"In their powerful new collection, Mike Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David Cline, together with the impressive roster of scholars they’ve assembled, force us to think about surfing and skateboarding in new and original ways. For them, these pastimes offer the potential for liberation, not a retreat into self-absorption. Theoretically sophisticated and wide-ranging, Roll and Flow is essential reading for all persons interested in modern board cultures." 

Dr. Scott Laderman
Professor of History
University of Minnesota Duluth 

"Roll and Flow frames the remarkable transformations taking place in skateboarding and surfing cultures. It emerges as an essential collected work for those invested in two dominant lifestyle sports, activities that have reshaped popular culture with their attitude and style and ascended to the realm of Olympic events. These diverse and elegantly complementary essays reveal the new political and social contexts that these sports vocally address and redress."

Paul O’Connor
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
University of Exeter, UK 

Roll and Flow Gallery
click to enlarge

Sickness Suffering and Death Walk into a Bar
... a Sort of Handbook on Comedy

Ricardo Araújo Pereira (Author), Ricardo Vasconcelos (Editor, Translator & Foreword); Lauren Applegate (Translator)

Published: August 8, 2024
San Diego State University Press
Paperback: 102 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1938537696
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1938537691
$20 USA €18 EURO $350MEX

Keywords: Comedy, Laughter, Television, Mass Media, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Psychology

The latest cultural studies title from San Diego State University Press provides outstanding insights into the ways humorists see the world, and readers will have a field day with the numerous hilarious examples presented. Ricardo Araújo Pereira's electric, fast-paced study links the humor produced in different regions and times, from Rabelais to Ricky Gervais. Charlie Chaplin appears side by side with Jacques Tati, Machado de Assis comes across Kafka, Shakespeare and Seinfeld high-five, and even Fernando Pessoa has a run-in with Mark Twain. Rooted in a humanistic perspective, Sickness, Suffering, and Death Walk into a Bar is not interested in debating cultural differences in humor but is focused on affinities in the modes of being funny across different oceans and continents.

Advance word on Sickness Suffering and Death Walk into a Bar …

"Comedian, writer, activist, Pereira dares to laugh-and to understand its preciousness in a world where social conditions obliterate this possibility for the many. With Wurlitzer-like verve and joy, Pereira twirls us through Aristotle and Schopenhauer, the belly-ache fun of lit giants like Joyce and Kafka, as well as those masters of comedic gesture, Chaplin, Tati, and Seinfeld. He powerfully reminds that ti is through laughter that we connect, imagine, create, and hope. We open to possibilities. Without it, we're doomed. This is nothing less than a life raft to save humanity from drowning in the oblivion of nothingness!"

Frederick Luis Aldama, co-author of Laughter Matters: Conversations on Humor

Key pages from the full-color, illustrated volume:

SDSU Press Journals Division

Splice, The Journal of Undergraduate  Scholarship in SDSU's College of Arts and Letters, is an anthology of peer-reviewed publications produced by undergraduate students in the Splice Collective. The journal’s goals are to promote research and creativity while providing a space for CAL students to build academic publishing skills. Splice accepts submissions on a rolling (anytime) basis during the academic year. Members of the Splice Collective participate in all aspects of the publication process, including submissions, review process, developmental editing, copy editing, production, and marketing.

Our latest issue is now "live."

Splice, The Journal of Undergraduate  Scholarshop at SDSU's College of Arts and Letters. Our Spring 2024 issue of the journal, Volume 7, is wide-ranging and dynamic and includes the following pieces: 

REBECCA FOX, “Overworked and Undernourished: Diet Habits of College Students Reveal Concerning Patterns in Young Adults Across America”

SEMAYAT YOHANES, “Gender-Based Violence Against Female Students in Amhara Region of Ethiopia”

MACKENZIE KARL, “‘Certified Sustainable Palm Oil’ Eco-Labels and Schemes Preventing Rainforest Degradation and Injustice in Indonesia?”

