The University of Arizona Press
September 11, 2020
This week, we are focusing on books that are part of our Latinx Pop Culture series. Latinx Pop Culture is a new series that aims to shed light on all aspects of Latinx cultural production and consumption as well as the Latinx presence globally in popular cultural phenomena in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Use the code AZLATINX20 at checkout to receive 35% off any of the titles mentioned in this post through 9/20/20!
With unity of heart and mind, the creative and the scholarly, Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities opens wide its arms to all non-binary, decolonial masculinities today to grow a stronger, resilient, and more compassionate new generation of Latinxs tomorrow.
Read a Q&A with the editors of Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities, Arturo J. Aldama and Frederick Luis Aldama, here.
In Reel Latinxs, experts in Latinx pop culture Frederick Luis Aldama and Christopher González explain the real implications of Latinx representation in mainstream TV and film. They also provide a roadmap through a history of mediatized Latinxs that rupture stereotypes and reveal nuanced reconstructions of Latinx subjectivities and experiences.
Read a conversation between Frederick and Christopher here, then watch a video on why Latinx pop culture matters with Frederick Luis Aldama, Christopher González, and Ilan Stavans here. We are thrilled that Reel Latinxs was nominated as a finalist for the International Latino Book Award!
Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century is a timeless volume that offers a significant analysis of the burgeoning field of Latinx filmmaking. Editor Frederick Luis Aldama has gathered together some of the best writing on Latinx ciné in the twenty-first century. Today’s filmmakers show the world a rich Latinidad informed by a complexly layered culture replete with history, biography, and everyday experiences.
“An engaging collection that demonstrates both the advances Latinx filmmaking has made in the 2000s, and the acumen of the scholars who appraise them.”—Ryan Rashotte, author of Narco Cinema
Food Fight! contributes to urgent discussions around the problems of cultural misappropriation, labeling, identity, and imaging in marketing and dining establishments. Not just about food, restaurants, and coffee, this volume employs a decolonial approach and engaging voice to interrogate ways that mestizo, Indigenous, and Latinx peoples are objectified in mainstream ideology and imaginary.
“Every essay will fill a reader—millennial mestizo or just plain old Chicano—with joyous smiles at the zingers. Advertencia! This book is not one for idle consumption, it’s not fast food. Paloma Martinez-Cruz dishes up a scholarly dissertation of substantial complexity with a heaping portion of humor, verbal sleight-of-hand, and barely-restrained ire.”—La Bloga
Sor Juana: Or, The Persistence of Pop encapsulates the life, times, and legacy of seventeenth-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Ilan Stavans provides a biographical and meditative picture of how popular perceptions of her life and work both shape and reflect Latinx culture.
Read an excerpt from Sor Juana here, and watch a video about why Latinx pop culture matters with Ilan Stavans, Frederick Luis Aldama, and Christopher González here.
Interweaving discussions about the ethnic, racial, and linguistic representations of Latinas/os within network television comedies, Isabel Molina-Guzmán‘s Latina’s and Latinos On TV probes published interviews with producers and textual examples from hit programs like Modern Family, The Office, and Scrubs to understand how these prime-time sitcoms communicate difference in the United States.
Read an excerpt from the book here, then watch a video where Isabel Molina-Guzmán and Frederick Luis Aldama talk about Latinx pop culture here.
Latino Placemaking and Planning offers a pathway to define, analyze, and evaluate the role that placemaking can have with respect to Latino communities in the context of contemporary urban planning, policy, and design practices. Jesus J. Lara illustrates the importance of placemaking as a pathway to sustainable urban revitalization.
“Lara’s work on Latino urbanism both contributes to the rapid evolution of the field and strengthens an epistemic community around it. With this book, Lara both meta-analyzes the field and propels it forward.”—Clara Irazábal-Zurita, Director of Latinx and Latin American Studies, University of Missouri–Kansas City
In Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics, the foremost expert on Latinx comics, Frederick Luis Aldama, guides us through the full archive of all the Latinx superheros in comics since the 1940s. Aldama takes us where the superheroes live—the barrios, the hospitals, the school rooms, the farm fields—and he not only shows us a view to the Latinx content, sometimes deeply embedded, but also provokes critical inquiry into the way storytelling formats distill and reconstruct real Latinos/as.
We are very proud that Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics was the 2018 Eisner Award Winner for Best Scholarly/ Academic work, as well as the 2018 International Latino Book Award winner for Best Latino-Focused Non-Fiction Book. To watch Frederick talk about Latinx streaming during the coronavirus lockdown, visit here.
