Working at the intersections of Latin American film studies, Afro-Latin American studies, digital humanities (DH), and decolonial pedagogical praxes, this article aims to engage with educators interested in teaching about Afro-descendant representation, antiracist audiovisual productions, the legacy of the African diaspora in Latin America, and…

Studies of revolutionary Cuba's allegorical new wo/man have disentangled that figure's ambivalent and often pathologizing relationship to traits perceived as inferior, including femininity, non-heterosexuality, and non-whiteness. Yet even as (dis)ability saturates cultural production surrounding the 1959 Revolution's core projects of universal…

This article explores perspectives from language pedagogy, writing and rhetoric, and media studies to analyze the implications and implementations of video essay assignments in intermediate and advanced Spanish language courses. The field of Hispanic Studies has largely accepted film as a useful pedagogical tool with broad student appeal. Yet…

In this article, I use aerial footage of the Amazon as a guiding thread to argue that the sublime is the most fitting concept to describe our aesthetic response to the representation of Amazonian nature in cinema. In my discussion of rainforest aesthetics, I focus on two Brazilian films, made ten years apart: Glauber Rocha's short "Amazonas,…

Teachers of early modern theater often recognize that it is difficult for today's generation of students to approach old dramatic works as actual plays instead of written texts. Two methods for dealing with this difficulty have emerged in recent decades. On the one hand, some teachers have increasingly emphasized the value of performance…

Torn between two colonial powers, Macau has long existed as a peripheral region in Lusophone studies. This current study explores João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata's 2012 film "A ultima vez que vi Macau". With a focus on a contemporary Macau that seeks to resolve its fundamental duality through investigation of gender,…

Many scenes in Pedro Almodóvar's "Hable con ella" (2002) include shots of metaperformances such as silent films, dances, television shows, concerts, and bullfights. Spectators often observe passive characters who are in turn observing. By presenting these performances within cinematic performance, Almodóvar highlights our role as viewers…

This current study explores the relationship between visual technology (cinema and photography) and a metanarrative preoccupation with the craft of literary narration in two texts by Pablo Palacio (Ecuador, 1906-47). In his novella "Débora" (1927), Palacio employs the language of cinema (e.g., the cinematograph, the cinema, references to…

Pilar Miró's positions in the public sector and the film industry are an indication of the rapidly evolving roles of women in Spain during the mid-1970s through the 1980s. Most significant, and the focus of this study, is how Miró as director of "El pájaro de la felicidad" reflects the transformation of gender constructs during that…

This paper reveals and analyzes the cinematographic, political, and aesthetic transitions intersecting two Southern Cone films that premiered concurrently in 1991: the award-winning Chilean movie "La frontera" by Ricardo Larraín and the forgotten Argentine independent production "La redada" directed by Rolando Pardo. Despite…

The Spanish author Carmen Laforet is recognized almost exclusively for her first and seminal novel "Nada" published in 1945. However, her posthumous "Al volver la esquina" (2004), the last of her five novels, is an indispensable example of the author's achievement as a psychological novelist. Yet ten years following its…

Pablo Larraín's film "No" (2012) has been widely viewed and reviewed both at home in Chile and internationally. Some reviewers have focused on the film's representation of the triumph of hope and optimism over tyranny. Others have criticized the film's historical inaccuracy, citing a list of details that the film either got wrong or left…

The detrimental effects of neoliberalism accompany globalization. The paradoxes generated by the global-regional gap have revealed local cultures' double vulnerability to national and international development. Miguel Pereira fictionalizes this complex phenomenon in the film "Verónico Cruz. La deuda interna" (Argentina, 1988). Inspired…

This current study focuses on the effects of neoliberalism on the Chilean sociopolitical period of postdictatorship (1990-2010) by studying a new generation of filmmakers in the work of Alberto Fuguet. In the trilogy of "Se arrienda" (2005), "Velódrom" (2010), and "Música campesin"a (2011), Fuguet reviews the…

This current study explores three contemporary Brazilian films' depiction of commercial sexual exploitation of young girls and teenagers. It points out how the young female characters cope with the abuses they suffer and proposes that these filmic representations of the characters' experiences expose a significant social problem of contemporary…