ALEXIS TZIORTZIS, “Leaving Fear on the Fire Escape”

MANDIE CARTER, “The Street Beneath Our Feet, A Seriation Analysis of Historic Sidewalk Contractor Stamps in University Heights San Diego, California”

ISABELLA TODD, Violence Against Women in El Salvador: How Social Norms and Weak State Capacity Create a Vacuum for Violence”

GRACE DEARBORN, “Shocking Tales of Domesticity in EC Comics and the Code that Altered Them”

ANISA PROM, “Innocence”

JOAQUIN RAFAEL RAMOSO, “Indigenous Agroforestry Experiences: Karen Hill Tribes in Thailand”

KAILEE KLINE: “To the Grave: Determining Gender Through Artifacts and Bones”

AVERY COCHRANE, “L.A. Times: Unidentified Man Claims He is the Late Jean-Jacques Rousseau of 18th Century France”

GRAYCE HONSA, “Reproductive Justice & the United States Prison System”

VALERIA GABRIELLI, “The Role of Gender Constructions of Eating Disorders in Men” 

This issue was designed by Kennii Ekundayo, MA, MALAS @ SDSU and Editor, SDSU Press.

Sample pages -- Click to enlarge
 

ISBN 9781938537622 | December 2023

$19.95 USA | $365 MEX | €19.00 EURO

SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Keywords: Young Adult Fiction, Chicano Literature, Latinx Studies, American Literature. YA Novels

No fan of Amazon.com? Buy direct NOW from Xopan Books & SDSU Press for $21 total, including shipping!

Border Citizen is the first YA Fiction title from Xopan Books, a new SDSU Press imprint. Ralph Inzunza’s novel tells the vibrant story of young Carlos Reyes growing up along the United States / Mexico borderlands. There, Carlos witnesses his Mexican-American family and community struggle in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1980's. The novel depicts a community constantly defending their barrio from harassment and neglect from the local government and police until tragedy strikes. As a result, they transform themselves, entering the political arena to take back their neighborhood. Yet, the fight here is just as daunting, as Carlos discovers that the struggle for political power is never given, it must be taken.

"Heart and courage fill teen Carlito's captivating journey-and with this, the complexity of life lived betwixt and between Santa Ysabel and Tijuana. Inzunza's pitch-perfect prose captures the sound, sight, smell, touch, taste of everyday struggles and triumphs, joys and tragedies for youth living en la frontera. Border Citizen powerfully reminds that Chicanx youth care, and their revolutions matter. This is borderlandia lit at its storytelling best!"    

Frederick Luis Aldama 
Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker  Chair in
the Humanities, Department of English 
The University of Texas, Austin

"A breakthrough moment in YA Fiction, Ralph Inzunza's Border Citizen unveils the rich histories of Southern California and San Diego's South Bay with vivid and compelling artistry-a moving tapestry of political resistance and social justice for 21st century readers."    

William "Memo" Nericcio 
Professor of English and Comparative Literature &
Chicana/o/x Studies and Director, The MALAS
Cultural Studies MA Program, San Diego State University

 

  

indomitable (adj.)1630s, "that cannot be tamed or subdued," from Late Latin indomitabilis "untameable," from in- "not, opposite of, without" (see in- (1)) + *domitabilis, from Latin domitare, frequentative of domare "to tame" (see tame (adj.)). In reference to persons or personal qualities, "unyielding, persistent, resolute," by 1830. Related: Indomitably, also from 1630s. 

"Latina and Chicana feminist editorial endeavors are at the center of making community: in both critical and creative anthologies and in journals. Cristina Herrera and Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs have created the space and gathered together these voices-these abundant narratives of Latina lives. This collection follows in the tradition of This Bridge Called My Back and Chicana Creativity and Criticism."

