this extra attention is warranted. Chapter 1, which was published previously in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, examines Bayly's portrayal of gay and bisexual identities in his early novels and the extent to which these works support or challenge the positions of queer theorists Butler, Sedgewick, and Bersani (all working outside the Latin American/Peruvian context). Ruz credits Bayly for being the first to introduce gay subject matter into mainstream Peruvian culture, albeit with the help of his Spanish publishers. He also suggests that this accomplishment has come at a cost, since the use of negative homosexual stereotypes and ambiguous sexual identities in Bayly's work may be seen as a sell-out to the demands of the Peruvian market. Chapter 2 takes a closer look at the evolution of Bayly's "postmodern narrative style" and its relationship with mass-marketing. Ruz proposes that in Bayly's narrative style trumps structure, and by style he means primarily the author's use of the edgy language of Lima's youth culture. Drawing on Hutcheon's idea that political engagement can take the form of "complicitous critique" in postmodern writing, Ruz argues that Bayly's populist style does not necessarily preclude social criticism in his works. He finds that beginning in the early novels and culminating in his fourth, La noche es virgen (1997), Bayly is capable of delivering some social critique in a light, consumer-oriented style. More recently, however, Ruz finds that complicity with popular culture outweighs critique in Bayly's writing as the marketing of his works has gone global. [End Page 430] A vocal critic of Bayly's literatura light, university lecturer and literary critic Iván Thays positions himself as an exponent of narrativa culta. Ruz's third chapter examines how Thays defines himself in opposition to the international baylyboom by writing and publishing inside Peru about decidedly intellectual themes. His three novels are an exploration of the writing process, the image of the writer, and the social status of literature, and all engage with the literary canon both inside and outside Peru. The title of Thays's third novel, for example—La disciplina de la vanidad (2000)—alludes to his preoccupation with the literary vocation. One might expect that this emphasis...

Transculturation: Contrapuntal Notes to Critical Orthodoxy1

Transculturation is a frequent point of reference in Latin American cultural studies, but overuse is tending to create a new critical orthodoxy, and inattention to precise definition may be compromising effectiveness. This article assesses current deployments of the term and, through a close reading of the theoretical section of Ortiz’s Contrapunteo cubano, seeks to establish an understanding of what is involved in the cultural and human experience of transculturation. It concludes by examining recent critiques of the term and suggests a sceptical view of the potential for and limits on transculturation in the global context of Latin American cultures.

Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies. Edited by Stephen Hart and Richard Young. London: Hodder Arnold Publishers, 2003. Pp. xiii, 336. References. Index. $29.95 paper.

Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies. Edited by Stephen Hart and Richard Young. London: Hodder Arnold Publishers, 2003. Pp. xiii, 336. References. Index. $29.95 paper.

Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies. Edited by Stephen Hart and Richard Young. London: Hodder Arnold Publishers, 2003. Pp. xiii, 336. References. Index. $29.95 paper.

Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies. Edited by Stephen Hart and Richard Young. London: Hodder Arnold Publishers, 2003. Pp. xiii, 336. References. Index. $29.95 paper.

'Pensamos que somos historia porque sabemos que somos historia': Context, Self and Self-construction in Women's Testimonial Writing from Revolutionary Cuba

This article presents a group of women-authored testimonial texts published between 1959–1989 in revolutionary Cuba. Despite the recent scholarly debates within Latin American Cultural Studies regarding Latin American testimonio, these texts have received little or no critical or theoretical attention within or outside Cuba. The article therefore starts by situating them within the specific context of revolutionary culture, especially with reference to questions of gender, genre and publication. Having established that the texts as a whole privilege the collective revolutionary context and revolutionary experience over gendered or generic aspects, the seven texts are then grouped under a more specific contextual category, as narratives of voluntary work (participation and observation), in order to provide a clearer structure for their description and analysis. Each of the texts is then described within its sub-group, and the article ends by indicating how such texts challenge testimonio paradigms by posit...

Books as Art: Twenty-One Years of Handmade Books from Cuba's Ediciones Vigía

Previous articleNext article No AccessBooks as Art: Twenty-One Years of Handmade Books from Cuba's Ediciones VigíaLaura GravelineLaura Graveline Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Art Documentation Volume 25, Number 2Fall 2006 Published for the Art Libraries Society of North America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/adx.25.2.27949436 Views: 9Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright © 2006 ARLIS/NAPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jessica Gordon-Burroughs Straight Pins, Gauze, and Linotypes: The Cuban Post-Soviet Artists’ Book, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 13 (Aug 2017): 1–23.https://doi.org/10.1080/13569325.2017.1292223

Globalizing Tequila: Mexican Television's Representations of the Neoliberal Reconversion of Land and Labor

can film and visual culture, new media and Mexican and Latin American cul tural studies. His articles on comics, photography, telenovelas, and film have appeared in journals in the U.S., Spain and England. During the twentieth century, Mexican identities were shaped in great part by the ebbs and flows of mass cul ture. The specificity of gestures, the discourses about masculinity and femininity, the language and ideas proper to social interaction are generally traced back to the films of the Golden Age (1935-1955), the broadcasting of mariachi music, boleros, and other musical productions as well as to televised spectacles (Martin Barbero 166; Monsivais, Aires 58-59 and Amorperdido 76-82; Murphy 251; Ramirez Berg 20-28). But the depiction of glamorous faces of film divas like Maria Felix and Dolores del Rio, or the bravado of masculinity derived from the acting of Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete would have been less effective if a consumer culture did not accompany these visual discourses (Joseph 10). Once Mexico entered in the '50s to the category of what Debord calls the societies of spectacle, consuming clothes, soaps, drinks, and food were akin to consume music and images. One of the most salient products from the time of the construction of this modern national identity is tequila. Even if many of the values and nationalist symbols of Mexico's Golden Age of cinema were abandoned or displaced by others at the end of the century, media portrayal of tequila as the Mexican drink par excellence is still a current practice. How ever, what the stereotypical and modern marketing of tequila as a fashionable drink almost always fails to communicate is that this beverage is the product of a long colonial history. On one hand, tequila emerges from the local knowledge and agricultural practices of pre-Columbian times, directly related to the production of pulque nectar of the gods,

Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots & Graffiti from La Frontera ed. by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, John William Byrd, Bobby Byrd

Bo o k Re view s Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots & Qraffiti from La Frontera. Ed. by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, John William Byrd, and Bobby Byrd. El Paso, Texas: Cinco Puntos Press, 2003. 253 pages, $18.95. Reviewed by Megan Sibbett Inclán Utah State University, Logan A s a book catalogued under both Latin American studies and cultural studies, Puro Border encompasses much more than traditional texts. It is a haunting and empowering work that represents the U.S.-Mexican border unlike any other book in its field. Editors Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, John William Byrd, and Bobby Byrd have marvelously combined different voices from all sides of the border to tell stories and histories that attempt to capture the conflicted and beautiful essence of the border we have estranged ourselves from through censorship, neglect, and culture. Some of these voices include those of Leslie Marmon Silko, Cecilia Balli, Francisco Vásquez Mendoza, Julián Herbert, and Roberto Castillo Udiarte. These authors write in opposition to one another, covering issues of illegal immigration, government and border politics, the life of coyotes, drug lords, maquiladoras, gender clashes, the wilderness, and the often ignored border atrocities. Francisco Delgado. $26. Oil on canvas. © 2002. Cover illustration for Puro Border. Reprinted with permission of the artist. 7 4 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e S p r in g 2 0 0 6 In his rambunctious introduction, Bobby Byrd states that Puro Border is “an ornery, bull-headed book” that creates direct contrasts to the outright ignorance and insolence projected onto the U.S.-Mexican border from both sides (13). Within the pages of Puro Border, the authors engage in what Byrd sees as an “angry politics and struggle” that is pregnant with an understanding that will “seed the earth” (15). In “Camera of Dirt,” Charles Bowden provides a telling quotation from photographer Julián Cardona that metaphorically challenges every person’s accountability toward his or her border relationship. “I think a photograph uncovers what is hidden and then what is hidden comes before the public eye. You must confront yourself in this mirror of reality” (31). After reading Puro Border, readers, too, must confront themselves in a mirror of reality, refusing what Debbie Nathan describes as a “negative hallucina­ tion”— an erasure of what confronts them (166). The border’s multidimensional personality and history become revealed within each author’s account. Gary Paul Nabhan writes in “Open Letter to My Relatives” that the border is incapable of completely dividing people. “A fence cannot divide those of us who live on either side. We need one another. That’s why we gather on fly ways, migration routes, and underground railroads. We’ve learned to outmaneuver governments. Oh, they can hinder us, but I doubt they’ll ever halt our flow” (26). Yet, Puro Border also demonstrates how border politics and border events not only halt but also bring death to hundreds of people. The text’s conflicting ideas, stories, passions, and border relationships effectively demonstrate the hidden and often ignored histories of the border. Robert Draper draws upon the beauty of the border, which he states is not “the innocent kind” but one that is violent, stark, and full of vicious secrets. He writes that “crimes and outrages” happen along the border, outrages that need to be seen and faced. The text also includes photos, statistics, folk tales, and folk songs, making it one of the most unconventional and comprehensive border texts (119). Because of its non-traditional exposure of the border, Puro Border con­ tributes greatly to western American literature. The knowledge that is gained through Puro Border forces us to question traditional understandings of the bor­ der as well as pursue aspects of the border that remain silenced or disregarded. It is rich with life and death, atrocity and beauty, and confronts each reader on a multitude of levels. ...

