Critical Mexican Studies – serie

Based on comparative readings of contemporary books from Latin America, Spain, and the United States, the essays of this book present a radical critique against strategies of literary appropriation that were once thought of as neutral, and even concomitant, components of the writing process. Debunking the position of the author as center of analysis, Cristina Rivera Garza argues for the communality-a term used by anthropologist Floriberto DÍaz to describe modes of life of indigenous peoples of Oaxaca based on notions of collaborative labor-permeating all writing processes.Disappropriating is a political operation at the core of projects acknowledging, both at ethical and aesthetic levels, that writers always work with materials that are not their own. Writers borrow from the practitioners of a language, entering in a debt relationship that can only be covered by ushering the text back to the communities in which it grew. In an increasingly violent world, where the experiences of many are erased by pillage and extraction, writing among and for the dead is a form of necrowriting that may as well become a life-affirming act of decolonization and resistance.

Based on comparative readings of contemporary books from Latin America, Spain, and the United States, the essays of this book present a radical critique against strategies of literary appropriation that were once thought of as neutral, and even concomitant, components of the writing process. Debunking the position of the author as center of analysis, Cristina Rivera Garza argues for the communality-a term used by anthropologist Floriberto DÍaz to describe modes of life of indigenous peoples of Oaxaca based on notions of collaborative labor-permeating all writing processes.Disappropriating is a political operation at the core of projects acknowledging, both at ethical and aesthetic levels, that writers always work with materials that are not their own. Writers borrow from the practitioners of a language, entering in a debt relationship that can only be covered by ushering the text back to the communities in which it grew. In an increasingly violent world, where the experiences of many are erased by pillage and extraction, writing among and for the dead is a form of necrowriting that may as well become a life-affirming act of decolonization and resistance.

In History and Modern Media, John Mraz largely focuses on Mexican photography and his innovative methodology that examines historical photographs by employing the concepts of genre and functions. He developed this method in extensive work on photojournalism; it is here tested through examining two genres: Indianist imagery as an expression of imperial, neo-colonializing and decolonizing photography, and progressive photography as embodied in worker and laborist imagery, as well as feminist and decolonizing visuality.The book interweaves an autobiographical narrative with concrete research. Mraz describes the resistance he encountered in U.S. academia to this new way of showing and describing the past, as well as some illuminating experiences as a visiting professor at several U.S. universities. More importantly, he reflects on what it has meant to move to Mexico and become a Mexican. Mexico is home to a thriving school of photohistorians perhaps unequaled in the world. Some were trained in Art History, and a few continue to pursue that discipline. However, the great majority work from the discipline we have here defined as 'photohistory,' which focuses on vernacular photographs, those made outside of artistic intentions, and which constitute some 98% of all photographic images.A central premise of the book is that knowing past and other cultures is crucial in societies dominated by short-term and parochial thinking, and that today's hyper-audiovisuality requires historians to use modern media to offer their knowledge as alternatives to the 'perpetual present' in which we live.

In History and Modern Media, John Mraz largely focuses on Mexican photography and his innovative methodology that examines historical photographs by employing the concepts of genre and functions. He developed this method in extensive work on photojournalism; it is here tested through examining two genres: Indianist imagery as an expression of imperial, neo-colonializing and decolonizing photography, and progressive photography as embodied in worker and laborist imagery, as well as feminist and decolonizing visuality.The book interweaves an autobiographical narrative with concrete research. Mraz describes the resistance he encountered in U.S. academia to this new way of showing and describing the past, as well as some illuminating experiences as a visiting professor at several U.S. universities. More importantly, he reflects on what it has meant to move to Mexico and become a Mexican. Mexico is home to a thriving school of photohistorians perhaps unequaled in the world. Some were trained in Art History, and a few continue to pursue that discipline. However, the great majority work from the discipline we have here defined as 'photohistory,' which focuses on vernacular photographs, those made outside of artistic intentions, and which constitute some 98% of all photographic images.A central premise of the book is that knowing past and other cultures is crucial in societies dominated by short-term and parochial thinking, and that today's hyper-audiovisuality requires historians to use modern media to offer their knowledge as alternatives to the 'perpetual present' in which we live.

Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures is an homage to a constellation of women writers, feminists, and creators whose voices draw a map of our current global political-environmental crisis and the interlinked massive violence, enabled by the denigration of life and human relationships. In a world, in which ""a woman's voice"" exists in bodies called in to occupy important positions in corporations, government, cultural and academic institutions, to work in factories, to join the army, but whose bodies are systematically rendered vulnerable by gender violence and by the double burden imposed on us to perform both productive and reproductive labor, I ask what is the task of thought and form in contemporary feminist situated knowledge? Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures is a collection of essays rethinking feminist issues in the current context of the production of redundant populations, the omnipresence of the technosphere and environmental devastation, toxic relationships, toxic nationalisms, and more.These reflections and dialogues are an urgent attempt to resist the present in the company of the voices of women like bell hooks, Sarah Ahmed, Leslie Jamison, Lina Meruane, Leanne Simpson, Chris Kraus, AlaÍde Foppa, Lorena Wolffer, Sayak Valencia, Pip Day, Veronica GonzÁlez, Eimear McBride, Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Poniatowska, Susan Sontag, Margaret Randall, Simone Weil, Arundhati Roy, Marta Lamas, Paul B. Preciado, Dawn Paley, Raquel GutiÉrrez, etc. Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures continues the discussion on how to undo misogyny and dismantle heteropatriarchy's sublimating and denigrating tricks against women, which are intrinsically linked to colonialism and violence against the Earth.

Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures is an homage to a constellation of women writers, feminists, and creators whose voices draw a map of our current global political-environmental crisis and the interlinked massive violence, enabled by the denigration of life and human relationships. In a world, in which ""a woman's voice"" exists in bodies called in to occupy important positions in corporations, government, cultural and academic institutions, to work in factories, to join the army, but whose bodies are systematically rendered vulnerable by gender violence and by the double burden imposed on us to perform both productive and reproductive labor, I ask what is the task of thought and form in contemporary feminist situated knowledge? Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures is a collection of essays rethinking feminist issues in the current context of the production of redundant populations, the omnipresence of the technosphere and environmental devastation, toxic relationships, toxic nationalisms, and more.These reflections and dialogues are an urgent attempt to resist the present in the company of the voices of women like bell hooks, Sarah Ahmed, Leslie Jamison, Lina Meruane, Leanne Simpson, Chris Kraus, AlaÍde Foppa, Lorena Wolffer, Sayak Valencia, Pip Day, Veronica GonzÁlez, Eimear McBride, Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Poniatowska, Susan Sontag, Margaret Randall, Simone Weil, Arundhati Roy, Marta Lamas, Paul B. Preciado, Dawn Paley, Raquel GutiÉrrez, etc. Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures continues the discussion on how to undo misogyny and dismantle heteropatriarchy's sublimating and denigrating tricks against women, which are intrinsically linked to colonialism and violence against the Earth.

Violence has only increased in Mexico since 2000: 23,000 murders were recorded in 2016, and 29,168 in 2017.The abundance of laws and constitutional amendments that have cropped up in response are mirrored in Mexico's fragmented cultural production of the same period. Contemporary Mexican literature grapples with this splintered reality through non-linear stories from multiple perspectives, often told through shifts in time. The novels, such as Jorge Volpi's Una novela criminal [A Novel Crime] (2018) and JuliÁn Herbert's La casa del dolor ajeno [The House of the Pain of Others] (2015) take multiple perspectives and follow non-linear plotlines; other examples, such as the very short stories in ¡Basta! 100 mujeres contra la violencia de gÉnero [Enough! 100 Women against Gender-Based Violence] (2013), also present multiple perspectives.Few scholars compare cultural production and legal texts in situations like Mexico, where extreme violence coexists with a high number of human rights laws. Unlawful Violence measures fictional accounts of human rights against new laws that include constitutional amendments to reform legal proceedings, laws that protect children, laws that condemn violence against women, and laws that protect migrants and indigenous peoples. It also explores debates about these laws in the Mexican house of representatives and senate, as well as interactions between the law and the Mexican public.

Violence has only increased in Mexico since 2000: 23,000 murders were recorded in 2016, and 29,168 in 2017.The abundance of laws and constitutional amendments that have cropped up in response are mirrored in Mexico's fragmented cultural production of the same period. Contemporary Mexican literature grapples with this splintered reality through non-linear stories from multiple perspectives, often told through shifts in time. The novels, such as Jorge Volpi's Una novela criminal [A Novel Crime] (2018) and JuliÁn Herbert's La casa del dolor ajeno [The House of the Pain of Others] (2015) take multiple perspectives and follow non-linear plotlines; other examples, such as the very short stories in ¡Basta! 100 mujeres contra la violencia de gÉnero [Enough! 100 Women against Gender-Based Violence] (2013), also present multiple perspectives.Few scholars compare cultural production and legal texts in situations like Mexico, where extreme violence coexists with a high number of human rights laws. Unlawful Violence measures fictional accounts of human rights against new laws that include constitutional amendments to reform legal proceedings, laws that protect children, laws that condemn violence against women, and laws that protect migrants and indigenous peoples. It also explores debates about these laws in the Mexican house of representatives and senate, as well as interactions between the law and the Mexican public.

Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border reveal the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed.Yet, the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Along with these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto BolaÑo, and other important Latin American writers as examples of works that do capture the realities of the drug war.Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers—physical and mental—created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border reveal the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed.Yet, the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Along with these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto BolaÑo, and other important Latin American writers as examples of works that do capture the realities of the drug war.Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers—physical and mental—created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

The birth of the world’s great megacities is the surest and starkest harbinger of the “urban age” inaugurated in the twentieth century. As the world’s urban population achieves majority for the first time in recorded history, theories proliferate on the nature of urban politics, including the shape and quality of urban democracy, the role of urban social and political movements, and the prospects for progressive and emancipatory change from the corridors of powerful states to the routinized rhythms of everyday life. At stake are both the ways in which the rapidly changing urban world is understood and the urban futures being negotiated by the governments and populations struggling to contend with these changes and forge a place in contemporary cities.Transdisciplinary by design, Monstrous Politics first moves historically through Mexico City’s turbulent twentieth century, driven centrally by the contentious imbrication of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its capital city. Participant observation, expert interviews, and archival materials demonstrate the shifting strategies and alliances of recent decades, provide the reader with a sense of the texture of contemporary political life in the city during a time of unprecedented change, and locate these dynamics within the history and geography of twentieth-century urbanization and political revolution. Substantive ethnographic chapters trace the emergence and decline of the political language of “the right to the city,” the establishment and contestation of a “postpolitical” governance regime, and the culmination of a century of urban politics in the processes of “political reform” by which Mexico City finally wrested back significant political autonomy and local democracy from the federal state.A four-fold transection of the revolutionary structure of feeling that pervades the city in this historic moment illustrates the complex and contradictory sentiments, appraisals, and motivations through which contemporary politics are understood and enacted. Drawing on theories of social revolution that embrace complexity, and espousing a methodology that foregrounds the everyday nature of politics, Monstrous Politics develops an understanding of revolutionary urban politics at once contextually nuanced and conceptually expansive, and thus better able to address the realities of politics in the “urban age” even beyond Mexico City.

The birth of the world’s great megacities is the surest and starkest harbinger of the “urban age” inaugurated in the twentieth century. As the world’s urban population achieves majority for the first time in recorded history, theories proliferate on the nature of urban politics, including the shape and quality of urban democracy, the role of urban social and political movements, and the prospects for progressive and emancipatory change from the corridors of powerful states to the routinized rhythms of everyday life. At stake are both the ways in which the rapidly changing urban world is understood and the urban futures being negotiated by the governments and populations struggling to contend with these changes and forge a place in contemporary cities.Transdisciplinary by design, Monstrous Politics first moves historically through Mexico City’s turbulent twentieth century, driven centrally by the contentious imbrication of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its capital city. Participant observation, expert interviews, and archival materials demonstrate the shifting strategies and alliances of recent decades, provide the reader with a sense of the texture of contemporary political life in the city during a time of unprecedented change, and locate these dynamics within the history and geography of twentieth-century urbanization and political revolution. Substantive ethnographic chapters trace the emergence and decline of the political language of “the right to the city,” the establishment and contestation of a “postpolitical” governance regime, and the culmination of a century of urban politics in the processes of “political reform” by which Mexico City finally wrested back significant political autonomy and local democracy from the federal state.A four-fold transection of the revolutionary structure of feeling that pervades the city in this historic moment illustrates the complex and contradictory sentiments, appraisals, and motivations through which contemporary politics are understood and enacted. Drawing on theories of social revolution that embrace complexity, and espousing a methodology that foregrounds the everyday nature of politics, Monstrous Politics develops an understanding of revolutionary urban politics at once contextually nuanced and conceptually expansive, and thus better able to address the realities of politics in the “urban age” even beyond Mexico City.

