Library: Latin American Studies by Credo Reference: Culture

Latin Americanists

Richard N. Adams (1924 - )
From Biographical Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology
After his doctoral research in Muquiyauyo, Peru, Richard Adams chose to work in applied anthropology in Latin America.
Antonio Cornejo Polar (1936 - 1997)
From Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003
A dominant figure in Andean studies, professor and rector of the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, founder (1975) and editor of Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana, Cornejo Polar also wrote one of the earliest (1973) and best studies of José María Arguedas.
Ariel Dorfman (1942 - )
From Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003
Born in Buenos Aires and Chilean by choice, after the electoral triumph of Salvador Allende in 1970 Dorfman participated actively in the Popular Unity administration.
Arturo Escobar (1951 - )
From Biographical Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology
The overriding concern of Escobar’s work has been the examination of dominant social orders with an eye to their transformation.
Sylvia Molloy (1938 - )
From Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003
Molloy is one of the most insightful contemporary Latin American literary critics, and a creative writer of remarkable originality.
June Nash (1927 - )
From Biographical Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology
June Nash’s four decades of highly original ethnographic research has focused on community, culture, capitalism, and globalisation across the political economies of the Americas.
Gustavo Pérez Firmat (1949 - )
From Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature
A survey of the works of P. F. suggests that his family's exile from Cuba in 1961 has exerted a powerful influence on the author's vision as a writer.
Ángel Rama(1926 - 1983)
From Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003
Rama was one of the most vital contemporary cultural thinkers, whose untimely death in a plane crash (along with his wife Marta Traba and the writers Jorge Ibargüengoitia and Manuel Scorza) left a vacuum in Latin American thought.
Darcy Ribeiro (1922 - 1997)
From Biographical Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Anthropologist, communist, politician, public servant, institution-builder, fiction writer, and movie maker, Darcy Ribeiro was a multi-faceted, influential, and prolific author.

Television and Film: Actors, Actresses and Directors

Pedro Almodóvar (1951 - ): Topic Page
Spanish film director and screenwriter; films include All About My Mother (Todo Sobre Mi Madre, 2003).
Jennifer Lopez (1969 - )
From Chambers Film Factfinder
She became a bestselling recording artist and the highest paid Latina actress in the world, noted as much for her diva reputation, shapely derrière and range of perfumes as for her performances.
Carmen García Maura (1945 - )
From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
Her career took off internationally in the 1980s through her collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar, winning the Best Actress Award at the European Film Awards in 1988 for her performance in his Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Anthony Quinn (1915 - 2001)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Of Mexican-Indian and Mexican-Irish parentage, he was tall, swarthy, and powerfully built, and early in his career played dozens of Native American and outlaw roles. Thereafter, he was cast as a rugged ethnic or exotic of varying backgrounds.
Mario Moreno Reyes (1913 - 1993)
From Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture
One of the greatest idols of Spanish-language cinema, Mario Moreno Reyes, better known as Cantinflas, gained international recognition through his rendering of a purely local character, the peladito.
Carlos Saura (1932 - )
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Spanish film director and screenwriter. He was a key figure in the New Spanish Cinema movement of the 1960s.

Related Terms

Chicano Studies
From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
These studies had their origins in the student activism, identity politics, and intellectual foment of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Like the other nationalist movements of the era, it emerged as a field of scholarly inquiry that placed special emphasis on linking academic research with the politics of social justice.
Latin America
From The Dictionary of Human Geography
In conventional usage, the term refers to those countries of the American continent that share a history of Spanish, Portuguese and French colonialism. However, the term also is widely used to denote all countries south of the USA (Lewis and Wigen, 1997, p. 182).
Latino/a Studies
From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
Social movements of the civil rights era (1954-68) called attention to the plight of Latinos in the United States, particularly that of Chicanos and Puerto Ricans, the largest Latino subgroups, both of which were incorporated into the United States through conquest.

Literature and the Arts: Authors and Artists

Gabriel García Márquez (1928 - ): Topic Page
Colombian novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, born in Aracataca.
Jorge Luís Borges (1899 - 1986): Topic Page
Argentine poet, critic, and short-story writer, b. Buenos Aires.
Pablo Neruda (1904 - 1973): Topic Page
Chilean poet, diplomat, and Communist leader.
Octavio Paz (1914 - 1998): Topic Page
Poet, born in Mexico City, Mexico.
Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954): Topic Page
Mexican artist. Self-taught after a crippling accident at the age of 15 which left her in agonizing pain for life.
Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957): Topic Page
Mexican mural painter, studied as a youth with Posada and other Mexican painters; husband of Frida Kahlo.

Languages

French Language: Topic Page
Member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages.
Portuguese: Topic Page
Member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages.
Romance Languages: Topic Page
Among the more important Romance languages are Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Occitan, Rhaeto-Romanic, Romanian, and Spanish. The spread of some Romance languages to other parts of the world, especially the Western Hemisphere, accompanied the colonizing and empire-building of the mother countries of these languages, notably Spain, Portugal, and France.
Spanish: Topic Page
Member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages.