First published in 1987 (this second edition in 1992), the Handbook of Latin American Literature offers readers the opportunity to explore this literary history in the English Language and constitutes an ideological approach to Latin American Literature. It provides both concise information concerning particular authors, works, and literary traditions of Latin America as well as comprehensive material about the various national literatures of the area. This book will therefore be of interest to Hispanic scholars, as well as more general readers and non-Hispanists.

First published in 1987 (this second edition in 1992), the Handbook of Latin American Literature offers readers the opportunity to explore this literary history in the English Language and constitutes an ideological approach to Latin American Literature. It provides both concise information concerning particular authors, works, and literary traditions of Latin America as well as comprehensive material about the various national literatures of the area. This book will therefore be of interest to Hispanic scholars, as well as more general readers and non-Hispanists.

For Latin American literature of the second half of the 20th century, critics have proposed such labels as "new novel" and "new new novel," boom and post-boom, women's literature, testimonial, postmodern literature, and the like. Given the fact that none of these designations is entirely satisfactory for fully charting the complex map of literary phenomena, this volume features an arrangement based on the birthdate of the writers represented, with an emphasis on individuals who have transcended the boundaries of national literatures and achieved a certain international recognition.

These critical studies propose innovative readings and overall reformulations of the texts and authors that stand as representative of the period for the contemporary reader. The first group of articles refers to reports, chronicles, and Renaissance epics, a vast block of texts that fall in most cases halfway between history and narrative fiction, and examine the experiences of the discovery, the conquest, and the colonization of the new territories. The second group concentrates on regionally marked texts from the Baroque period, especially those of the central figure of the Mexican nun poet and intellectual, Sor Juana In s de la Cruz. Finally, there are some essays on representative texts of the latter part of the colonial period.

The greater body of Spanish American letters stands in somewhat of an ancillary relationship to the traditions that arose in Europe. Only at the end of the 19th century, with the emergence of "modernismo," which was linked to European aesthetic movements such as French Parnassianism and Symbolism, there emerged a wave of literary innovations and experimentation that ushered in the modern era. This volume covers writers whose positions and reputations were established and consolidated prior to the crucial decade of the l960s.

This volume brings together papers on various theoretical questions that have been raised in recent debates in Spanish American literary studies. It provides varying perspectives and explores diverse theoretical approaches to colonial culture, testimonial writing, gender studies, postmodernism, ethnic issues, politics and nationalism, and other important subjects.

The 19th century in Latin America begins with the weakening of the political institutions established by the Spanish Crown, the emergence of a native consciousness and the diffusion of the ideas of the French Revolution and the United States. These articles examine the phenomena that mark the onset of the new century: the series of revolutions and long military struggles for independence that placed large areas of territory under arms and resulted in the formation of strong and independent nation-states.

The City as Photographic Text offers the first comprehensive presentation of photography on Sao Paulo. But more than just a study of one city's photographic legacy, this book is a manual for how to understand and talk about Latin American photography in general. Focusing on major figures and referencing widely available books of their work, David William Foster offers a unique analysis of how photographers have contributed to our understanding of the megalopolis Sao Paulo has become. Eschewing a conventional historical approach, Foster explores how best to interpret visual urban life. In turn, by focusing interest on the photographic text and the ways in which it creates an interpretive meaning for the city, rather than rehearsing the circumstances under which the photographs were taken, this study provides a model for productive comment on urban photography as a project of visual meaning with important artistic attributes. As a unique entry in the inventory of scholarly writing on Sao Paulo, The City as Photographic Text adds to our understanding of the enormous cultural significance this city holds as a world-class urban center.