Eliza Rodríguez 

Masterfully curated and edited by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs Cristina Herrera, with a Foreword by Eliza Rodríguez, this path-breaking anthology fuses short stories, memoirs, novel excerpts, poetry, and essays that immerse readers in a decidedly provocative, moving, and compelling universe of Latinx and Chicanx expression.

The volume includes the work of Kathleen Alcalá, Catalina Marie Cantú, Norma Elia Cantú, Xánath Caraza, Claudia Castro Luna, Margarita Cota-Cárdenas, Anel I. Flores, Shirley Flores Muñoz, Carmen Giménez Smith, María Herrera-Sobek, Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros, Demetria Martínez, Lydia Z. Martínez Vega, Maiah Merino, Achy Obejas, Melinda Palacio, Melanie Pérez Ortiz, Naomi Helena Quiñonez, Odilia Rodríguez, Ruth Irupé Sanabria, Natalia Treviño, Graciela Vega, Evangelina Vigil-Piñón, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Christine Granados, Donna Miscolta, Toni Margarita Plummer, and Nelly Rosario, Aurora Chang, Margarita Cota-Cárdenas, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Erlinda Gonzáles-Berry, Aída Hurtado, Demetria Martínez, Josie Méndez-Negrete, Martina Giselle Ramírez, Jeanette Rodriguez, Kathleen Alcalá, Amelia María de la Luz Montes, Myriam Gurba, Josie Méndez-Negrete, Rebecca Saldaña, Helena María Viramontes, Erlinda Gonzáles-Berry, Lucrecia Guerrero, Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Kirsten Millares Young, Carla Trujillo, and Deena González.

Select Pages from the Volume  

Table of Contents
  

Front Materials
  

Splice, The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship at SDSU College of Arts and Letters, is an anthology of peer-reviewed publications produced by undergraduate students in the Splice Collective. The journal’s goals are to promote research and creativity while providing a space for CAL students to build academic publishing skills. Splice accepts submissions on a rolling (anytime) basis during the academic year. Members of the Collective participate in all aspects of the publication process, including submissions, review process, developmental editing, copy editing, production, and marketing.

Issue 6 includes: 

Aldo Brambila, "A Fresh Perspective on Fascist Studies: Fascism as a Transnational and Transgenerational Phenomenon" 

Sandra Resurreccion, "Religious State Ties & the Erosion of Reproductive Rights in the U.S.: Hegemonic Protestantism & the Religious Right" 

Jonna Wallin, "Women, STEM, and the Role of Capitalism"

Kailey A. McHale-Vonk, "The Punisher: Media Depictions of Veterans and PTSD" 

Hadil Salih, "Sharia's Implementation in the Zamfara State of Nigeria, Navigating Gender Norms, and Leaving Room for Interpretation" 

Mitchell Mullin, "Homosexuality in Western Africa" 

Pamela Grace de Vega, "Visualizing Musical Instruments in Roman and Etruscan Sequential Art" 

Toki Lee, "Dead Weight: Narratives of a Transgender Social Death"

SAMPLE PAGES, SPLICE 6, Fall 2023
click to enlarge
    

In his latest book, award-winning author Roger Rosenblatt charts a journey that is as visual as it is poetic. Cataract Blues, on the surface, is a collection of lyric fragments illustrated by the legendary Jules Feiffer. A careful reading (and viewing) rewards bibliophiles (and optical aficionados) with a nuanced, thoughtful, and magical paper machine that is about seeing, cataracts, mystery, the blues, insight, love, and memory. At once a masterpiece of creative non-fiction and a poetic experiment, ‘Blues invites readers to consider new approaches to the visual and the literary.

Advance word on Cataract Blues…

“While everyone around you is seeing red, along comes a happy outpatient who’s just nuts about the color blue. Prompted by his wildly successful eye surgery, Roger Rosenblatt celebrates his new favorite wavelength by letting it wash over everything that matters — nature, history, music, memory, laughter, loss, and love. This is a master, at work and at play.”