A produção da "cidade latino-americana"

Este trabalho propõe uma análise histórica da categoria "cidade latino-americana" como construção cultural. O argumento central é que, durante o período compreendido entre o segundo pós-guerra e a década de 1970, a idéia de "cidade latino-americana" funcionou como uma categoria do pensamento social, como uma figura do imaginário intelectual e político em amplas regiões do continente. Este texto procura reconstruir os principais itinerários conceituais e ideológicos da categoria, suas funções políticas e institucionais na conjuntura específica da região. Esse modo de entender a categoria "cidade latino-americana" em sua configuração histórica específica, sugere o autor, pode oferecer uma via produtiva para os estudos culturais latino-americanos.

Renegotiating Corporeality and Alterity: Carnal Inscription as Jewishness in David Toscana's "Santa María del Circo" and Mario Vargas Llosa's "El hablador"

This essay analyzes representations of corporeal difference in David Toscana's Santa Maria del Circo, and Mario Vargas Llosa's El / hablador. In each text, the body of the protagonist enacts a conflation between physical deformity and marked ethnicity, read here as Jewishness. At the same time, these texts trouble connections between body and meaning, highlight the limits of textual representation, and question the contours of specific Spanish American national, cultural, ethnic and individual identities, as frequently bound to codified syntaxes of corporeality and alterity. The body as text, a figure of simultaneous suture and divide, points to the continuing need for a renegotiation of the roles of disabled or different bodies in the context of Latin American literary and cultural studies.

A recepção dos desenhos animados da TV e as relações entre a criança e o adulto: desencontros e encontros

Este artigo discute a complexidade das relações entre adultos e crianças na contemporaneidade, focalizando a recepção dos desenhos animados. A orientação teórico-metodológica adotada foi a dos Estudos Culturais Latino-Americanos, a qual, integrando os fenômenos da comunicação e da cultura e refutando a idéia de passividade diante da TV, defende que as mediações que influenciam a recepção contribuem para a produção de sentidos sobre a assistência. Desse modo, optou-se por tomar a criança como produtora de cultura perante a TV. O artigo analisa os depoimentos de crianças na faixa etária dos 9, 10 anos de duas escolas, uma pública e uma particular, apontando as mediações, relativas à audiência dos desenhos animados, que determinam desencontros e encontros entre crianças e adultos.

The Latin American cultural studies reader

The Latin American cultural studies reader

Humoring Resistance: Laughter and the Excessive Body in Contemporary Latin American Women's Fiction (review)

220 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies y los resultados del presente volumen, habrá que seguir con atención la expansión bibliográfica y cultural de esta colección y de las instituciones que la arropan. Carlos Javier GarcÃ-a Arizona State University Humoring Resistance: Laughter and the Excessive Body in Contemporary Latin American Women's Fiction SUNY Press, 2004 By Dianna C. Niebylski One ofthe most important documents in contemporary feminist cultural theory is Hélène Cixous's "The Laugh of the Medusa." In it Qxous develops rhe proposition that an effective écriture feminine is characterized by the in-your face defiant, resistance, indeed, repudiational laughter. Since it is held as a maxim of social grace never to laugh uproariously, a maxim adhered to in particular by a lady, Cixousian laughter is clearly uncivilized and unfeminine, in ways that it becomes necessary for feminism (or queer action) to endorse as a form of deconstructing social norms that regulate—and repress—inconvenient forms of social behavior. One recalls the cartoon in The New Yorker in the early days of feminism, in which a woman is flashed by the prototypic Man in a Raincoat. Rather than reacting in Freudian hysteria, the woman doubles over, laughing and pointing. The five Spanish American authors examined here—unfortunately, not really Latin American, since Brazil is excluded: Patricia Galváo, Clarice Lispector, Hilda Hilst could profitably have been included—are all notable as examples of women writers who have not only used laughter as an instrument of resisting patriarchal feminine civility as a way of challenging the restrictions of civilized behavior as that civility understands them, but who have also used bodily excess as a basis for provoking that laughter. It is an excess grounded in the display of the body—the ridiculization of the masculine norm and the underscoring of what that norm may find repulsive in the female body; the discovery of hitherto unheeded manifestations and use of the female body; the body as a sociopolitical ground; the body as a site of the grotesqueries deriving from historical forces. The five authors showcased, each with an in-depth chapter, are Laura Esquivel, Ana Lydia Vega, Luisa Valenzuela, ArmonÃ-a Sommers and Alicia Borinsky. Certainly one can think of many other candidates for inclusion (I particularly regretted the absence of Mayra Santos Febres and Ana Maria Shua; the latter is mentioned twice in passing). But what is valuable is precisely the decision not to construct a laundry list of the healthy array of possible inclusions, but rather, via the detailed analysis of judiciously chosen texts, to provide a model for work on other pertinent authors. Moreover, Niebylski opens with a solid introduction in which she surveys issues relating to laughter and the body and demonstrates a sensitivity for the need simply not to apply Cixous or American feminist theory uncritically to Latin American texts. There are few limitations to this intelligent study. I have already noted the absence of Brazilians despite the title; one could also suggest Latina writers; and some mention ofthe lesbian body and laughter suggests itself as useful (e.g., the Uruguayan Cristina Peri Rossi or the Colombian AlbalucÃ-a Angel, both mentioned once in passing). One final note: there has been some interest of late in referring in Latin American cultural studies to the Manual de urbanidad (1869, with many, many reprints) by Manuel Antonio Carrefio (died 1874). What he has to say on laughter, merriment, and similar topics is a necessary intertext for any Latin American cultural production on resistant laughter. David William Foster Arizona State University ...

