Buenos Aires: Perspectives on the City and Cultural Production

David William Foster

Details: 240 pages     6 x 9
Cloth: $59.95   ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-1613-9   ISBN 10: 0-8130-1613-4   
Pubdate: 10/31/1998
Review(s): 2 available

Cloth:
Overview

"Full of sharp insights and surprising departures. It is an unprecedented study. . . . The analyses are carried out with a risk-taking boldness."--Naomi Lindstrom, University of Texas, Austin

Displaying the power of cultural studies to construct and analyze urban life, this book captures the breath and soul of one of Latin America's most dynamic cosmopolitan centers.
Since the 19th century, Buenos Aires, the largest city of Spanish-speaking South America, has been one of the continent's major cultural centers. Until now, however, no work explored the multileveled integration of the city and cultural production. David Foster analyzes a standard aspect of Argentine culture like the tango, but with attention to gender issues; he looks at theater in terms of its interpretation of Argentine social life; the "dirty realism" of Enrique Medina provides a focus for marginal, subaltern, and suppressed sectors of the urban landscape; and gender emerges again in his discussion of photography (highlighting the work of Sara Facio, one of the city's great feminist artists), of Jewish ethnicity and immigrant culture, and of lesbian and gay identity in public spaces.
Combining an eclectic dimension in its research (Foster is willing to analyze such ephemera as slogans, catch-phrases, and the decoration of public transportation) with a breadth of scope (the book encompasses history, literature, anthropology, architecture, and cultural politics), Buenos Aires will engage the reader in the imagination of one of the most vibrant cities of the world.

David William Foster is chair of the Department of Languages and Literatures and Regents' Professor of Spanish, Humanities, and Women's Studies at Arizona State University. He is the author of Violence in Argentine Literature: Cultural Responses to Tyranny and of Sexual Textualities: Essays on Queer/ing Latin American Writing.