Editor’s Preface

I am delighted to present volume 31 of Studies in Latin American Popular Culture.

As usual, we have exciting studies to share with you. This issue features three essays related to Brazil: one on Brazilianness as depicted on the Internet site for the film Cafundó (2005), a topic explored by Richard Gordon, and another on the lived experience of samba culture found in New Orleans, written by Annie McNeill Gibson. Brazil is also featured in an essay on performance and community within Favela culture by Paul Sneed. Mexico is highlighted in volume 31 with a discussion of that country’s own “beat” generation by John Tytell, as well as in an essay on the Mexican masked wrestler El Santo’s lucha libre series (1958–82) by Kerry Hegarty. The historical origins of the Mexican narcocorrido are presented by César Jesús Burgos Dávila, and finally, Susan Wiebe Drake provides us with an analysis of the filmic representation of the US–Mexico border crossing. I am particularly excited to include two additional essays: one on the political symbolism used in Chilean politics, a joint study by US scholars Robert W. Smith and Michael A. Morris, and Chilean scholar Juan Pablo Riveros, and the other an analysis of the distinct locations in Miami where one may find representations of the South American liberator Simón Bolívar. This fascinating inclusion, written by Rafael Arreaza-Scrocchi, explains how these distinct contexts will influence the particular “reading” of those who view them.

Aldona Pobutsky, SLAPC’s associate editor, has compiled reviews from colleagues on a number of fascinating books, all from 2011, including, Mexico, Nation in Transit (U of Arizona Press, 2011), by Christina L. Sisk; The Maya of Modernism: Art, Architecture and Film (U of New Mexico P, 2011), by Jesse Lerner; Laws of Chance: Brazil’s Clandestine Lottery and the Making of Urban Public Life (Duke UP, 2011), by Amy Chazkel; Everyday Reading: Print Culture and Collective Identity in the Río de la Plata, 1780–1910 (Vanderbilt UP, 2011), by William Garret Acree Jr., who won an honorable mention for the Virgil Prize for Outstanding Essay published in SLAPC volume 26 (2007). Other reviews include those of The Emergence of Latin American Science Fiction (Wesleyen UP, 2011), by Rachel Haywood Ferreira; Latin American Cinemas: Local Views and Transnational Connections (U of Calgary P, 2011), edited by Nayibe Bermúdez Barrios; Women in Mexican Folk Art: Of Promises, Betrayals, Monsters and Celebrities (U of Wales P, 2011), by Eli Bartra; and finally, New Trends in Argentine and Brazilian Cinema (Intellect, 2011), edited by Cacilda Rêgo and Carolina Rocha.

As it happens, Cacilda Rêgo and Carolina Rocha will coedit volume 33 (2015) of SLAPC, a special issue devoted to Latin American film, comics, and music of the 1960s.

We look forward to providing our readers with new, groundbreaking studies in Latin America and Latino culture next year. Until then, happy reading!