This article considers La nueva novela, a strange book-object assembled by twentieth-century Chilean poet Juan Luis Martínez, in light of Édouard Glissant’s “poetics of relation” and Manuel DeLanda’s elaboration of “assemblage theory.” By bringing together these texts, which both draw from Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome, this essay demonstrates how La nueva novela can be seen as a material poetics of relation, an assemblage whose many parts work to both bind and unbind the book together as a whole. It raises the question of how a book like this—made as, and from, such diverse parts as visual math problems in which, for example, a painting of Rimbaud and a military jacket minus a shoe, a boot, and a sock equals suspenders, a spat, and a sock; actual metal fishhooks taped to a page; riddles and problems of logic; other people’s poems; musical scores; drawings, for example, of a pipe split in half (titled “Meditations on Rene Magritte” and dedicated to Foucault); among many other things—can be read, arguing in favor of a kind of surface reading that attends to both La nueva novela’s material and meaningful components.

This article examines two approaches to postdictatorship cinema: trauma theory, which has been especially popular in reading this corpus, and semiotics, which has regained popularity in film analysis in general but is not often employed when analyzing postdictatorship films. The article claims that, though highly productive in the 1990s, trauma theory has become less fruitful after decades of continuous scholarship and after the emergence of administrations that have made the representation of the dictatorship the center of their public policies, such as kirchnerismo in Argentina (2003–2015). While trauma theory yields ahistorical analyses, a semiotic approach that takes into account how indexical, iconic, and symbolic signs merge in the cinematic field allows for historical interpretations that are more adequate for reading postdictatorship films, especially after 2003. The article first outlines the main tenets of the two approaches (trauma theory and semiotics), then assesses their suitability for historical interpretation via a brief analysis of Andrés no quiere dormir la siesta, a 2009 Argentine film on the country’s last dictatorship.

This article explores the transition from nationalism to postnationalism through food in Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile’s Hunger for Home (2007), by playwright Eduardo Machado. The framework used is Sigmund Freud’s narrative of the Oedipus complex. I suggest that the exilic condition of Oedipus and his rebellious behavior make the Oedipal narrative a useful tool for approaching the postnational rejection of the oppressive nature of the nation. I replace the phallus as the source of pleasure with food, and argue that the memories that ensure the continuity of the nation are largely alimentary. A study of what Eduardo Machado eats or refuses to eat to keep recognizing himself as Cuban leads me to explore ways in which the nation shapes subjectivity and the subject informs the postnation, adding to the scholarship on Cuban American literature.

Este artículo analiza cómo la textualidad de la novela Bolivia construcciones, del argentino Sergio Di Nucci (seudónimo Bruno Morales), trae a colación el debate en torno al concepto de plagio, así como apunta a la productividad de la reescritura y de la copia en la literatura contemporánea y, además, pone en tela de juicio ciertos supuestos modernos de la literatura y la crítica, como los conceptos de originalidad y autor, en tanto fundamentos creativos. Asimismo, se investigan los procesos de opacidad del lenguaje en la narrativa de la novela, relacionados con los cambios de la enunciación en el evento discursivo promovido por Di Nucci. Se sostiene que la querella en torno al plagio en su textualidad se asocia a la ambivalencia de mecanismos escriturales y de lectura que ponen la novela de Di Nucci al tanto de los desplazamientos y la indecidibilidad frecuentes en las artes del presente.

Este artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación que analiza la sentencia T-622/14 de la Corte Constitucional Colombiana en torno a la reasignación de sexo de niños intersexuales. El análisis se centra en el estudio de las voces involucradas y en el examen de las estrategias discursivas utilizadas para construir el concepto de intersexualidad. El estudio —cuyo enfoque metodológico es el análisis crítico del discurso y la teoría queer— permite evidenciar cómo el discurso judicial se apropia de otras instancias discursivas para definir, moldear y construir los cuerpos y las vidas que son dignas de existir en una sociedad heterocentrada. Se concluye que para la Corte Constitucional la autonomía y la capacidad de decisión personal son aspectos fundamentales en los casos en los que los sujetos intersexuales desean modificar quirúrgicamente sus cuerpos; sin embargo, en la sentencia se omiten las relaciones de poder que la matriz heterosexual produce sobre estos sujetos.

Based on a case study of Colombian journalist Patricia Nieto, who has written extensively about Colombia’s armed conflict, this article offers a new approach to understanding demands on journalists and challenges that face them when covering the effects of violence and trauma. The analysis focuses on the prologues Nieto wrote for the edited volumes of testimonies that she and her students put together. The books were product of a collective endeavor by which Nieto and her students guided and helped victims and survivors of violence to write their own stories. In the prologues to these volumes, Nieto’s reflections place politics and aesthetics close together in discussing the act of writing as the search for an inner voice to reconstruct the events that transformed someone into a victim. To understand the process of working with the victims, the article combines textual analysis and ethnographic fieldwork. It analyzes Nieto’s professional trajectory and her position in the local field of journalistic production, considering her emotional and ethical quest when covering her country’s armed conflict.