Garry Trudeau, Author and Illustrator of Doonesbury
and Former Guy: Doonesbury in the Time of Trumpism

“Cataract Blues is a poem, a pastiche, an elegy and a riff—a celebration of life in all its colors and shades, its sweetness, its beauty, its comedy, its pain. A gift from two of our most cherished artists, jamming together - gloriously.”

Alice McDermott, Author of Charming Billy: A Novel
and What About the Baby?

“It's a pleasure to watch Roger Rosenblatt's astute and lively mind skip nimbly from vision (in both the physical and metaphorical senses) to music, from poetry to film, from the joys of ordinary life to the inevitable pain of loss—and to marvel at the skill with which he alchemizes all of it into something deeply moving and profound.”

Francine Prose, Author of Cleopatra: Her History, Her Myth and The Vixen: A Novel

click to enlarge

They Made a List
A Memoir Beyond Memory
by Susan Letzler Cole
ISBN: 978-1-938537-19-6

Trade paperback Retail: $24.95
Cover Design by Isabella Ferrea

... or direct from sdsupress

NEW! From SDSU Press!

Inspired by Susan Letzler Cole's parents' decision to chronicle their baby's evolving language development, THEY MADE A LIST takes that most humdrum of writing artifacts, the list, and reveals it to be a talisman for memory and a doorway to unresolved fragments from the past. Cole's powerful writing uncovers the haunting power of these language lists, less trivial chronicle than evocative psychic shards that echo meaningfully in the present and on into the future.

"This is a wonderful piece of work, original and brilliant, as well as full of wonder the wonder of Susan Letzler Cole's parents at their verbal, remarkable daughter for whom they made a list of her first words, and the wonder of the author at her parents' careful attention, of which she made this book. They Made a List will leave you in wonder too, that what began as an intellectual transaction could result in such a beautiful labor of love."

Roger Rosenblatt
Author of The Story I Am: Mad About the Writing Life
and The Book of Love: Improvisations on a Crazy Little Thing

"Susan Letzler Cole's They Made A List is a stunning exploration of the comprehensive record made by her parents of the author's first words. Examining the list of her first 200 words, Cole begins to unravel an individual's early vocal communication. Her masterful weaving of language development theory, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, ethology, and cultural anthropology is an engaging discourse on individuality in human and animal communication."

Kyleelise Holmes Thomas, aka KyleeliseTHT
Author of Even if a Truth Condemns Us

"This irresistible book grows from an inquiry into Susan Letzler Cole's first 200 words, as recorded by her parents. It broadens into a series of reflections on how children acquire language as they experience the new world into which they are born. And it deepens into a meditation on how our earliest language experiences affect who we are today, and how our primal ties to our parents evolve yet remain as we age. Letzler Cole's intimately personal text speaks to us all."

John Leubsdorf

Professor of Law, Rutgers University Author of
Man in His Original Dignity: Legal Ethics in France

SUSAN LETZLER COLE is Professor of English and Director of the Concentration in Creative Writing at Albertus Magnus College. She is the author of The Absent One: Mourning Ritual, Tragedy and the Performance of Ambivalence; Directors in Rehearsal: A Hidden World; Playwrights in Rehearsal: The Seduction of Company; Missing Alice: In Search of a Mother's Voice; and Serious Daring: The Fiction and Photography of Eudora Welty and Rosamond Purcell. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with her husband, playwright David Cole.

Expanding the Amatl Comics universe from Sequential Art and Graphic Narrative proper onto the terrain of motion picture animation studies, Darius Gainer’s Black Representation in the World of Animation (Amatl Comix #4) breaks new ground, treating scholars and students alike to a veritable treasure trove of research that lays bare the curious and sometimes disturbing history of illustrated Black bodies on the silver screen. Gainer’s first book is a dynamic critical intervention and a necessary addition to a growing catalog of works concerned with the figuration (and disfiguration) of Ethnic bodies in the American imagination.

