'In and Out of History': Media and Politics in Latin America

Panel at the 37th AAH Annual Conference
at the University of Warwick,
31 March - 2 April 2011

Co-Organizers: Dr. Antigoni Memou, University of East London,
antigoniuel.ac.uk and Dr. Stephanie Schwartz, Andrew W. Mellon
Research Forum Postdoctoral Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art,
stephanie.schwartzcourtauld.ac.uk

In 1959, Fidel Castro brandished a copy of Life magazine in front
of his collaborators explaining, "I want something like this." The
"this" to which Castro referred-and which he got in the form of
magazines like Revolución-was much more than a new means for the
circulation of the revolution's epic photographs. It was a new
means for writing the revolution's history, past and future.
Castro's appropriation of one of the most ubiquitous instruments of
U.S. hegemony raises important questions about the role media
played and continues to play in shaping political struggle in Latin
America-questions that art historians and critics have yet to fully
mine. How, for example, have new media practices changed the ways
in which political struggles in the region are carried out and
disseminated?

This panel seeks to bring together papers addressing the
intersection of political struggle and media in Latin America. Of
particular interest are inquiries into the ways in which those
struggles have been strategically written into and out of history.
We encourage local and cross-regional media studies, as well as
theoretical readings of media's Janus-face-its role as a means for
both advancing and resisting imperialism. Alternatively, we ask:
how have artists, critics, activists and/or local collectives
challenged now canonized and hegemonic narratives? We welcome
submissions addressing a diverse range of media-photography, film,
video, and the Internet-and the relationships between them.