Carmen in Diaspora


Book Description

Carmen in Diaspora is a cultural history of Carmen adaptations set in African diasporic contexts. Beginning with Prosper Mérimée's novella and Georges Bizet's opera and continuing through twentieth- and twentieth-first century interpretations in literature, film, and musical theatre, the book explores how opera's most famous character has exceeded the 19th-century French context in which she was created and taken on a life of her own. Through this transformation, the Carmen figure has sparked important conversations not only about French culture and canonical opera but also about Black womanhood, community, and self-determination.




Puerto Rican Diaspora


Book Description

Histories of the Puerto Rican experience.




The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions


Book Description

The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions explores the global spread of religions originating in Brazil, a country that has emerged as a major pole of religious innovation and production. Through ethnographically-rich case studies throughout the world, ranging from the Americas (Canada, the U.S., Peru, and Argentina) and Europe (the U.K., Portugal, and the Netherlands) to Asia (Japan) and Oceania (Australia), the book examines the conditions, actors, and media that have made possible the worldwide construction, circulation, and consumption of Brazilian religious identities, practices, and lifestyles, including those connected with indigenized forms of Pentecostalism and Catholicism, African-based religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda, as well as diverse expressions of New Age Spiritism and Ayahuasca-centered neo-shamanism like Vale do Amanhecer and Santo Daime. Contributors include Ushi Arakaki, Dario Paulo Barrera Rivera, Brenda Carranza, Anthony D'Andrea, Sara Delamont, Alejandro Frigerio, Alberto Groisman, Annick Hernandez, Clara Mafra, Cecília Mariz, Deirdre Meintel, Carmen Rial, Cristina Rocha, Camila Sampaio, Clara Saraiva, Olivia Sheringham, Neil Stephens, José Claúdio Souza Alves, Claudia Swatowiski, and Manuel A. Vásquez.




A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latina/o Art


Book Description

In-depth scholarship on the central artists, movements, and themes of Latin American art, from the Mexican revolution to the present A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art consists of over 30 never-before-published essays on the crucial historical and theoretical issues that have framed our understanding of art in Latin America. This book has a uniquely inclusive focus that includes both Spanish-speaking Caribbean and contemporary Latinx art in the United States. Influential critics of the 20th century are also covered, with an emphasis on their effect on the development of artistic movements. By providing in-depth explorations of central artists and issues, alongside cross-references to illustrations in major textbooks, this volume provides an excellent complement to wider surveys of Latin American and Latinx art. Readers will engage with the latest scholarship on each of five distinct historical periods, plus broader theoretical and historical trends that continue to influence how we understand Latinx, Indigenous, and Latin American art today. The book’s areas of focus include: The development of avant-garde art in the urban centers of Latin America from 1910-1945 The rise of abstraction during the Cold War and the internationalization of Latin American art from 1945-1959 The influence of the political upheavals of the 1960s on art and art theory in Latin America The rise of conceptual art as a response to dictatorship and social violence in the 1970s and 1980s The contemporary era of neoliberalism and globalization in Latin American and Latino Art, 1990-2010 With its comprehensive approach and informative structure, A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art is an excellent resource for advanced students in Latin American culture and art. It is also a valuable reference for aspiring scholars in the field.




Family Love in the Diaspora


Book Description

Colonial social policy in the British West Indies from the nineteenth century onward assumed that black families lacked morals, structure, and men, a void that explained poverty and lack of citizenship. African-Caribbean families appeared as the mirror opposite of the "ideal" family advocated by the white, colonial authorities. Yet contrary to this image, what provided continuity in the period and contributed to survival was in fact the strength of family connections, their inclusivity and support. This study is based on 150 life story narratives across three generations of forty-five families who originated in the former British West Indies. The author focuses on the particular axes of Caribbean peoples from the former British colonies of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, and Great Britain. Divided into four parts, the chapters within each present an oral history of migrant African-Caribbean families, demonstrating the varieties, organization, and dynamics of family through their memories and narratives. It traces the evolution of Caribbean life; argues how the family can be seen as the tool that helps transmit and transform historical mentalities; examines the dynamics of family life; and makes comparisons with Indo-Caribbean families. Above all, this is a story of families that evolved, against the odds of slavery and poverty, to form a distinct Creole form, through which much of the social history of the English-speaking Caribbean is refracted. "Family Love in the Diaspora" offers an important new perspective on African-Caribbean families, their history, and the problems they face, for now and the future. It offers a long overdue historical dimension to the debates on Caribbean families.




