Popular Culture in Latin America (in English)
There is no doubt that popular culture has played a crucial role in shaping Latin American and Hispanic Caribbean societies.
This course aims precisely to explore various manifestations of popular culture that contributed to build national identities in contemporary Latin America and how current cultural products challenge, in some instances, the previously established norms.
The objective is not only to better understand these sociocultural practices, but also to reflect on their connections with fundamental concepts, such as race/ethnicity, gender, cultural politics, hybridity, and globalization. Therefore, we will combine primary readings with critical and theoretical texts on the relevance and challenges of popular culture, problematizing the conventional dichotomy between “low (or mass) culture” and “high culture.”
We will be consumers of Latin American cultural products: cinema, soap operas/telenovelas, best sellers and comic books, visual arts and graffiti, the radio, theatre/performance arts, social media, sports. We will move from Frida Kahlo to Cardi B, from Lionel Messi to Miguel Sanó, from salsa to dembow and reggaeton, and everything in between.
Language of instruction: English