Mark Cronlund Anderson

Irene Maria Blayer

This book presents a selection of fourteen provocative and unique essays bringing together the views of exciting new scholarship on narratives and cultural identity in Latin America. In so doing, it balances theory, methodology, and description. The offerings in this volume deliver a clarion mix of original voices and cutting-edge approaches to the exploration of the topics, which reflect diverse perspectives on Latin American culture and literature. The contributions feature analyses of Latin American oral tradition, cultural identity, memory construction, storytelling, literary truth-claims, myth, autobiography, cultural policy and history, folk art and cinema.

Selected Readings

Latin American Narratives and Cultural Identity

North America is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and cross-cultural. In this emerging context narratives play a crucial role in weaving patterns that in turn provide fabrics for our lives. In this thoroughly original collection, Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Narratives in North America, a dozen scholars deploy a variety of provocative and illuminating approaches to explore and understand the many ways that stories speak to, from, within, and across culture(s) in North America.

Interdisciplinary and Cross-cultural Narratives in North America

This colorful history of Pancho Villa as a propagandist tells how the legendary guerrilla waged war not only on the battlefield but also in the mass media, where he promoted his foreign policy of friendship with the United States in a bid to gain American backing for the Mexican Revolution between 1913 and 1915. Mark Cronlund Anderson explores issues of race, identity, and the power of the mass media to explain how Villa dueled with his archrivals, Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta and Villa’s ostensible colleague-in-arms, Venustiano Carranza, using a sophisticated public-relations machine.

Pancho Villa's Revolution by Headlines

Carmen L. Robertson

The first book to examine the role of Canada’s newspapers in perpetuating the myth of Native inferiority. Seeing Red is a groundbreaking study of how Canadian English-language newspapers have portrayed Aboriginal peoples from 1869 to the present day. It assesses a wide range of publications on topics that include the sale of Rupert’s Land, the signing of Treaty 3, the North-West Rebellion and Louis Riel, the death of Pauline Johnson, the outing of Grey Owl, the discussions surrounding Bill C-31, the “Bended Elbow” standoff at Kenora, Ontario, and the Oka Crisis. The authors uncover overwhelming evidence that the colonial imaginary not only thrives, but dominates depictions of Aboriginal peoples in mainstream newspapers. The colonial constructs ingrained in the news media perpetuate an imagined Native inferiority that contributes significantly to the marginalization of Indigenous people in Canada. That such imagery persists to this day suggests strongly that our country lives in denial, failing to live up to its cultural mosaic boosterism.

Mark Cronlund Anderson

Books

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