LibGuides: Spanish: Books

Featured New EBooks in Ritter Library

Agustin Lara by Andrew Grant Wood Few Mexican musicians in the twentieth century achieved as much notoriety or had such an international impact as the popular singer and songwriter Agustin Lara (1897-1970). Widely known as "el flaco de oro" ("the Golden Skinny"), this remarkably thin fellow was prolific across the genres ofbolero, ballad, and folk. His most beloved "Granada", a song so enduring that it has been covered by the likes of Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra, and Placido Domingo, is today a standard in the vocal repertory. However, there exists very little biographical literature on Lara in English. In Agustin Lara: A Cultural Biography, author Andrew Wood's informed and informative placement of Lara's work in a broader cultural context presents a rich and comprehensive reading of the life of this significant musical figure. Lara's career as a media celebrity as well as musician provides anexcellent window on Mexican society in the mid-twentieth century and on popular culture in Latin America. Wood also delves into Lara's music itself, bringing to light how the composer's work unites a number of important currents in Latin music of his day, particularly the bolero. With closemusicological focus and in-depth cultural analysis riding alongside the biographical narrative, Agustin Lara: A Cultural Biography is a welcome read to aficionados and performers of Latin American musics, as well as a valuable addition to the study of modern Mexican music and Latin American popularculture as a whole.
Publication Date: 2014
The Catholic Church and Argentina's Dirty War by Gustavo Morello On August 3rd, 1976, in Córdoba, Argentina's second largest city, Fr. James Week and five seminarians from the Missionaries of La Salette were kidnapped. A mob burst into the house they shared, claiming to be police looking for "subversive fighters." The seminarians were jailed and tortured for two months before eventually being exiled to the United States. The perpetrators were part of the Argentine military government that took power under President General Jorge Videla in 1976, ostensibly to fight Communism in the name of Christian Civilization. Videla claimed to lead a Catholic government, yet the government killed and persecuted many Catholics as part of Argentina's infamous Dirty War. Critics claim that the Church did nothing to alleviate the situation, even serving as an accomplice to the dictators. Leaders of the Church have claimed they did not fully know what was going on, and that they tried to help when they could. Gustavo Morello draws on interviews with victims of forced disappearance, documents from the state and the Church, field observation, and participant observation in order to provide a deeper view of the relationship between Catholicism and state terrorism during Argentina's Dirty War. Morello uses the case of the seminarians to explore the complex relationship between Catholic faith and political violence during the Dirty War-a relationship that has received renewed attention since Argentina's own Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis. Unlike in countries such as Chile and Brazil, Argentina's political violence was seen as an acceptable tool in propagating political involvement; both the guerrillas and the military government were able to gain popular support. Morello examines how the Argentine government deployed a discourse of Catholicism to justify the violence that it imposed on Catholics and how the official Catholic hierarchy in Argentina rationalized their silence in the face of this violence. Most interestingly, Morello investigates how Catholic victims of state violence and their supporters understood their own faith in this complicated context: what it meant to be Catholic under Argentina's dictatorship.
Publication Date: 2015
Challenges of Latino Aging in the Americas by William A. Vega (Editor); Kyriakos S. Markides (Editor); Jacqueline L. Angel (Editor); Fernando M. Torres-Gil (Editor) This book examines one of the most important demographic changes facing the United States: an overall aging population and the increasing influence of Latinos. It also looks at the changing demographics in Mexico and its impact on the health and financial well-being of aging Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The book provides a conceptual and accessible framework that will educate and inform readers about the interconnectedness of the demographic trends facing these two countries. It also explores the ultimate personal, social, and political impact they will have on all Americans, in the U.S. as well as Mexico.     Challenges of Latino Aging in the Americas features papers presented at the 2013 International Conference on Aging in the Americas, held at the University of Texas at Austin, September 2013. It brings together the work of many leading scholars from the fields of sociology, demography, psychology, anthropology, geography, social work, geriatric medicine, epidemiology, and public affairs.   Coverage in this edited collection includes working with diverse populations; culturally compatible interventions for diverse elderly; the health, mental health, and social needs and concerns of aging Latinos; and the policy, political, and bi-lateral implications of aging and diversity in the U.S. and Mexico. The book provides a rich blend of empirical evidence with insightful, cutting-edge analysis that will serve as an insightful resource for researchers and policy makers, professors and graduate students in a wide range of fields, from sociology and demography to economics and political science.