El artículo estudia los argumentos para crear una historia alternativa de las representaciones del paramilitarismo en México. Retrocediendo a la novela Astucia, de Luis G. Inclán, quien desarrolló un modelo del hombre de su tiempo: el Coronel Astucia. Este personaje participó en la formación de un cartel y actividades paramilitares con el propósito de buscar justicia a través del bandidaje social. Inclán fabula el lado oscuro de México en su primer siglo, ofreciendo un rechazo de las narrativas de creación de estado que los conservadores y liberales proveían. Podemos observar la naturaleza circular del bandidaje en México y cómo sirve de contrapunto a las narraciones tradicionales de soberanía. Ante el nuevo levantamiento armado en Michoacán, que ha producido grupos de autodefensa, este ensayo compara el discurso de Astucia con el de Nazario Moreno, difunto líder de la Familia Michoacana. Se argumenta que la necesidad de limitar el crecimiento del capital empuja a los bandidos sociales a producir discursos que ensamblan una política del consumo, como una forma de producir la imagen de que el bandido confrontara la desigualdad económica.

This article reviews the historical and theoretical foundations of communication for development and, in particular, communication for social change, a recently coined concept that remains anchored to an anthropocentric and unsustainable perspective of development. Based on the review of literature, we would like to open a dialogue between the field and Latin American contemporary debates, with a special focus on a number of theoretical frameworks that share a radical critique of modernity and stand for a biocentric turn in social sciences: the so-called modernity/coloniality research program, critical ecology, and indigenous epistemologies. We propose approaching communication theories from the indigenous worldview of “good living” (buen vivir) and quote several inspiring participatory projects that apply the new epistemologies to the field.

This essay reviews the following works:

Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands: Gender, Age, Memory, and Place. By Traci Ardren. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 210. $22.95 paper. ISBN: 9780292768116.

The Archaeology of Wak’as: Explorations of the Sacred in the Pre-Columbian Andes. Edited by Tamara Bray. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2014. Pp. xvi + 403. $70.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781607323174.

The Power of Huacas: Change and Resistance in the Andean World of Colonial Peru. By Claudia Brosseder. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. xi + 456. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780292756946.

Ancient Zapotec Religion: An Ethnohistorical and Archaeological Perspective. By Michael Lind. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2015. Pp. xviii + 386. $70.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781607323730.

Inca Sacred Space: Landscape, Site and Symbol in the Andes. Edited by Frank Meddens, Katie Willis, Colin McEwan, and Nicholas Branch. London: Archetype Publications, 2014. Pp. vii + 309. £65.00 paper. ISBN: 9781909492059.

Maya Imagery, Architecture, and Activity: Space and Spatial Analysis in Art History. Edited by Maline D. Werness-Rude and Kaylee R. Spencer. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015. Pp. xiv + 426. $75.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780826355799.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Admirable Adventures and Strange Fortunes of Master Anthony Knivet: An English Pirate in Sixteenth-Century Brazil. Edited by Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 230. $25.19 paper. ISBN: 9781107463004.

Privateering, Piracy, and British Policy in Spanish America, 1810–1830. By Matthew McCarthy. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2013. Pp. vi + 184. $115.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781843838616.

Monsters by Trade: Slave Traffickers in Modern Spanish Literature and Culture. By Lisa Surwillo. Stanford, CA: Sanford University Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 251. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780804788793.

Amistad: A Hidden Network of Slavers and Merchants. By Michael Zeuske. Translated from the German by Steven Rendall. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2015. Pp. vii + 267. $24.10 paper. ISBN: 9781558765931.

In spite of important recent work on the history of technology and the dynamics of technological change in Latin America, the literature in this field remains relatively undeveloped. In part, this is due to a relative scarcity of available sources for conducting research. This research note argues that national patent records are an important and untapped source for a wide range of studies on technology and technological change. The research note announces the creation of major new comprehensive databases of patent records in several Latin American countries, part of a larger, ongoing project to compile and make publically accessible patent records across the region. We also provide an introduction to the history of patents in Latin America, followed by a discussion of both the use (and misuse) of patents as historical evidence and recent advances in collecting and using patent evidence in Latin America.

The article argues that today’s media characters may be understood through a typology. As models of acting, these character types appear in programs that raise ordinary people to the heights of media visibility through reality shows. Our article presents a proposal for mapping the characters in Big Brother Brasil, seasons 4 and 10, and discusses what the character types say about the protagonist syndrome and Brazilian culture.

This essay reviews the following works:

Borderland on the Isthmus: Race, Culture, and the Struggle for the Canal Zone. By Michael E. Donoghue. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 333. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822356783.

Scripts of Blackness: Race, Cultural Nationalism, and U.S. Colonialism in Puerto Rico. By Isar P. Godreau. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 291. $35.00 paper. ISBN: 9780252080456.

The Mulatto Republic: Class, Race, and Dominican National Identity. By April J. Mayes. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014. Pp. viii + 187. $69.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780813049199.

Cuba’s Racial Crucible: The Sexual Economy of Social Identities, 1750–2000. By Karen Y. Morrison. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 327. $32.00 paper. ISBN: 9780253016546.