Patagonia, 1960. Jose is on the run. Having fled from him homeland Germany, he has come to South America to continue his work - Jose is a doctor, who is seeking to manipulate genes to create the 'perfect' human race'. In the small village of Chacharramendi he first meets Lilith, a child he notices from the balcony of his motel and is instantly fascinated yet repulsed by. For Lilith has a growth defect, and the disproportionate size of her features represent all he is trying to exterminate from humankind. Yet, even more fascinating is the fact that her siblings are perfect examples of the Aryan race; tall, strongly built and fair. The anomaly of Lilith's existence fascinates him, and when he discovers Lilith's mother is pregnant, if he is not mistaken with twins, the temptation to involve himself in their lives and even interfere with the pregnancy is too much for him to pass up on. A cold, calculating but eerily charming man, Jose befriends Lilith and manipulates his way into the family. And so begins a dark relationship between the doctor and little girl, a kind of love that cannot end well. For Jose is actually Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, infamous for performing human experiments at Auschwitz and sooner or later his past is going to catch up with him.

One of the important cultural responses to political and sociohistorical events in Latin America is a resurgence of urban photography, which typically blends high art and social documentary. But unlike other forms of cultural production in Latin America, photography has received relatively little sustained critical analysis. This pioneering book offers one of the first in-depth investigations of the complex and extensive history of gendered perspectives in Latin American photography through studies of works from Argentina, Mexico, and Guatemala. David William Foster examines the work of photographers ranging from the internationally acclaimed artists Graciela Iturbide, Pedro Meyer, and Marcos Lopez to significant photographers whose work is largely unknown to English-speaking audiences. He grounds his essays in four interlocking areas of research: the experience of human life in urban environments, the feminist matrix and gendered cultural production, Jewish cultural production, and the ideological principles of cultural works and the connections between the works and the sociopolitical and historical contexts in which they were created. Foster reveals how gender-marked photography has contributed to the discourse surrounding the project of redemocratization in Argentina and Guatemala, as well as how it has illuminated human rights abuses in both countries. He also traces photography's contributions to the evolution away from the masculinist-dominated post-1910 Revolution ideology in Mexico. This research convincingly demonstrates that Latin American photography merits the high level of respect that is routinely accorded to more canonical forms of cultural production.

Ignacio Matus is a public school history teacher in Monterrey, Mexico, who gets fired because of his patriotic rantings about Mexico's repeated humiliations by the United States. Not only did Mexico's northern neighbor steal a large swath of the country in the Mexican-American War, but according to Matus it also denied him Olympic glory. Excluded from the 1924 Olympics, Matus ran his own parallel marathon and beat the time of the American who officially won the bronze medal. After spending decades attempting to vindicate his supposed triumph and claim the medal, Matus seeks an even bigger vindication-he will reconquer Texas for Mexico! Recruiting an army of "los iluminados," the enlightened ones, Matus sets off on a quest as worthy of Don Quixote as it is doomed. David Toscana is one of Latin America's leading contemporary writers, and his books have won several prestigious awards, including the Casa de las Americas Prize for The Enlightened Army. The novel's treatment of the troubled relations between Mexico and the United States makes it highly topical at a time when immigration and border walls capture headlines, while its lyrical writing and humorous take on the absurdities of everyday life offer timeless pleasures.

"Author continues his work on gay studies by questioning the makeup of the canon and the occlusion of the queering rhetoric. Includes essays on homoerotic writing by Chicano authors, lesbian desire in representations of Evita, feminine pornography in Latin America, and the crisis of masculinity in Argentine fiction. Very well researched; theoretically sound and provocative. Required reading in queer studies. See also HLAS 48:5657 and item #bi 97002052# by the same author"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Writers and editors of Spanish have long needed an authoritative guide to written language usage, similar to The MLA Style Manual and The Chicago Manual of Style. And here it is! This reference guide provides comprehensive information on how the Spanish language is copyedited for publication.

The book covers these major areas:
-- Language basics: capitalization, word division, spelling, and punctuation.
-- Language conventions: abbreviations, professional and personal titles, names of organizations, and nationalities.
-- Bibliographic format, particularly how Spanish differs from English.
-- Spanish language forms of classical authors' names.
-- Literary and grammatical terminology.
-- Linguistic terminology.
-- Biblical names and allusions.
-- A dictionary of grammatical doubts, including usage, grammatical constructions of particular words and phrases, verbal irregularities, and gender variations.

