Reinterpreting Space and Genre: Transnational Latino/a Identities in Contemporary Literature, Performance, and Audiovisual New Media

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The essays in this panel analyze the complexities of transnational Latino/a identities in various spaces, as they are performed in literature, film, stage, and social media. Drawing from a comparative analysis that includes a reading of the Puerto Rican noir writers Marta Aponte Alsina, Max Chárriez, and Manolo Núñez Negrón; an analysis of the role of local-transnational imaginaries of Latino/as in media spaces; a critical reading of the iconic presence of the Dominican-American actress María Montez; the power of social media as an alternate site for activism; and the uses of drag in the performances of the Puerto Rican artist Javier Cardona, we suggest that each of these presentations meditate on the reconfigurations of space and genre, and the ways that Puerto Rican and Latino/a writers, performers, and activists negotiate their identities in the context of shifting modes of hegemonic influence.

Sub Track

• Latin@ Politics, Media and Society

Session Organizer

• Danny Méndez, Michigan State University

Chair

• Danny Méndez, Michigan State University

Individual Presentations

• Masculinity, Violence and Urban Space in the New Puerto Rican Noir - Radost A Rangelova, Gettysburg College

• Mediascapes: Vlogging the Self (and Others) in Contemporary Caribbean and U.S. Latina/o Cultures - Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez, University of Texas/Austin

• María Montez: The Unnatural Hollywood Actress and the Consumption of the Early Dominican Diva - Danny Méndez, Michigan State University

• Foam Celebrities: #boicotalacomay and the Emergence of a Cultural Citizenship in Puerto Rico - Manuel G Avilés-Santiago, Arizona State University

• The Drag of Puerto Rican Blackness: Javier Cardona’s You Don’t Look Like (1996) - Lawrence M La Fountain-Stokes, University of Michigan