The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, and Performance considers the influence of a Japanese ethnic background or lack thereof in the writing of several twentieth and twenty-first century Mexican authors, directors, and artists. In spite of the unquestionable influence of the Nikkei communities in Mexico’s history and culture, and the numerous historical studies recently published on these two communities, the study of their cultural production and, therefore, their self-definition and how they conceive themselves has been, for the most part, overlooked.This book, a continuation of the author's previous research on cultural production by Latin American authors of Asian ancestry, focuses mostly on texts, films, and artworks produced by Asian Mexicans, rather than on the Japanese or Chinese as mere objects of study. However, it will also be contrasted with the representation of Asians by Mexican authors with no Asian ancestry. With this interdisciplinary study, the author hopes to bring to the fore this silenced community's voice and agency to historicize their own experience.The Mexican Transpacific is a much needed contribution to the fields of contemporary Mexican studies, Latin American studies, race and ethnic studies, transnational Asian studies, and Japanese diaspora studies, in light of the theoretical perspectives of cultural studies, the decolonial turn, and postcolonial theory.

The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, and Performance considers the influence of a Japanese ethnic background or lack thereof in the writing of several twentieth and twenty-first century Mexican authors, directors, and artists. In spite of the unquestionable influence of the Nikkei communities in Mexico’s history and culture, and the numerous historical studies recently published on these two communities, the study of their cultural production and, therefore, their self-definition and how they conceive themselves has been, for the most part, overlooked.This book, a continuation of the author's previous research on cultural production by Latin American authors of Asian ancestry, focuses mostly on texts, films, and artworks produced by Asian Mexicans, rather than on the Japanese or Chinese as mere objects of study. However, it will also be contrasted with the representation of Asians by Mexican authors with no Asian ancestry. With this interdisciplinary study, the author hopes to bring to the fore this silenced community's voice and agency to historicize their own experience.The Mexican Transpacific is a much needed contribution to the fields of contemporary Mexican studies, Latin American studies, race and ethnic studies, transnational Asian studies, and Japanese diaspora studies, in light of the theoretical perspectives of cultural studies, the decolonial turn, and postcolonial theory.

Robo Sacer engages the digital humanities, critical race theory, border studies, biopolitical theory, and necropolitical theory to interrogate how technology has been used to oppress people of Mexican descent—both within Mexico and in the United States—since the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. As the book argues, robo-sacer identity emerges as transnational flows of bodies, capital, and technology become an institutionalized state of exception that relegates people from marginalized communities to the periphery.And yet, the same technology can be utilized by the oppressed in the service of resistance. The texts studied here represent speculative stories about this technological empowerment. These texts theorize different means of techno-resistance to key realities that have emerged within Mexican and Chicano/a/x communities under the rise and reign of neoliberalism. The first three chapters deal with dehumanization, the trafficking of death, and unbalanced access to technology. The final two chapters deal with the major forms of violence—feminicide and drug-related violence—that have grown exponentially in Mexico with the rise of neoliberalism. These stories theorize the role of technology both in oppressing and in providing the subaltern with necessary tools for resistance.Robo Sacer builds on the previous studies of Sayak Valencia, Irmgard Emmelhainz, Guy Emerson, Achille Mbembe, and of course Giorgio Agamben, but it differentiates itself from them through its theorization on how technology—and particularly cyborg subjectivity—can amend the reigning biopolitical and necropolitical structures of power in potentially liberatory ways. Robo Sacer shows how the cyborg can denaturalize constructs of zoē by providing an outlet through which the oppressed can tell their stories, thus imbuing the oppressed with the power to combat imperialist forces.