New Frontiers in the Study of the Global African Diaspora


Book Description

This anthology presents a new study of the worldwide African diaspora by bringing together diverse, multidisciplinary scholarship to address the connectedness of Black subject identities, experiences, issues, themes, and topics, applying them dynamically to diverse locations of the Blackworld—Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States. The book underscores three dimensions of African diaspora study. First is a global approach to the African diaspora, showing how globalism underscores the distinctive role that Africa plays in contributing to world history. Second is the extension of African diaspora study in a geographical scope to more robust inclusions of not only the African continent but also to uncharted paths and discoveries of lesser-known diaspora experiences and identities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Third is the illustration of universal unwritten cultural representations of humanities in the African diasporas that show the distinctive humanities’ disciplinary representations of Black diaspora imaginaries and subjectivities. The contributing authors inductively apply these themes to focus the reader’s attention on contemporary localized issues and historical arenas of the African diaspora. They engage their findings to critically analyze the broader norms and dimensions that characterize a given set of interrelated criteria that have come to establish parameters that increasingly standardize African diaspora studies.




Translating Blackness


Book Description

In Translating Blackness Lorgia García Peña considers Black Latinidad in a global perspective in order to chart colonialism as an ongoing sociopolitical force. Drawing from archives and cultural productions from the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe, García Peña argues that Black Latinidad is a social, cultural, and political formation—rather than solely a site of identity—through which we can understand both oppression and resistance. She takes up the intellectual and political genealogy of Black Latinidad in the works of Frederick Douglass, Gregorio Luperón, and Arthur Schomburg. She also considers the lives of Black Latina women living in the diaspora, such as Black Dominicana guerrillas who migrated throughout the diaspora after the 1965 civil war and Black immigrant and second-generation women like Mercedes Frías and Milagros Guzmán organizing in Italy with other oppressed communities. In demonstrating that analyses of Black Latinidad must include Latinx people and cultures throughout the diaspora, García Peña shows how the vaivén—or, coming and going—at the heart of migrant life reveals that the nation is not a sufficient rubric from which to understand human lived experiences.




Japanese Diaspora and Migration Reconsidered


Book Description

In contrast to most studies of migration, which assume that migrants arrive from less developed countries to the industrialised world, where they suffer from discrimination, poor living conditions and downward social mobility, this book examines a different sort of diaspora – descendants of Japanese migrants or "Nikkei" – in Bolivia, who, after a history of organised migration, have achieved middle-class status in a developing country, while enjoying much symbolic capital among the majority population. Based on extensive original research, the book considers the everyday lives of Nikkei and their identity, discusses how despite their relative success they remain not fully integrated into Bolivia's imperfect pluricultural society and explores how they think about, and relate to, Japan.




Slavery, Migrations, and Transformations: Connecting Old and New Diasporas to the Homeland


Book Description

From the historical movements of enslaved Africans to the Americas to newer migrations of Africans to spaces like Belgium and France, experiences of blackness on a global stage reflect themes of negotiation, persecution, isolation, unification, remembrance, and much more. Yet, it is impossible to minimize the complex experiences that make up the African diaspora throughout the world, as diasporic communities face a range of struggles, specifically related to the politics of identity and connections to the continent of Africa itself. This book is thus a timely and much-needed exploration of the intricate nature of culture and life in the African diaspora. It examines identities, collectivities, and relationships with Africa and Africans. It helps fill a gap in the field by illuminating the complex experiences of blackness in a manner that motivates readers to grapple with the nuances diaspora studies and African issues on a global stage. This book balances conceptualizations of diaspora by engaging with scholars exploring old African diasporas, newer migrations, and even regional movement within the continent of Africa itself. More importantly, the chronological breadth of the volume allows readers to explore historical matters alongside comparable contemporary issues as a way of assessing continuities and the ways in which communities continue to grapple with institutional racism, political marginalization, and negotiations between tradition and modernity on a global stage. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary nature of the book offers diverse approaches for robust engagement with African diaspora studies.




Writing Off the Hyphen


Book Description

The sixteen essays in Writing Off the Hyphen approach the literature of the Puerto Rican diaspora from current theoretical positions, with provocative and insightful results. The authors analyze how the diasporic experience of Puerto Ricans is played out in the context of class, race, gender, and sexuality and how other themes emerging from postcolonialism and postmodernism come into play. Their critical work also demonstrates an understanding of how the process of migration and the relations between Puerto Rico and the United States complicate notions of cultural and national identity as writers confront their bilingual, bicultural, and transnational realities. The collection has considerable breadth and depth. It covers earlier, undertheorized writers such as Luisa Capetillo, Pedro Juan Labarthe, Bernardo Vega, Pura Belpré, Arturo Schomburg, and Graciany Miranda Archilla. Prominent writers such as Rosario Ferré and Judith Ortiz Cofer are discussed alongside often-neglected writers such as Honolulu-based Rodney Morales and gay writer Manuel Ramos Otero. The essays cover all the genres and demonstrate that current theoretical ideas and approaches create exciting opportunities and possibilities for the study of Puerto Rican diasporic literature.