Publication Date: 2015
Chica Lit by Tace Hedrick In Chica Lit: Popular Latina Fiction and Americanization in the Twenty-First Century, Tace Hedrick illuminates how discourses of Americanization, ethnicity, gender, class, and commodification shape the genre of "chica lit," popular fiction written by Latina authors with Latina characters. She argues that chica lit is produced and marketed in the same ways as contemporary romance and chick lit fiction, and aimed at an audience of twenty- to thirty-something upwardly mobile Latina readers. Its stories about young women's ethnic class mobility and gendered romantic success tend to celebrate twenty-first century neoliberal narratives about Americanization, hard work, and individual success. However, Hedrick emphasizes, its focus on Latina characters necessarily inflects this celebratory mode: the elusiveness of meaning in its use of the very term "Latina" empties out the differences among and between Latina/o and Chicano/a groups in the United States. Of necessity, chica lit also struggles with questions about the actual social and economic "place" of Latinas and Chicanas in this same neoliberal landscape; these questions unsettle its reliance on the tried-and-true formulas of chick lit and romance writing. Looking at chica lit's market-driven representations of difference, poverty, and Americanization, Hedrick shows how this writing functions within the larger arena of struggles over popular representation of Latinas and Chicanas.
Publication Date: 2015
Masculinity after Trujillo by Maja Horn "Provides an insightful look at the persistent power of masculinism in Dominican post-dictatorship politics and literature."--Ignacio López-Calvo, author of God and Trujillo nbsp; "The ideas about masculinization of power developed by Horn are important not only to Dominican scholarship but also to Caribbean and other Latin American students of the intersection of history, political power, and gendered practices and discourses."--Emilio Bejel, author of Gay Cuban Nation nbsp; Any observer of Dominican political and literary discourse will quickly notice how certain notions of hyper-masculinity permeate the culture. Many critics will attribute this to an outgrowth of "traditional" Latin American patriarchal culture. Masculinity after Trujillo demonstrates why they are mistaken. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; In this extraordinary work, Maja Horn argues that this common Dominican attitude became ingrained during the dictatorship (1930-61) of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, as well as through the U.S. military occupation that preceded it. Where previous studies have focused mainly on Spanish colonialism and the controversial sharing of the island with Haiti, Horn emphasizes the underexamined and lasting influence of U.S. imperialism and how it prepared the terrain for Trujillo's hyperbolic language of masculinity. She also demonstrates how later attempts to emasculate the image of Trujillo often reproduced the same masculinist ideology popularized by his government. By using the lens of gender politics, Horn enables readers to reconsider the ongoing legacy of the Trujillato, including the relatively weak social movements formed around racial and ethnic identities, sexuality, and even labor. She offers exciting new interpretations of such writers as Hilma Contreras, Rita Indiana Hernández, and Junot Díaz, revealing the ways they successfully challenge dominant political and canonical literary discourses. nbsp;
Publication Date: 2014
Teaching Gender Through Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Texts and Cultures by Leila Gomez (Editor); Asuncion Horno-Delgado (Editor); Mary K. Long (Editor) Teaching Gender through Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Texts and Cultures provides a dynamic exploration of the subject of teaching gender and feminism through the fundamental corpus encompassing Latin American, Iberian and Latino authors and cultures from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. The four editors have created a collaborative forum for both experienced and new voices to share multiple theoretical and practical approaches to the topic. The volume is the first to bring so many areas of study and perspectives together and will serve as a tool for reassessing what it means to teach gender in our fields while providing theoretical and concrete examples of pedagogical strategies, case studies relating to in-class experiences, and suggestions for approaching gender issues that readers can experiment with in their own classrooms. The book will engage students and educators around the topic of gender within the fields of Latin American, Latino and Iberian studies, Gender and Women's studies, Cultural Studies, English, Education, Comparative Literature, Ethnic studies and Language and Culture for Specific Purposes within Higher Education programs. "Teaching Gender through Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Texts and Cultures makes a compelling case for the central role of feminist inquiry in higher education today ... Startlingly honest and deeply informed, the essays lead us through classroom experiences in a wide variety of institutional and disciplinary settings. Read together, these essays articulate a vision for twenty-first century feminist pedagogies that embrace a rich diversity of theory, methodology, and modality." - Lisa Vollendorf, Professor of Spanish and Dean of Humanities and the Arts, San Jose State University. Author of The Lives of Women: A New History of Inquisitional Spain "What is it like to teach feminism and gender through Latin American, Iberian, and Latino texts? This rich collection of texts ... provides a series of insightful and exhaustive answers to this question ... An essential book for teachers of Latin American, Iberian and Latino/a texts, this volume will also spark new debates among scholars in Gender Studies." - Monica Szurmuk, Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina. Author of Mujeres en viaje and co-editor of the Cambridge History of Latin American Women's Literature"
Publication Date: 2015