An analysis of selected texts that are viewed as cultural responses to military tyranny, and especially to the military dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, this important work studies the process of institutional redemocratization. Basing his discussion on the principle that a literary work constitutes a "rewriting" of the sociohistorical text, Foster examines a range of essays and novels for the ways in which they structure an interpretation of sociopolitical events.

Of particular concern is the ideological framing of the literary work and the semiotic complications that arise in the rewriting of a complex and often elusive historical past. Foster pays special attention to the contributions of feminist writing and discusses two dramatic texts by women. There are also references to other dimensions of subalternity, especially within the framework of the military's tight ideological array of "enemies of the fatherland" whose cultural production suffered repression.

Foster discusses the works of such authors as Enrique Medina, Marta Lynch, Griselda Gambaro, Ricardo Piglia, and Alejandra Pizarnik, among others. By focusing on major literary texts produced during a time of censorship and other forms of repression, Foster provides a deeper understanding of Argentine culture. Scholars and students of Latin American literature in general, and humanists and social scientists specializing in Argentina in particular, will welcome this insightful new contribution.

This study traces the development of Roa Bastos's concern with the reality of his people and their history and focuses on the mature techniques employed in the creation of a literary myth of a social reality.

Viewing contemporary Latin American films through the lens of queer studies reveals that many filmmakers are exploring issues of gender identity and sexual difference, as well as the homophobia that attempts to defeat any challenge to the heterosexual norms of patriarchal culture. In this study of queer issues in Latin American cinema, David William Foster offers highly perceptive queer readings of fourteen key films to demonstrate how these cultural products promote the principles of an antiheterosexist stance while they simultaneously disclose how homophobia enforces the norms of heterosexuality.

Foster examines each film in terms of the ideology of its narrative discourse, whether homoerotic desire or a critique of patriarchal heterosexism and its implications for Latin American social life and human rights. His analyses underscore the difficulties involved in constructing a coherent and convincing treatment of the complex issues involved in critiquing the patriarchy from perspectives associated with queer studies. The book will be essential reading for everyone working in queer studies and film studies.

The films discussed in this book are: De eso no se habla (I Don't Want to Talk about It) El lugar sin limites (The Place without Limits) Aqueles dois (Those Two) Convivencia (Living Together) Conducta impropia (Improper Conduct) The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca La Virgen de los Sicarios (Our Lady of the Assassins) Dona Herlinda y su hijo (Dona Herlinda and Her Son) No se lo digas a nadie (Don't Tell Anyone) En el paraiso no existe el dolor (There Is No Suffering in Paradise) A intrusa (The Interloper) Plata quemada (Burnt Money) Afrodita (Aphrodite) Fresa y chocolate(Strawberry and Chocolate)

"Gender is an absolute ground zero for most human societies," writes David William Foster, "an absolute horizon of social subjectivity." In this book, he examines gender issues in thirteen Brazilian films made (with one exception) after the 1985 return to constitutional democracy and elimination of censorship to show how these issues arise from and comment on the sociohistorical reality of contemporary Brazilian society.

Foster organizes his study around three broad themes: construction of masculinity, constructions of feminine and feminist identities, and same-sex positionings and social power. Within his discussions of individual films ranging from Jorge um brasileiro to A hora da estrela to Beijo no asfalto, he offers new ways of understanding national ideals and stereotypes, sexual dissidence (homoeroticism and transgenderism), heroic models, U.S./Brazilian relations, revolutionary struggle, and human rights violations. As the first study of Brazilian cinematic representations of gender ideology in English or Portuguese, this book will be important reading in film and cultural studies.

A taboo subject in many cultures, homosexuality has been traditionally repressed in Latin America, both as a way of life and as a subject for literature. Yet numerous writers have attempted to break the cultural silence surrounding homosexuality, using various strategies to overtly or covertly discuss lesbian and gay themes. In this study, David William Foster examines more than two dozen texts that deal with gay and lesbian topics, drawing from them significant insights into the relationship between homosexuality and society in different Latin American countries and time periods.

