Manuel Puig

Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day provides a comprehensive modern biographical survey of homosexuality in the Western world. Among those included are:* Controversial political activists - Peter Tatchell; Guy Hocquenghem; Harvey Milk* Pop icons - David Bowie; k d lang; Boy George* Groundbreaking artists, writers and filmmakers - Pier Paolo Pasolini; Derek Jarman; David Hockney* Intellectuals who have shaped and changed the modern understanding of sexuality - Michel Foucault; Simone de Beauvoir; Alfred Kinsey* Over 500 entries - clear, informative and enjoyable to read - build up a superbly thorough overview of gay and lesbian life in our time.

Argentina, one of the most dynamic societies in Latin America, is known for its impressive level of cultural production. This examination of the social and cultural institutions of Argentine society contains a series of comprehensive and informative essays that focus on the most important forms of cultural production in terms of major works, major artists, and major venues.

This Encyclopedia offers accounts of the most important developments in an area that now occupies a critical place in many academic endeavours.

What happened in Spanish American fiction after the Boom? Can we define the Post-Boom? What are its characteristics? How does it relate to the Boom itself? Is Post-Boom the same as Postmodernism or something quite different? Shaw traces the emergence of a different kind of writing which began to displace the Boom in the mid-1970s and has flourished ever since. More reader-friendly, more concerned with the here and now of Latin America, the writers of the Post-Boom have explored new areas of Spanish American life and incorporated characters from new social groups, especially young working-class and lower middle-class figures with their distinctive "pop" culture and freewheeling life-style. Shaw suggests that, while some Boom writers have moved toward the Post-Boom, Post-Boom narrative is distinctively different from that of the older movement and cannot be readily assimilated into Postmodernism.

The function of dance in Latin/o American culture is the focus of the essays collected in Everynight Life. The contributors interpret the ways in which Latin/o culture expresses itself through dance, approaching the material from the varying perspectives of literary, cultural, dance, performance, queer, and feminist studies. Viewing dance as privileged sites of identity formation and cultural resistance in Latin/o America, Everynight Life translates the motion of bodies into speech, and the gestures of dance into a provocative socio-political grammar.

This anthology looks at many modes of dance -- including salsa, merengue, cumbia, rumba, mambo, tango, samba, and norteno -- as models for the interplay of cultural memory and regional conflict. Barbara Browning's essay on capoeira, for instance, demonstrates how dance has been used as a literal form of resistance, while Jose Piedra explores the meanings conveyed by women of color dancing the rumba. Pieces such as Gustavo Perez Firmat's "I Came, ISaw, I Conga'd" and Jorge Salessi's "Medics, Crooks, and Tango Queens" illustrate the lively scope of this volume's subject matter. Everynight Life will interest students and scholars of Latin American, performance, and cultural studies.

"On one level, this is a brilliant scholarly answer to the bedeviling question asked by non-Latin Americanists, 'What is Latin American literature like?' On another level, it coordinates and clarifies, for specialists, the complex of current issues that are often confusing and even discouraging because they are incompletely understood."--John S. Brushwood, Roberts Professor Emeritus of Latin American Literature, University of KansasLiterature in Latin America has long been a vehicle for debates over the interpretation of social history, cultural identity, and artistic independence. Indeed, Latin American literature has gained international respect for its ability to present social criticism through works of imaginative creation.In this comprehensive, up-to-the-minute survey of research and opinion by leading Latin American cultural and literary critics, Naomi Lindstrom examines five concepts that are currently the focus of intense debate among Latin American writers and thinkers. Writing in simple, clear terms for both general and specialist readers of Latin American literature, she explores the concepts of autonomy and dependency, postmodernism, literary intellectuals and the mass media, testimonial literature, and gender issues, including gay and lesbian themes. Excerpts (in English) from relevant literary works illustrate each concept, while Lindstrom also traces its passage from the social sciences to literature.