INVESTIGADORES
SZURMUK Monica
capítulos de libros
Título:
Introduction
Autor/es:
ROBERT MCKEE IRWIN; MÓNICA SZURMUK
Libro:
Dictionary of Latin American Cultural Studies
Editorial:
University Press of Florida
Referencias:
Lugar: Tallahasse; Año: 2012; p. 1 - 11
Resumen:
This is the first English language dictionary specifically targeted to specialists in Latin American cultural studies. Other cultural studies references that have been published in English have limited themselves to an Anglophone context (usually Britain, the US, Australia, Canada), and have been ignorant of Latin American intellectual production and debates. Several of the terms included in this dictionary (?lettered city,? ?transculturation?) have genealogies that are very specifically Latin American, while other more universal terms (?subalternism,? ?memory?) have established significant trajectories in Latin Americanist contexts. In selecting terms to include in this project, we have privileged those that are of consequence in the field of Latin American cultural studies, and that function as important references for cultural studies scholars working on the region. We have left out a dozen or so terms that although important did not seem to cross disciplinary boundaries with much flexibility or did not come up frequently within debates in the field. In general, each entry consists of a summary of the term?s meanings and uses within cultural studies in general, a discussion of its particular significance and applications in Latin American cultural studies, and finally a list of basic readings on the topic. We have also included a general bibliography, which can be used as a reference resource for the field. The emphasis in the entries is on the genealogy of the terms as well as their influence on the praxis of cultural studies in the context of Latin America. We are particularly interested in highlighting the trajectory of Latin American cultural studies along with its political (leftwing, antihegemonic) and transformative potential ? an interest that in fact is long established in Latin American cultural criticism. The other fundamental characteristic of Latin American cultural studies is that it takes a special interest in traditionally marginalized cultures (or subcultures), including those of subaltern groups or of communities that have been discriminated against due to prejudices of race, sex, sexual preference, etc., and focuses on any kind of cultural expression from the most refined elite forms to the most banal genres of mass culture, along with all categories of popular cultural expression. In this introduction, we will present a brief overview of the field, noting its genealogies, and describing its current state both in Latin America as well as in the Anglophone academy, especially that of the United States, where activity in Latin American cultural studies has assumed such a prominent status in worldwide markets of ideas that US based Latin Americanists have been accused of problematically appropriating the role of arbiters of the field (Richard).