Foster's study includes works both sympathetic and antagonistic to homosexuality, showing the range of opinion on this topic. The preponderance of his examples come from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, countries with historically active gay communities, although he also includes material on other countries. Noteworthy among the authors covered are Reinaldo Arenas, Adolfo Caminha, Isaac Chocron, Jose Donoso, Sylvia Molloy, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Luis Zapata.

David William Foster is Regents' Professor of Spanish at Arizona State University.

El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond examines the graphic narrative tradition in the two South American countries that have produced the medium's most significant and copious output. Argentine graphic narrative emerged in the 1980s, awakened by Hector Oesterheld's groundbreaking 1950s serial El Eternauta. After Oesterheld was "disappeared" under the military dictatorship, El Eternauta became one of the most important cultural texts of turbulent mid-twentieth-century Argentina. Today its story, set in motion by an extraterrestrial invasion of Buenos Aires, is read as a parable foretelling the "invasion" of Argentine society by a murderous tyranny. Because of El Eternauta, graphic narrative became a major platform for the country's cultural redemocratization. In contrast, Brazil, which returned to democracy in 1985 after decades of dictatorship, produced considerably less analysis of the period of repression in its graphic narratives. In Brazil, serious graphic narratives such as Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba's Daytripper, which explores issues of modernity, globalization, and cross-cultural identity, developed only in recent decades, reflecting Brazilian society's current and ongoing challenges. Besides discussing El Eternauta and Daytripper, David William Foster utilizes case studies of influential works-such as Alberto Breccia and Juan Sasturain's Perramus series, Angelica Freitas and Odyr Bernardi's Guadalupe, and others-to compare the role of graphic narratives in the cultures of both countries, highlighting the importance of Argentina and Brazil as anchors of the production of world-class graphic narrative.

Distinguishing figural or typological allegory -- a method adapted from the Christian exegesis of the Old Testament -- from the broader Hellenistic concept of allegory, this book examines its use in representative poems of early Hispanic literature. The author focuses on the thematic and structural employment of this originally nonliterary device and comments on the literary problems it posed and the artistic effects which were achieved by it. The development of this particular allegorical method in medieval Hispanic literature -- works in Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, and Catalan -- he shows, was fully equal to that found in the medieval Latin, Italian, and English literatures, and an understanding of its use serves to clarify the interpretation of many individual poems.

Part of the self-image of Phoenix is that the city has no history and that anything of importance happened yesterday. Also that Phoenix is a ""clean"" city, though there is considerable evidence of a past of police corruption and social oppression. The ""real"" present-day Phoenix, easygoing and sun-drenched, a place of ever-expanding development and economic growth, guarantees, it is said, an enviable lifestyle, low taxes, and unfettered personal freedom and opportunity. Little of this is true. Phoenix has been described as one of the least sustainable cities in the country. The sixth largest urban area of the United States, there is an alarming superficiality in the tourism-oriented discourse of the leaders and citizens of the capital of Arizona. This study examines a series of narrative works (novels, theatre, chronicles, investigative reporting, personal accounts, editorial cartooning, even a children's television program) that question this discourse in a frequently stinging fashion. The works examined are anchored in a critical understanding of the dominant urban myths of Greater Phoenix, and an awareness of how all the newness, modernity, and fun-in-the-sun mentality mask a uniquely dystopian human experience.

Latin America is home to roughly half a million Jews, preponderantly Ashkenazic Jews. The majority are concentrated in Argentina, but Brazil and Mexico are also home to significant Jewish communities, as are major urban centers in other countries. Jews in Latin America, in addition to their prominent role in business, commerce, and finance, have a significant presence in cultural production and the arts. Like Hollywood, the Argentine and Mexican film industries are heavily Jewish, while the media - print journalism, radio, and television - have long been associated with Jewish interests. The open enrollment policies of many countries - Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico are notable here - have meant that Jews also have a considerable presence in academic and intellectual circles.