Advance Word on Gainer’s Book!

“Gainer's work is painfully necessary and brilliantly articulated. With the proliferation of animated images representing people of color, a text of this nature is vital and Gainer rises to the task.”

John Jennings, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside; Eisner Award Winning editor and comics illustrator 

“While mesmerized by ink-lined cells shaking to their own rhythm and beat, Darius Gainer has written a long overdue text chronicling an obscure field that is, as all aspects of Black history are, quintessentially and joyously American.”

Tim Fielder, author of INFINITUM: An Afrofuturist Tale

the

Cultural Studies
in the Digital Age
An Anthology of Interdisciplinary Inquiries, Postulations, and Findings
Edited by Antonio Rafele, William Nericcio, and Frederick Aldama
Hyperbole Books, an SDSU Press Imprint (2021)
ISBN-10 : 1879691310
ISBN-13 : 978-1879691315
$29.95 Retail




---------------------------------------------------------

Special International UK/Europe Offer-- Buy Direct from SDSU Press for $24.95 + $19.95 shipping via PayPal (whether you have an account there or not!)

hat is Cultural Studies!? Oh, we know all about Stuart Hall and his landmark work and we are hip to the tune of Marshall Blonsky, Marshall McLuhan, Susan Sontag, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and John Berger.

But what will Cultural Studies look like after AI, after COVID, after the next new wave of next-generation developments in computer science. One might think: “The algorithms will write future essays.” But that means tenure for algorithms? Surely not!

In this new anthology edited by Antonio Rafele, Frederick Luis Aldama, and William Nericcio, you will find essays on Disney, video games, fashion photography, and more—the traditional fodder of cultural studies; but you will also find deep meditations on memes, Instagram, social media, the border, Mexico, and more. Sit back and get ready to read some of the more provocative musings on both sides of the Atlantic by up-and-coming stars of Ethnic Studies, Literature, Linguistics, and more.

Contributors include: Frederick Aldama, Brian Frastaci, Federico Tarquini, Antonio Rafele, Tito Vagni, Gwendolyn Kurtz, Kristal Bivona, Luca Acquarelli, William Nericcio, Katie Waltman, Massimo Cerulo, Lorenzo Bruni, Alberto Abruzzese, Jennifer Carter, Ralph Clare, Nello Barile, Katlin Marisol Sweeney, Bonnie Opliger, Matteo Treleani, Vanni Codeluppi, Guerino Bovalino, Agnese Pastorino, Carlos Kelly, and Antonio Rafele.

Advance word on CULTURAL STUDIES IN THE DIGITAL AGE:

Cultural Studies in the Digital Age is a remarkable collection that defines the cutting edge of Cultural Studies. With essays that range from photography to emotion, from digitality to architecture, it should be required reading for all students of culture…Cultural Studies in the Digital Age contains great work, and it suggests great work lies ahead."

Michael P. Ryan
Professor Emeritus
Temple University
Author of Literary Theory: An Anthology

Selected pages from this dynamic new anthology, click to enlarge:

New! From San Diego State University Press, our 9nth volume of the Dr. Ralph R. Greenson training seminar collection published under the auspices of our Psychoanalysis on the Couch book series. Greenson, perhaps most famously known as Marilyn Monroe's psychoanalyst, was also a West Coast innovator and theorist of psychoanalytic practice, a kind of Freud of the Californias. His influential work, and that of his students, continues to impact on patients and clinicians alike across the country.

I do not exactly recall the first time I heard my teachers or supervisors mention Ralph Greenson, perhaps because it occurred often, practically every time anyone talked about the genesis of the psychoanalytic institute in San Diego. Much like a child with no appreciation for the importance of their parents' histories, as a candidate solely focused on my own path, it did not occur to me that whom my supervisors had learned from would make a difference in my training, let alone profoundly influence who I would become as an analyst. Living in San Diego makes analogies of the ocean rather irresistible, so bear with me: it is essential that analytic training, like a storm out over the ocean, stirs up one's internal world and ultimately brings ashore sediments that then remain and become part of the beach upon which the new analyst finds herself walking. Greenson was just such a storm that not only brought about my institute literally on the beach-but also impacted my teachers and supervisors in ways that only now are clear.