Robo Sacer engages the digital humanities, critical race theory, border studies, biopolitical theory, and necropolitical theory to interrogate how technology has been used to oppress people of Mexican descent—both within Mexico and in the United States—since the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. As the book argues, robo-sacer identity emerges as transnational flows of bodies, capital, and technology become an institutionalized state of exception that relegates people from marginalized communities to the periphery.And yet, the same technology can be utilized by the oppressed in the service of resistance. The texts studied here represent speculative stories about this technological empowerment. These texts theorize different means of techno-resistance to key realities that have emerged within Mexican and Chicano/a/x communities under the rise and reign of neoliberalism. The first three chapters deal with dehumanization, the trafficking of death, and unbalanced access to technology. The final two chapters deal with the major forms of violence—feminicide and drug-related violence—that have grown exponentially in Mexico with the rise of neoliberalism. These stories theorize the role of technology both in oppressing and in providing the subaltern with necessary tools for resistance.Robo Sacer builds on the previous studies of Sayak Valencia, Irmgard Emmelhainz, Guy Emerson, Achille Mbembe, and of course Giorgio Agamben, but it differentiates itself from them through its theorization on how technology—and particularly cyborg subjectivity—can amend the reigning biopolitical and necropolitical structures of power in potentially liberatory ways. Robo Sacer shows how the cyborg can denaturalize constructs of zoē by providing an outlet through which the oppressed can tell their stories, thus imbuing the oppressed with the power to combat imperialist forces.

Mexican independence was, in a sense, an economic event. It was so on two counts. First, it was in the realm of the economic that elites managed to create a common ground with non-elites in their demands against foreign domination. Second, it was an economic event in that, throughout the 19th century, independence was imagined by the lettered men of Mexico as a feat that nationalized, or that could have nationalized, a rich and productive economic apparatus.Mexico, Interrupted investigates the fate of these economic hopes during the difficult decades between the year of the country’s definite separation from Spain and the year of the defeat of the French occupation and the restoration of the Republic, which many took to be the second and final independence of the territory. Drawing on the writings of politicians, journalists, intellectuals, industrialists, and novelists, this book studies the Mexican intelligentsia’s obsessive engagement with the labor and idleness of the citizenry in their attempts to create a wealthy, independent nation.By focusing on work and its opposites in the period between, Mexico, Interrupted reconstructs the period’s “economic imaginaries of independence”: the repertoire of political and cultural discourses that structured the understandings, beliefs, and fantasies about the relationships between “the economy” and the life of an independent polity. All told, by bringing together intellectual history, critical theory, and cultural studies, this project offers a new account of the Mexican nineteenth century and complicates existing histories of the spread of the “spirit of capitalism” through the Americas.

Mexican independence was, in a sense, an economic event. It was so on two counts. First, it was in the realm of the economic that elites managed to create a common ground with non-elites in their demands against foreign domination. Second, it was an economic event in that, throughout the 19th century, independence was imagined by the lettered men of Mexico as a feat that nationalized, or that could have nationalized, a rich and productive economic apparatus.Mexico, Interrupted investigates the fate of these economic hopes during the difficult decades between the year of the country’s definite separation from Spain and the year of the defeat of the French occupation and the restoration of the Republic, which many took to be the second and final independence of the territory. Drawing on the writings of politicians, journalists, intellectuals, industrialists, and novelists, this book studies the Mexican intelligentsia’s obsessive engagement with the labor and idleness of the citizenry in their attempts to create a wealthy, independent nation.By focusing on work and its opposites in the period between, Mexico, Interrupted reconstructs the period’s “economic imaginaries of independence”: the repertoire of political and cultural discourses that structured the understandings, beliefs, and fantasies about the relationships between “the economy” and the life of an independent polity. All told, by bringing together intellectual history, critical theory, and cultural studies, this project offers a new account of the Mexican nineteenth century and complicates existing histories of the spread of the “spirit of capitalism” through the Americas.

No book until now has tied in two centuries of Mexican serial narratives—striking tales of glory, of fame, of colorful epic characters, grounded in oral folklore—with their subsequent retelling in comics, radio, and television soap operas. Amy Wright's colorful multidisciplinary Serial Mexico delves deep into this rich national storytelling tradition for the first time: examining nostalgic tales told and reimagined from popular novelas to radionovelas then telenovelas and onwards, examining the enduring foundational figures woven into the very fabric of society, from the country's beginnings into the twenty-first century.This panoramic view offers a glimpse into how the Mexican people have experienced their stories from the country's early days until now, showcasing a penchant for protagonists that mock authority, that make light of hierarchy, that embrace the hybridity and mestizaje of Mexico itself. These tales vividly reflect and respond to a variety of crucial cultural concerns such as family, patriarchy, gender roles, racial mixing, urbanization, modernization and political idealism. Serial Mexico shows clearly how serialized storytelling's mix of melodrama and sensationalism was not devoid of revealing political and cultural messaging.In a detailed yet accessible style, Wright highlights how these stories and concerns have continued to morph, along with changing social media, into current times. Will these tropes and traditions carry on within new and reimagined serial storytelling forms? Only time will tell. Stay tuned for the next surprising episode.