This essay reviews the following works:

Afro-Latin America: Black Lives, 1600–2000. By George Reid Andrews. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. i + 123. $24.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780674737594.

From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la Plata. By Alex Borucki. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 306. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780826351807.

Conceiving Freedom: Women of Color, Gender, and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro. By Camillia Cowling. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 326. $36.95 paper. ISBN: 9781469610887.

Crossroads of Freedom: Slaves and Freed People in Bahia, Brazil, 1870–1910. By Walter Fraga. Translated and with an introduction by Mary Ann Mahony. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2016. Pp. vii + 313. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822360902.

The Work of Recognition: Caribbean Colombia and the Postemancipation Struggle for Citizenship. By Jason McGraw. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 328. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 9781469617862.

Mestizo Genomics: Race Mixture, Nation, and Science in Latin America. Edited by Peter Wade, Carlos López Beltrán, Eduardo Restrepo, and Ventura Santos. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 304. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822356592.

This essay reviews the following works:

Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy. By Richard E. Feinberg. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 264. $22.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780815727675.

Miradas a la economía cubana: Análisis del sector no estatal. Edited by Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva and Ricardo Torres. La Habana: Editorial Caminos, 2015. Pp. 163. $5, paper. ISBN: 9789593031080.

Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape. By Archibald R. M. Ritter and Ted A. Henken. Boulder, CO: First Forum Press, 2015. Pp. xiv + 374. $79.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781626371637.

Retos para la equidad social en el proceso de actualización del modelo económico cubano. Edited by María del Carmen Zavala et al. La Habana: Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 2015. Pp. vi + 362. $20 paper. ISBN: 9789590616105.

New book review editor’s introduction.

This essay reviews the following works:

Sports and Nationalism in Latin/o America. Edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste, Robert McKee Irwin, and Juan Poblete. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. xiii + 307. $95.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781137487186.

Muscling in on New Worlds: Jews, Sport, and the Making of the Americas. Edited by Raanan Rein and David M. K. Sheinin. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2014. Pp. x + 196. $135.00 cloth. ISBN: 9789004284487.

Sports Culture in Latin American History. Edited by David M. K. Sheinin. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 239. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822963370.

The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, and International Politics in Puerto Rico. By Antonio Sotomayor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Pp. xix + 360. $60.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780803278813.

This essay reviews the following works:

Popular Politics and Rebellion in Mexico: Manuel Lozada and La Reforma, 1855–1876. By Zachary Brittsan. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 220. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780826520449.

El jefe político: Un dominio negociado en el mundo rural del Estado de México, 1856–1911. By Romana Falcón. Mexico City: El Colegio de México; El Colegio de Michoacán; CIESAS, 2015. Pp. 9 + 744. $39.99 paper. ISBN: 9786074627381.

Independent Mexico: The Pronunciamiento in the Age of Santa Anna, 1821–1858. By Will Fowler. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016. Pp. viii + 362. $40.00 paper. ISBN: 9780803225398.

Mexico’s Supreme Court: Between Liberal Individual and Revolutionary Social Rights, 1867–1934. By Timothy M. James. Albuquerque: University of Mexico Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 149. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780826353788.

Conflict and Carnage in Yucatán: Liberals, the Second Empire, and Maya Revolutionaries, 1855–1876. By Douglas W. Richmond. Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 177. $49.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780817318703.

Las élites empresariales y la independencia económica de México: Estevan de Antuñano o las vicisitudes del fundador de la industria textil moderna, 1792–1847. By Evelyne Sanchez. Mexico: Plaza y Valdés Editores, 2013. Pp. ix + 363. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9786074026177.

This essay reviews the following works:

Authoritarian El Salvador: Politics and the Origins of the Military Regimes, 1880–1940. By Erik Ching. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 496. $55.00 paper. ISBN: 9780268023751.

The Rise of Constitutional Government in the Iberian Atlantic World: The Impact of the Cádiz Constitution of 1812. Edited by Scott Eastman and Natalia Sobrevilla Perea. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 320. $64.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780817318567.

Armies, Politics, and Revolution: Chile, 1808–1826. By Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 288. ₤75.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781781381328.

The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. By James E. Sanders. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 352. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822357803.

This essay reviews the following works:

Constitutional Courts and Deliberative Democracy. By Conrado Hübner Mendes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 272. $42.50 paper. ISBN: 9780198759454.

Crafting Courts in New Democracies: The Politics of Subnational Judicial Reform in Brazil and Mexico. By Matthew C. Ingram. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xxv + 365. $110.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107117327.

Making Constitutions: Presidents, Parties, and Institutional Choice in Latin America. By Gabriel L. Negretto. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xxii + 283. $44.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107670983.

Primer Informe Estado de la Justicia. By Programa Estado de la Nación en Desarrollo Humano Sostenible (Costa Rica). San Jose, Costa Rica: PEN, 2015. www.estadonacion.or.cr/justicia.

Constitutional Courts as Mediators: Armed Conflict, Civil-Military Relations, and the Rule of Law in Latin America. By Julio Ríos-Figueroa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xv + 238. $110.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107079786.