"Drone Visions demands that we jack-in and mainline an everyday present that has morphed into those terrifying sci-fi dystopias of yesteryear. A cultural studies coyotex  /hacker whose work moves from Fritz Lang's cybertronic Maria and Terminator's Skynet to George Miller's Valhalla War Boys, Naief Yehya punctures psyches to plug us into dystopic sci-fi reels that powerfully anticipate today's planetary fight-to-death struggle to hold fist-tight our last vestiges of humanity."

Frederick Luis Aldama

Author of Talking #browntv: Latinas and Latinos on the Screen, & Distinguished Professor, The Ohio State University

Hyperbole Books | SDSU Press | ISBN-13: 978-1-938537-78-3 | $22 USA  | Cover design by Antonio Sacristan Fanjul | Book Design by Guillermo Nericcio García | Also available via Amazon.com

click to enlarge

Mii Anmak Nyamak Kweyiwpo /
Jwanya Kumiai Kuwak
Huellas del pasado hacia el future /
Cuentos kumiai de baja california
Footsteps From the Past into the Future /
Kumeyaay Stories of Baja California
A Trilingual Collection In Kumeyaay, Spanish, & English
Edited by Margaret Field
San Diego State University Press (2019)
ISBN-10: 193853784X
ISBN-13: 978-1938537844
Retail: $13.95

From the Introduction by Dr. Margaret Field:

Advance word on our trailblazing new title!

This wonderful trilingual collection of Kumeyaay Texts /Kumiai Textos is a delight for all concerned with Indigenous oral literature. Traditional stories such as these were told within families to instruct and entertain and the current collection now makes them available to heritage language communities on both sides of the border as well as to students of verbal art and the oral tradition. In a rapidly transforming world, it is especially important to document and preserve these fascinating stories about Coyote, Frog, Wildcat and others, so that they can continue to serve as resources for community identity and nation-building for these groups, and as subjects of scholarly research. Many thanks to the storytellers, translators, and editors for this valuable collection!

Paul V. Kroskrity

Author of Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities
Professor of Anthropology, UCLA

This is an exceptional work, giving us a glimpse of the voices, the artistry, of five Kumeyaay narrators in Kumeyaay with translations into Spanish and English making these voices available for future generations of Kumeyaay. The importance of this book will be felt for years to come. 

Anthony K. Webster

Author of The Sounds of Navajo Poetry: A Humanities of Speaking
Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin

Subject Area Keywords: 

NATIVE AMERICANS 
KUMEYAAY 
CULTURE 
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
FOLKLORE 
ANTHROPOLOGY

click to enlarge

Advance word on Ralph R. Greenson's Training Seminars, "The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, 7, the latest in the San Diego State University Press Series, "Psychoanalysis on the Couch." 

From the Introduction by Jesus Gonzalez: "Greenson's language is a model of brevity and honesty. If he dislikes the individual, he will let us know and why he believes this is so. If he finds the patient attractive, he will also say so. If the patient is boring him or if he forgot relevant information and is asking the patient for it, we will hear about it. Thus, we have composer, conductor, musician, and actor all in one. Greenson is his own opera, and through these seminars he invites us to listen." 

From Peter Loewenberg, Professor of History Emeritus, UCLA, & Training and Supervising Analyst, Dean Emeritus, for the New Center for Psychoanalysis, LA, CA: "Ralph Greenson was a gifted charismatic teacher of psychoanalytic technique, premiere in his generation. I and many other students of analysis had the privilege of learning from his clear yet scintillating seminars on dreams and clinical practice. The editor has done a major service to all mental health practitioners in providing these brilliant sparkling Greenson seminars, notes, and papers for our benefit." 

