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Side Dishes
Price: $23.95
Subtitle: Latina American
Women, Sex, and Cultural Production
Author:
Melissa A. Fitch
Subject: Latin
American Studies, Women's
Studies, Media
Studies
Paper ISBN: 978-0-8135-4525-7
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4524-0
Pages: 256 pages
Publication Date: July 2009
Series:
New
Directions in International Studies
Praise for Side Dishes:
"Playful in tone but intellectually
rigorous, Side Dishes adopts
culinary metaphors to expand the "menu" typically offered in studies of
Latin American women's cultural production. In her analysis of film,
stand-up comedy, science fiction, cartoons and more, Melissa Fitch
outlines a bold new direction for both feminist and cultural studies
focused on female sexuality." —Suzanne
Ferriss, co-editor of Chick Lit: The
New Woman's Fiction and Chick
Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies
"Melissa Fitch serves up an enticing
array of Latina "side dishes" in this collection of broadly
interdisciplinary essays. Her menu includes chapters on Latin
American and Latina stand-up comedians, science fiction writers,
filmmakers, cartoonists, "smut" artists and more--a range of creative
and intellectual treats mostly excluded in standard academic fare. A
delightful sampling of the richness, variety, and complexity of Latina
identities and cultural production." —Myra
Mendible, editor of From Bananas to
Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture
"Fitch sets aside the canonical works of contemporary Latina and
Latin American women in an attempt to draw attention to other examples
of women’s cultural production that are underexplored. The result is a
readable study that makes the case that many of the artifacts of
popular culture are more representative of the region than the novels
and novelists that routinely populate college curricula. Recommended."—Choice, Dec. 2009
Description:
Moving beyond the “main dishes” of
traditional literary works, Side
Dishes offers a provocative and delicious new understanding of
Latin American women’s authorship and activism. The book illuminates a
wealth of creative and intellectual work by Latin American
women—editors, directors, cartoonists, academics, performance artists,
and comedians—and explores them in light of their treatment of women’s
sexuality.
Side Dishes
considers feminist pornography and literary representations of
masturbation, bisexuality, lesbianism, and sexual fantasies; the
treatment of lust in stand-up comedy and science fiction; critical
issues in leading feminist journals; and portrayals of sexuality in
four contemporary Latin American films. Melissa A. Fitch concludes with
a look at the rise of women’s and gender studies programs in Latin
America.
About the Author:
Melissa A. Fitch is
an associate professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at
the University of Arizona. She is the coauthor of Culture and Customs in Argentina
and the former editor of Studies in
Latin American Culture. Her essays on Latin American theater,
film, and popular culture have been published in numerous journals.
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Price: $23.95
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