No book until now has tied in two centuries of Mexican serial narratives—striking tales of glory, of fame, of colorful epic characters, grounded in oral folklore—with their subsequent retelling in comics, radio, and television soap operas. Amy Wright's colorful multidisciplinary Serial Mexico delves deep into this rich national storytelling tradition for the first time: examining nostalgic tales told and reimagined from popular novelas to radionovelas then telenovelas and onwards, examining the enduring foundational figures woven into the very fabric of society, from the country's beginnings into the twenty-first century.This panoramic view offers a glimpse into how the Mexican people have experienced their stories from the country's early days until now, showcasing a penchant for protagonists that mock authority, that make light of hierarchy, that embrace the hybridity and mestizaje of Mexico itself. These tales vividly reflect and respond to a variety of crucial cultural concerns such as family, patriarchy, gender roles, racial mixing, urbanization, modernization and political idealism. Serial Mexico shows clearly how serialized storytelling's mix of melodrama and sensationalism was not devoid of revealing political and cultural messaging.In a detailed yet accessible style, Wright highlights how these stories and concerns have continued to morph, along with changing social media, into current times. Will these tropes and traditions carry on within new and reimagined serial storytelling forms? Only time will tell. Stay tuned for the next surprising episode.

Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation highlights what author Christina Baker refers to as the “sonic strategies” employed by contemporary performance artists in Mexico in response to the violence surrounding the government’s so-called War on Drugs. The introduction (which opens with the scene of the 2007 reenactment of the Grito, or “cry,” of independence) presents the theme, and each subsequent chapter focuses on the works of one or more performance artist. Taken together, the case studies illuminate how critiques of the nation’s rising death tolls, governmental corruption, and gendered violence very literally sound whether in MÚsica de balas, a post-dramatic piece by Hugo Salcedo, CompaÑÍa Teatro Penitenciario’s journey to theatre by way of incarceration, the lamentations of the nation’s Antigones, satirical revisions of Mexican Golden Age Film in the cabaret piece Nosotras las proles, or the story of transfemicide in CÉsar EnrÍquez's La Prietty Guoman by way of U.S. pop music.Written in an accessible style grounded in theatre studies, but interdisciplinary by design, Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation will appeal to literary critics, students, (ethno)musicologists, and theater and performance scholars alike. ​By paying close attention to both planned and spontaneous sounds within live and textual experiences, Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation contends that conscientious listening practices highlight dynamic practices that reside beyond the linguistic and embodied gesture.

Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation highlights what author Christina Baker refers to as the “sonic strategies” employed by contemporary performance artists in Mexico in response to the violence surrounding the government’s so-called War on Drugs. The introduction (which opens with the scene of the 2007 reenactment of the Grito, or “cry,” of independence) presents the theme, and each subsequent chapter focuses on the works of one or more performance artist. Taken together, the case studies illuminate how critiques of the nation’s rising death tolls, governmental corruption, and gendered violence very literally sound whether in MÚsica de balas, a post-dramatic piece by Hugo Salcedo, CompaÑÍa Teatro Penitenciario’s journey to theatre by way of incarceration, the lamentations of the nation’s Antigones, satirical revisions of Mexican Golden Age Film in the cabaret piece Nosotras las proles, or the story of transfemicide in CÉsar EnrÍquez's La Prietty Guoman by way of U.S. pop music.Written in an accessible style grounded in theatre studies, but interdisciplinary by design, Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation will appeal to literary critics, students, (ethno)musicologists, and theater and performance scholars alike. ​By paying close attention to both planned and spontaneous sounds within live and textual experiences, Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation contends that conscientious listening practices highlight dynamic practices that reside beyond the linguistic and embodied gesture.

