DESCRIPTION:
This course uses a set of interdisciplinary methods (mainly from ethnic studies, Latina/o studies, cultural studies, and performance studies) to help us understand the kind of 'work' culture is doing in a larger framework, historical, economical, and societal. The class uses these theoretical and methodological lenses to examine Transnational Latina/o popular culture from the 20th and early 21st centuries in order to consider the ways in which popular culture has been an important aspect of nation-building strategies on different scales, from nation-states to Latina/o communities in the US. We pay particular attention to expressive culture from the beginning of the 20th century, focusing on social dance forms like samba, tango, and danzón. Additionally, sports spectacles are analyzed to understand the performance of masculinity, the interconnected between politics and ‘entertainment’ (soccer) and the theatricality of the spectacle (lucha libre—Mexican masked wrestling). The course material moves through the 20th century and into the 21st century and across geo-political divides to put forward the idea that Latina/o popular culture is transnational (at the same time as translocal); cultural works that will be examined in order to grasp a full understanding of his notion run the gamut from the formation of salsa to the reggeatón phenomenon and telenovela (Latin American soap operas) industry to music television. In a more general way, the ultimate goal of the class is to get the student to think about the ways in which popular cultural forms are part of a 20th and 21st century sensibility that is both part of “the practice of everyday life” and nation-building projects. But the student will be asked to think about how different publics consume popular culture (at times transforming it and/or changing its meaning) and, likewise, it is important to consider what happens when popular culture—thanks to the (transnational) cultural industries—travel across geo-political and linguistic borders. The operating question throughout the semester is then, is what is transnational about Latina/o popular culture and why does it matter?
TEXTS (selections):
*Imagination Beyond Nation: Latin American Popular Culture, edited by Eva P. Bueno and Terry Caesar
*Musical ImagiNation: U.S.-Colombian Identity and the Latin Music Boom by María Elena Cepeda
*Latino/a Popular Culture, edited by Michelle Habell-Pallán and Mary Romero
*Memory and Modernity: Popular Culture in Latin America, edited by William Rowe and Vivian Schelling
*Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico since 1940, edited by Gilbert Joseph, Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov
*From Bananas to Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture, edited by Myra Mendible
*Oye Como Va! Hybridity and Identity in Latino Popular Music by Deborah Pacini Hernández
*Musica Norteña: Mexican Migrants Creating a Nation between Nations by Cathy Ragland
GRADING
Attendance and Participation: 15%
One in-class short presentation: 10%
Three short essays during the semester: 30%
Final research paper: 45%