The press and the spectacle of violence in contemporary Rio de Janeiro

(2004). The press and the spectacle of violence in contemporary Rio de Janeiro. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies: Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 343-355.

Partial Knowledge: Challenges for Latin American Theatre Scholarship in the US

Partial knowledge:challenges for Latin American theatre scholarship in the US Amalia Gladhart The theatres of Latin America, traditional, experimental or (to borrow Augusto Boal's term) invisible, are a fertile yet contested space in which to approach key questions of history, memory, identity, and representation. The theatre may offer a space of freedom and resistance, but it may also reflect the relations of power and of violence that exist offstage. The same goes for scholarship. Our task as scholars and teachers is to expand the audience for those theatres and to explore the questions raised, recognizing at the same time—as so many plays remind us—that our knowledge and understanding of one another, both within and across cultures, must always remain partial and contingent, open to question. Within the field of Latin American literary and cultural studies, theatre remains a somewhat less studied genre, in terms of numbers of courses offered, faculty specialists, and numbers of publications. Although the field continues to grow, there are still relatively few articles on Latin American theatre published outside the specialized theatre journals. Latin American theatre is not yet part of the canon—while its importance is often recognized, it is not yet an obligatory area of study. (This may not be entirely bad, as those texts supposedly elevated to obligatory status can be just as quickly reduced to the level of chore.) I write as one who has had great freedom to develop and teach courses on Latin American theatre at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. But to take just one example of a widely used anthology: Huellas de las literaturas hispanoamericanas (Traces of Hispanic-American literatures), edited by John Garganigo, et al., includes only one play, and only a portion of that (two scenes from Sabina Berman's Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda [Between Villa and a naked woman]). At the same time, there has been tremendous growth in the field in recent years, so that, far from feeling like an overlooked area of scholarship, the atmosphere is vital and collaborative, open to new approaches and to ongoing redefinitions of our objects and processes of study. Working in a department of literatures and languages, I find it crucial to make [End Page 452] connections between genres. My work engages with literature more generally and with interdisciplinary Latin American studies as well as with performance studies and performance theory. As one who has tended to work thematically rather than geographically, I also notice an increasing tendency toward geographic specialization. I see my own work—while continuing to focus on specifically theatrical production—moving also in the direction of studying theatre and narrative in concert with one another, examining the interrelationships between memory, the body, and representation in both. A challenge, for those of us working within language departments, is access to performances, particularly performances in Spanish, not only for ourselves but also for our students. In many areas there simply aren't that many performances of Latin American work available. Access to materials is a challenge for all scholars of international fields, but it becomes perhaps more pronounced within theatre and performance because the work is less portable (harder to slip in your pocket than a paperback novel). In the coming years, I expect to see more Latin American and US Latino/a plays—in Spanish, Portuguese, English or other languages—performed across the country, creating a growing awareness of that theatre among US theatre audiences and a closer link between Latin American and US Latino/a theatres. Portland's Miracle Theatre Group provides one example of local Latino/a theatre production. I recently spent ten days in Ecuador, a country with an increasingly active theatrical scene yet little known in the US. While there, I had the opportunity to meet with members of Movimiento Quinta Escena (Fifth stage movement), a loose confederation of five theatre groups working out of small, almost improvised spaces in the Casa de la Cultura in Quito. They described a continual struggle for resources and lamented that, while the audience is certainly there for free performances, the audience for experimental theatre is limited, though a house can often be filled through painstaking advance sales...

The war of the end of the world or the end of ideology

Michel de Certeau once proposed that the practice of writing history – of producing, in other words, an intelligibility – always presupposes an encounter with alterity. Always because, in the last ...