Subjunctive Aesthetics argues for the importance of ecocritical approaches within the field of Mexican Studies. While environmental historians of Mexico have been leading the charge in terms of foregrounding the nonhuman as a legitimate object of analysis, Mexican cultural studies is just beginning to do. This monograph engages with established and up-and-coming Latin American ecocritical scholars who argue that Latin America offers an important corrective to Anglocentric approaches to the Anthropocene by foregrounding colonialism and empire. Studies indicate that Mexicans are more worried about climate change than any other global issue, more anxious about natural disasters than any other quotidian threat (including crime), and that suicide rates have risen along with temperatures. These fears are grounded in reality: in the last twenty years, Mexico issued more than 2,000 extreme weather warnings linked to hydrometeorological events, and ranked in the top ten countries in terms of absolute economic losses caused by (un)natural disasters. Mexico is also one of the deadliest countries in the world for environmental activists: in 2018 alone, twenty-one defenders of the land were murdered, and many others criminalized or intimidated. Pervasive social anxiety in Mexico about ongoing and future climate change is reflected in the outpouring of eco-cultural production over the past decade, a body of work that has yet to be comprehensively studied. The exponential explosion of cultural responses to climate change is not limited to any one genre: Mexican poets like Karen Villeda and Isabel Zapata have thematized extinction, sci-fi writer Alberto Chimal recently published a dystopian young adult climate fiction, and performance artist Naomi Rincón Gallardo has created works that contest extractivism’s murderous tactics. Subjunctive Aesthetics brings together these artists and others to collate a diverse constellation of Mexican cultural responses to climate change that index the multifaceted nature of this crisis. Carolyn Fornoff argues that what unites this array is the way in which it deploys the subjunctive—not the what is, but the what if—in order to disrupt current paradigms of energy consumption and envision a more just and sustainable planetary future.

Subjunctive Aesthetics argues for the importance of ecocritical approaches within the field of Mexican Studies. While environmental historians of Mexico have been leading the charge in terms of foregrounding the nonhuman as a legitimate object of analysis, Mexican cultural studies is just beginning to do. This monograph engages with established and up-and-coming Latin American ecocritical scholars who argue that Latin America offers an important corrective to Anglocentric approaches to the Anthropocene by foregrounding colonialism and empire. Studies indicate that Mexicans are more worried about climate change than any other global issue, more anxious about natural disasters than any other quotidian threat (including crime), and that suicide rates have risen along with temperatures. These fears are grounded in reality: in the last twenty years, Mexico issued more than 2,000 extreme weather warnings linked to hydrometeorological events, and ranked in the top ten countries in terms of absolute economic losses caused by (un)natural disasters. Mexico is also one of the deadliest countries in the world for environmental activists: in 2018 alone, twenty-one defenders of the land were murdered, and many others criminalized or intimidated. Pervasive social anxiety in Mexico about ongoing and future climate change is reflected in the outpouring of eco-cultural production over the past decade, a body of work that has yet to be comprehensively studied. The exponential explosion of cultural responses to climate change is not limited to any one genre: Mexican poets like Karen Villeda and Isabel Zapata have thematized extinction, sci-fi writer Alberto Chimal recently published a dystopian young adult climate fiction, and performance artist Naomi Rincón Gallardo has created works that contest extractivism’s murderous tactics. Subjunctive Aesthetics brings together these artists and others to collate a diverse constellation of Mexican cultural responses to climate change that index the multifaceted nature of this crisis. Carolyn Fornoff argues that what unites this array is the way in which it deploys the subjunctive—not the what is, but the what if—in order to disrupt current paradigms of energy consumption and envision a more just and sustainable planetary future.

This critical anthology of writings by Carlos Monsiváis represents a foundational set of texts by an exceptional (yet under‑translated) Mexican cultural critic. Fatefully, Faithfully Feminist situates the urgencies of social movements as they developed in real time. The essays span from 1973 to 2008 and analyze the role of women in a patriarchal culture from pre‑Colombian times to the present. This critical edition offers extensive annotation and cultural background to understand the cogent, but particularly Mexican, arguments that MonsivÁis makes, many of which are extremely relevant in today's political economy in the U.S. and the world.

