In this book Nathanial Gardner provides an insider’s perspective to the study of photography in Latin America. He begins with a carefully structured introduction that lays out his unique methodology for the book, which features over eighty photographs and the insights from sixteen prominent Latin American photography scholars and historians, including Boris Kossoy, John Mraz, and Ana Mauad. The work reflects the advances of the study of photography throughout Latin America with certain emphasis on Brazil and Mexico. The author further underlines the role of important institutions and builds context by discussing influential theories and key texts that currently guide the discipline. The Study of Photography in Latin America is critical to all who want to expand their current knowledge of the subject and engage with its experts.

This ambitious book offers a clear and unified framework for understanding political change across Latin America. The impact of U.S. hegemony and the global economic system on the region is widely known, and scholars and advocates alike point to Latin America's vulnerability in the face of external forces. In spite of such foreign pressure, however, individual countries continue to chart their own courses, displaying considerable variation in political and economic life. Looking broadly across the Western Hemisphere, with examples from Brazil, the Southern Cone, the Andes, and Central America, Arceneaux and Pion-Berlin identify general rules that explain how international and domestic politics interact in specific contexts. The detailed, accessible case studies cast new light on such central problems as neoliberal economic reform, democratization, human rights, regional security, environmental degradation, drug trafficking, and immigration. And they consider not only what actors, institutions, and ideas matter in particular political contexts, but when, where, and how they matter. By dividing issues into the domains of "high" and "low" politics, and differentiating between short-term problems and more permanent concerns, they create an innovative typology for analyzing a wide variety of political events and trends.

Whether at UFW picket lines in California’s Central Valley or capturing summertime street life in East Harlem Latinx photographers have documented fights for dignity and justice as well as the daily lives of ordinary people. Their powerful, innovative photographic art touches on family, identity, protest, borders, and other themes, including the experiences of immigration and marginalization common to many of their communities. Yet the work of these artists has largely been excluded from the documented history of photography in the United States. Through individual profiles of more than eighty photographers from the early history of the photographic medium to the present, Elizabeth Ferrer introduces readers to Latinx portraitists, photojournalists, and documentarians and their legacies. She traces the rise of a Latinx consciousness in photography in the 1960s and '70s and the growth of identity-based approaches in the 1980s and '90s. Ferrer argues that in many cases a shared sense of struggle has motivated photographers to work purposefully, driven by a deep sense of resistance, social and political commitments, and cultural affirmation, and she highlights the significance of family photos to their approaches and outlooks. Works range from documentary and street photography to narrative series to conceptual projects. Latinx Photography in the United States is the first book to offer a parallel history of photography, one that no longer lies at the margins but rather plays a crucial role in imagining and creating a broader, more inclusive American visual history.

Cutting-edge and insightful discussions of Latin American literature and culture In the newly revised second edition of A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture, Sara Castro-Klaren delivers an eclectic and revealing set of discussions on Latin American culture and literature by scholars at the cutting edge of their respective fields. The included essays—whether they're written from the perspective of historiography, affect theory, decolonial approaches, or human rights—introduce readers to topics like gaucho literature, postcolonial writing in the Andes, and baroque art while pointing to future work on the issues raised. This work engages with anthropology, history, individual memory, testimonio, and environmental studies. It also explores: A thorough introduction to topics of coloniality, including the mapping of the pre-Columbian Americas and colonial religiosity Comprehensive explorations of the emergence of national communities in New Imperial coordinates, including discussions of the Muisca and Mayan cultures Practical discussions of global and local perspectives in Latin American literature, including explorations of Latin American photography and cultural modalities and cross-cultural connections In-depth examinations of uncharted topics in Latin American literature and culture, including discussions of femicide and feminist performances and eco-perspectives Perfect for students in undergraduate and graduate courses tackling Latin American literature and culture topics, A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture, Second Edition will also earn a place in the libraries of members of the general public and PhD students interested in Latin American literature and culture.

An unprecedented visual exploration of the intertwined histories of art and science, of the old world and the new From the voyages of Christopher Columbus to those of Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin, the depiction of the natural world played a central role in shaping how people on both sides of the Atlantic understood and imaged the region we now know as Latin America. Nature provided incentives for exploration, commodities for trade, specimens for scientific investigation, and manifestations of divine forces. It also yielded a rich trove of representations, created both by natives to the region and visitors, which are the subject of this lushly illustrated book. Author Daniela Bleichmar shows that these images were not only works of art but also instruments for the production of knowledge, with scientific, social, and political repercussions. Early depictions of Latin American nature introduced European audiences to native medicines and religious practices. By the 17th century, revelatory accounts of tobacco, chocolate, and cochineal reshaped science, trade, and empire around the globe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, collections and scientific expeditions produced both patriotic and imperial visions of Latin America. Through an interdisciplinary examination of more than 150 maps, illustrated manuscripts, still lifes, and landscape paintings spanning four hundred years, Visual Voyages establishes Latin America as a critical site for scientific and artistic exploration, affirming that region's transformation and the transformation of Europe as vitally connected histories.

In the early twentieth century, the Boston-based United Fruit Company controlled the production, distribution, and marketing of bananas, the most widely consumed fresh fruit in North America. So great was the company’s power that it challenged the sovereignty of the Latin American and Caribbean countries in which it operated, giving rise to the notion of company-dominated “banana republics.” In A Camera in the Garden of Eden, Kevin Coleman argues that the “banana republic” was an imperial constellation of images and practices that was checked and contested by ordinary Central Americans. Drawing on a trove of images from four enormous visual archives and a wealth of internal company memos, literary works, immigration records, and declassified US government telegrams, Coleman explores how banana plantation workers, women, and peasants used photography to forge new ways of being while also visually asserting their rights as citizens. He tells a dramatic story of the founding of the Honduran town of El Progreso, where the United Fruit Company had one of its main divisional offices, the rise of the company now known as Chiquita, and a sixty-nine day strike in which banana workers declared their independence from neocolonial domination. In telling this story, Coleman develops a new set of conceptual tools and methods for using images to open up fresh understandings of the past, offering a model that is applicable far beyond this pathfinding study.

Itineraries of Expertise contends that experts and expertise played fundamental roles in the Latin American Cold War. While traditional Cold War histories of the region have examined diplomatic, intelligence, and military operations and more recent studies have probed the cultural dimensions of the conflict, the experts who constitute the focus of this volume escaped these categories. Although they often portrayed themselves as removed from politics, their work contributed to the key geopolitical agendas of the day. The paths traveled by the experts in this volume not only traversed Latin America and connected Latin America to the Global North, they also stretch traditional chronologies of the Latin American Cold War to show how local experts in the early twentieth century laid the foundation for post–World War II development projects, and how Cold War knowledge of science, technology, and the environment continues to impact our world today. These essays unite environmental history and the history of science and technology to argue for the importance of expertise in the Latin American Cold War.