The focus of this book is two-fold. First it traces the expansive geographical spread of the language commonly referred to as Spanish. This has given rise to multiple hybrid formations over time emerging in the clash of multiple cultures, languages and religions within and between great empires (Roman, Islamic, Hispano-Catholic), each with expansionist policies leading to wars, huge territorial gains and population movements. This long history makes Hispanophone culture itself a supranational, trans-imperial one long before we witness its various national cultures being refashioned as a result of the transnational processes associated with globalization today. Indeed, the Spanish language we recognise today was 'transnational' long before it was ever the foundation of a single nation state. Secondly, it approaches the more recent post-national, translingual and inter-subjective 'border-crossings' that characterise the global world today with an eye to their unfolding within this long trans-imperial history of the Hispanophone world. In doing so, it maps out some of the contemporary post-colonial, decolonial and trans-Atlantic inflections of this trans-imperial history as manifest in literature, cinema, music and digital cultures. Contributors: Christopher J. Pountain, L.P. Harvey, James T. Monroe, Rosaleen Howard, Mark Thurner, Alexander Samson, Andrew Ginger, Samuel Llano, Philip Swanson, Claire Taylor, Emily Baker, Elzbieta Slodowska, Francisco-J. Hernandez Adrian, Henriette Partzsch, Helen Melling, Conrad James and Benjamin Quarshie.

Featuring twenty-five key essays from the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (Traves/sia), this book surveys the most influential themes and concepts, as well as scouring some of the polemics and controversies, which have marked the field over the last quarter of a century since the Journal's foundation in 1992. Emerging at a moment of crisis of revolutionary narratives, and at the onset of neoliberal economics and emergent narcopolitics, the cultural studies impetus in Latin America was part of an attempted intellectual reconstruction of the (centre-) left in terms of civil society, and the articulation of social movements and agencies, thinking beyond the verticalist constructions from previous decades. This collection maps these developments from the now classical discussions of the 'cultural turn' to more recent responses to the challenges of biopolitics, affect theory, posthegemony and ecocriticism. It also addresses novel political constellations including resurgent national-popular or eco-nativist and indigenous agencies. Framed by a critical introduction from the editors, this volume is both a celebration of influential essays published over twenty five years of the Journal and a representative overview of the field in its multiple ramifications, entrenchments and exchanges.

Featuring twenty-five key essays from the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (Traves/sia), this book surveys the most influential themes and concepts, as well as scouring some of the polemics and controversies, which have marked the field over the last quarter of a century since the Journal's foundation in 1992. Emerging at a moment of crisis of revolutionary narratives, and at the onset of neoliberal economics and emergent narcopolitics, the cultural studies impetus in Latin America was part of an attempted intellectual reconstruction of the (centre-) left in terms of civil society, and the articulation of social movements and agencies, thinking beyond the verticalist constructions from previous decades. This collection maps these developments from the now classical discussions of the 'cultural turn' to more recent responses to the challenges of biopolitics, affect theory, posthegemony and ecocriticism. It also addresses novel political constellations including resurgent national-popular or eco-nativist and indigenous agencies. Framed by a critical introduction from the editors, this volume is both a celebration of influential essays published over twenty five years of the Journal and a representative overview of the field in its multiple ramifications, entrenchments and exchanges.

Memory and mourning in Colombia. This book provides the first in-depth examination of a representative range of contemporary Colombian cultural engagements with the conflicts known simply as La Violencia that began in Colombia in the late 1940s. These include Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazabal's now classic revision of the 'novela de la Violencia', the autobiographical cycle of acclaimed author Fernando Vallejo, versions of the testimonio by Alfredo Molano and internationally renowned novelist Laura Restrepo, as well as cinematic works by Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina. These cultural icons, many of whom are remarkably understudied, show how the heterogeneity of social and cultural processes condensed in La Violencia demands a deconstruction of 'violence' in Colombian culture. This argument is developed in dialogue with European and Latin American cultural theory and contributes to theoretical debates surrounding issues of memory and mourning developed in other Latin American contexts. The narratives explored in this book provide alternatives to abstract historicism and show us how to imagine ways out of deeply rooted cycles of violence. Yet their insistence on haunting and spectres signals the problems besetting the task of mourning in Colombia, positing history rather than psychology as a remainder that troubles efforts to forge collective memories and enact social reconciliation. RORY O'BRYEN lectures in Latin American literature and culture at the University of Cambridge.

The focus of this book is two-fold. First it traces the expansive geographical spread of the language commonly referred to as Spanish. This has given rise to multiple hybrid formations over time emerging in the clash of multiple cultures, languages and religions within and between great empires (Roman, Islamic, Hispano-Catholic), each with expansionist policies leading to wars, huge territorial gains and population movements. This long history makes Hispanophone culture itself a supranational, trans-imperial one long before we witness its various national cultures being refashioned as a result of the transnational processes associated with globalization today. Indeed, the Spanish language we recognise today was 'transnational' long before it was ever the foundation of a single nation state. Secondly, it approaches the more recent post-national, translingual and inter-subjective 'border-crossings' that characterise the global world today with an eye to their unfolding within this long trans-imperial history of the Hispanophone world. In doing so, it maps out some of the contemporary post-colonial, decolonial and trans-Atlantic inflections of this trans-imperial history as manifest in literature, cinema, music and digital cultures. Contributors: Christopher J. Pountain, L.P. Harvey, James T. Monroe, Rosaleen Howard, Mark Thurner, Alexander Samson, Andrew Ginger, Samuel Llano, Philip Swanson, Claire Taylor, Emily Baker, Elzbieta Slodowska, Francisco-J. Hernandez Adrian, Henriette Partzsch, Helen Melling, Conrad James and Benjamin Quarshie.