This critical anthology of writings by Carlos Monsiváis represents a foundational set of texts by an exceptional (yet under‑translated) Mexican cultural critic. Fatefully, Faithfully Feminist situates the urgencies of social movements as they developed in real time. The essays span from 1973 to 2008 and analyze the role of women in a patriarchal culture from pre‑Colombian times to the present. This critical edition offers extensive annotation and cultural background to understand the cogent, but particularly Mexican, arguments that MonsivÁis makes, many of which are extremely relevant in today's political economy in the U.S. and the world.

Most scholars study postrevolutionary Mexican culture as a period in which cultural production significantly shaped national identity through murals, novels, essays, and other artifacts that registered the changing political and social realities in the wake of the Revolution. In Biocosmism, Jorge Quintana Navarrete shifts the focus to examine how a group of scientists, artists, and philosophers conceived the manifold relations of the human species with cosmological forces and nonhuman entities (animals, plants, inorganic matter, celestial bodies, among others).Drawing from recent theoretical trends in new materialisms, biopolitics, and posthumanism, this book traces for the first time the intellectual constellation of biocosmism or biocosmic thought: the study of universal life understood as the vital vibrancy that animates everything in the cosmos from inorganic matter to living organisms to outer space. It combines both analysis of unexplored areas—such as Alfonso L. Herrera’s plasmogeny—and innovative readings of canonical texts like Vasconcelos’s La raza cÓsmica to examine how biocomism produced a wide array of utopian projects and theorizations that continue to challenge anthropocentric, biopolitical frameworks.

Most scholars study postrevolutionary Mexican culture as a period in which cultural production significantly shaped national identity through murals, novels, essays, and other artifacts that registered the changing political and social realities in the wake of the Revolution. In Biocosmism, Jorge Quintana Navarrete shifts the focus to examine how a group of scientists, artists, and philosophers conceived the manifold relations of the human species with cosmological forces and nonhuman entities (animals, plants, inorganic matter, celestial bodies, among others).Drawing from recent theoretical trends in new materialisms, biopolitics, and posthumanism, this book traces for the first time the intellectual constellation of biocosmism or biocosmic thought: the study of universal life understood as the vital vibrancy that animates everything in the cosmos from inorganic matter to living organisms to outer space. It combines both analysis of unexplored areas—such as Alfonso L. Herrera’s plasmogeny—and innovative readings of canonical texts like Vasconcelos’s La raza cÓsmica to examine how biocomism produced a wide array of utopian projects and theorizations that continue to challenge anthropocentric, biopolitical frameworks.

We the Barbarians embarks on a careful and exhaustive reading of three of the most prominent authors in the latest wave of Mexican fiction: Yuri Herrera, Fernanda Melchor, and Valeria Luiselli. Originally published in Mexico in December of 2021, the work is divided into three parts that correspond to the analysis of each author’s narrative production. The book analyzes all the literary works published by Herrera, Melchor, and Luiselli from the beginning of their writing careers until 2021, allowing for a diachronic interpretation of their respective narrative projects as well as for comparative approaches to their aesthetic and ideological contours.Characterized by the fragmentation of civil society and the decomposition of the myths that accompanied the consolidation of the modern nation, Mexican visual and literary arts have been exploring a myriad of representational avenues to approach the phenomena of violence, institutional decay, and political instability. We the Barbarians analyzes the ways in which the transformations of national culture intersect with global developments, discussing the insertion of literary works at transnational levels. In the works of the authors studied here, the uses of language reveal the experimental integration of regional idiolects, colloquialisms, slang, and neologisms derived from multiple and diverse cultural registers, including the terminologies of social media. Urban and rural subcultures interplay with traditional currents and with the languages of film, performance, and popular music. Thematically, innovations introduced through the genre of chronicles, science fiction, journalism, and autobiographical writing produce powerful combinations in which "canonical" authors are re-interpreted and re-vitalized for a changing and diversified cultural market.The critical and theoretical approaches used here explore a variety of alternative symbolic representations of topics such as nationalism, community, and affect in times impacted by systemic violence, precariousness, and radical inequality. Moraña's goal is to perceive the negotiations between regional/local imaginaries and global scenarios characterized by the devaluation and re-signification of life, both at individual and at collective levels. Though it uses three authors as its focus, the book seeks to more broadly theorize the question of the relationship between literature and the social in the twenty-first century.