Laura G. Gutiérrez

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 20^th and early 21^st 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 20^th 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 20^th century and into the 21^st 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 20^th and 21^st 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?

While this course’s title suggest that the span of the class material covered will begin with a visual cultural analysis of Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa, and will end with Selena, the Queen of Tejano, these two figures only conceptually bookend the ideas that will be explored during the semester. This class will begin by sampling a number of performances of Latinas in popular cultural texts to get lay the ground for the analytical and conceptual frameworks that we will be exploring during the semester. First of all, in a workshop format, we will learn to analyze cultural texts that are visual and movement-based. We will, for example, learn to write performance and visual analysis by collectively learning and putting into practice vocabulary connected to the body in movement, space(s), and visual references (from color to specific ethnic tropes). Second, we will begin to explore the ways in which Latinas have been hypervisible and invisible at the same time, both in culture and in society at large. The class asks the following: how can we reconcile that the notion of Queen, as signaled by these two figures, or, in general, the notion of Diva, used to signal a performance of virtuosity and excellence, which merited adoration, can co-exist in a society where Latinas are devalued?

By combining methods from Latinx Studies and Performance Studies, where embodied practices and representations of race and ethnicity are conjoined in our analysis, we will have a wider understanding of Latinas in popular culture in the United States beginning in the early 20th Century. To that end, this class will examine figures in US 20th and 21st centuries popular culture that have enriched some cultural industries, specifically Hollywood and the music industry, yet have been exceedingly exoticized, discriminated because of race and gender, and marginalized or rendered invisible. By being attendant to the conventions that have manufactured certain representations, that is, by learning to analyze performance texts in popular culture, the students will come to understand not only questions of gender and race and ethnicity as important analytics, but will also become conversant in the theories and practices of performance. Some of the figures that we will study include: Carmen Miranda, Lupe Vélez, Dolores del Río, María Montez, Rita Moreno, Celia Cruz, La Lupe, La India, Jennifer López, Selena, Shakira, Cardi B.

While this course’s title suggest that the span of the class material covered will begin with a visual cultural analysis of Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa, and will end with Selena, the Queen of Tejano, these two figures only conceptually bookend the ideas that will be explored during the semester. This class will begin by sampling a number of performances of Latinas in popular cultural texts to get lay the ground for the analytical and conceptual frameworks that we will be exploring during the semester. First of all, in a workshop format, we will learn to analyze cultural texts that are visual and movement-based. We will, for example, learn to write performance and visual analysis by collectively learning and putting into practice vocabulary connected to the body in movement, space(s), and visual references (from color to specific ethnic tropes). Second, we will begin to explore the ways in which Latinas have been hypervisible and invisible at the same time, both in culture and in society at large. The class asks the following: how can we reconcile that the notion of Queen, as signaled by these two figures, or, in general, the notion of Diva, used to signal a performance of virtuosity and excellence, which merited adoration, can co-exist in a society where Latinas are devalued?

By combining methods from Latinx Studies and Performance Studies, where embodied practices and representations of race and ethnicity are conjoined in our analysis, we will have a wider understanding of Latinas in popular culture in the United States beginning in the early 20th Century. To that end, this class will examine figures in US 20th and 21st centuries popular culture that have enriched some cultural industries, specifically Hollywood and the music industry, yet have been exceedingly exoticized, discriminated because of race and gender, and marginalized or rendered invisible. By being attendant to the conventions that have manufactured certain representations, that is, by learning to analyze performance texts in popular culture, the students will come to understand not only questions of gender and race and ethnicity as important analytics, but will also become conversant in the theories and practices of performance. Some of the figures that we will study include: Carmen Miranda, Lupe Vélez, Dolores del Río, María Montez, Rita Moreno, Celia Cruz, La Lupe, La India, Jennifer López, Selena, Shakira, Cardi B.

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 20^th and early 21^st 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 20^th 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 20^th century and into the 21^st 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 20^th and 21^st 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?

Please check back for updates.

Please check back for updates.

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 20^th and early 21^st 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 20^th 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 20^th century and into the 21^st 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 20^th and 21^st 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%

This seminar places at the core of its concerns the critical categories, methods, and philosophical modes of inquiry coming from feminist theory and performance theory as it intersects with cultural and artistic discourses on the racialized and sexualized body in the context of the Americas. All the while, we will also take into consideration historical junctures that have produced bodies that are deemed either excessively desired or disposable. Put differently, this seminar asks students to think critically about the multiple ways in which the racialized and sexualized body exists in the context of US Latina/o and Latin American societies and cultures. How can we think about the ways in which the Latina and Latin American body is often exoticized, at times pointing to one particular body part/section? How can we think about adornment and dress as part of the meaning-making for those bodies in society and culture? Why are gendered and racialized bodies so maligned and brutalized at the same time that they are upheld in society as protectors and/or saintly? How do dissenting artists and cultural makers respond to these imaginings? These are some of the questions the seminar will grapple with.

And, as one of the primary goals of the course is for the students to develop their own toolbox to analyze gendered and racialized embodied practices, the class will work on the bridging of different disciplinary methods and theories to achieve this. In addition to theoretical texts, the class material is multidisciplinary and is culled from the Latin American and the US Latina/o context in order to interrogate regional and national specificities regarding the production of the sexualized and racialized body in the Americas.

Examines the historic rise of neoliberal reform and narco culture as a tie to the North American Free Trade Agreement brokered between the United States, Canada, and Mexico in 1994. Mexican American Studies 326 and MAS 374 (Topic: NAFTA/Neoliberalism/Narco Cul) may not both be counted.

Hour(s) to be arranged. Restricted to students participating in the summer program in Mexico City, Mexico; contact the department for permission to register for this class.

Class meets May 26-July 6. Faculty-led Abroad Program taught in Mexico City, Mexico. Students must consult with Study Abroad Program Coordinator as travel and orientation dates may be in addition to these dates.

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Latin American Studies 328 and LAS 370S may not both be counted unless the topics vary

Please check back for updates.