Cinema, Literature, Social Justice: Current Theoretical and Political Debates

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Abstract

When, in the 1960s, Latin American filmmakers and writers described politically engaged art, they conceptualized (1) national societies as subject to cultural imperialism rather than as part of transnational and global patterns of unequal exchange, (2) resistance and opposition to political-economic injustice as separate from intersectional questions of identity, and (3) social change as a matter of revolution. When, in the 1990s, there was another wave of “new cinemas” in Latin America, for example, the filmmakers and writers of this generation were highly cognizant of all the ways in which previous political theories regarding social change and previous debates in film and literary theory had not adequately addressed the questions regarding the relation between art and social justice they confronted at that time (particularly those living in post-dictatorship democracies stressed by neoliberal economic policies). Now, in response to the resurgence of authoritarianism worldwide, cinematic and literary production has become politically engaged in new ways and by means of new technologies.

This workshop brings together film and literary scholars to discuss what contemporary Latin American audiovisual and print narratives reveal about current conceptions of social change and, specifically, the ways in which long-form narratives, fiction-feature films and novels, reveal new theoretical and political concerns and produce new political subjectivities. Each workshop presenter will offer a filmic or literary example of the theoretical debates that contemporary narratives necessarily elicit. The goal of the workshop will be an interdisciplinary discussion of emergent theoretical perspectives on Latin American art and society.

Sub Track

• Film, Performance, and Culture

Session Organizer

• Kathleen Newman, University of Iowa

Chair

• Kathleen Newman, University of Iowa

Presenters

• Nilo Fernando Couret, University of Michigan

• Gustavo P Furtado, Duke University

• Laura G Gutiérrez, University of Texas at Austin

• Tom P McEnaney, University of California, Berkeley

• Kathleen Newman, University of Iowa

• Victoria Ruétalo, University of Alberta

• Masha Salazkina, Concordia University

• Ignacio M Sánchez Prado, Washington University in St. Louis

• Estelle C Tarica, University of California/Berkeley