Keywords: PSYCHOANALYSIS, PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY, CLINICAL PRACTICE, HISTORY OF MEDICINE, HISTORY OF SCIENCE 

ISBN-10: 1-938537-50-5

Select Pages: Click to enlarge:

Homer from Salinas

• San Diego State University Press (2009)
• ISBN-10: 1879691892
• ISBN-13: 978-1879691896

$14.95 list | trade paperback

The collection, edited by William A. Nericcio, includes outstanding pieces by Jeffrey Charles, Charles Wollenberg, William Deverell, Francisco X. Alarcón, Hernán Moreno-Hinojosa, Pam Muñoz Ryan, Paul Wong, Fred Gardaphé, Arturo J. Aldama, Michael Harper, Joanna Brooks, Arthur Ollman, Louis Hock, and Susan Shillingslaw.

Border Texts: Writing Fiction From Northern Mexico
Núria Vilanova
$22.00 | 2007
isbn:1-879691-86-5
order from us directly or use our off-site distributor, amazon.com

SPECIAL PRICE! $15.95

Núria Vilanova's new book is about borders and texts . . .

Vilanova's dynamic  project studies the relationship between the Mexico-U.S. border and some of the fiction produced in the area. What are the different presences of the border within these texts? Is the border so powerful as to permeate the aesthetics and literary discourse of such texts? Can the multidimensional space of the border be determinant in the making of fiction? After a review of border dynamics within the Mexico-U.S. context, with a look at border and Chicano studies, Border Texts explores the fiction of Jesús Gardea and Luis Humberto Crosthwaite. 

Latin Americanist Núria Vilanova has devoted much of her research to the Mexico-U.S. border from a cultural and literary perspective. After completing her Ph.D. at Liverpool University (1993), Vilanova established herself as an authority on Peruvian literature. She has taught in several universities in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. She is the author of The Impact of Social Change upon Literature: Social Change and Literature in Peru (1970-1990)  (1998)."

Arturo Aldama
Ethnic Studies
University of Colorado

or, buy direct, via PayPal, from SDSU Press, with 99¢ shipping*

SAVE with direct purchase via SDSU Press

Fluxus: The History of an Attitude is based on the Owen F. Smith's exhaustive archival research--tracking the physical remains of this fascinating interdisciplinary and international arts movement that began in the 1960s.

As Smith writes,

"Fluxus was once called 'the most radical and experimental art movement of the sixties,' but for anyone seeking to learn more about the historical nature of Fluxus and its conceptual framework it might more readily seem to be just plain frustrating rather than radical. This is in part the case because Fluxus is historically complex and philosophically difficult to define. This very ambiguity, however, is an aspect of its radicality. Fluxus is both an attitude towards art-making and culture that is not historically limited, and a specific historical group. As an attitude, Fluxus is part of a larger conceptual development that is a significant, although often overlooked, current of the twentieth-century Western avant-garde. This attitude is in part traceable to the network of interrelated ideas about culture, politics, and society explored earlier in the twentieth century by the Futurists, the Dadaists, and the Surrealists. Some of these same ideas were later explored after World War II by artists associated with groups such as Letterism, International Situationism, Nouveau Realisme, and Fluxus itself."

Smith's dynamic book contends that Fluxus is still very much alive today and that "Fluxus is by nature anti-reductivist, for it does not seek the illumination of some end or fact but celebrates participation in a non-hierarchal density of experience." Smith's conclusion is to the point: "In this way Fluxus does not refer to a style or even a procedure as such but to the presence of a totality of social activities. Fluxus seeks to shift from traditional utilitarian-based proscriptions to an open-ended, less evaluative participation in the processes themselves."

The book is provided with a comprehensive bibliography and index. 

Click here to see the cover and front materials of the book.
This links to a .pdf file--you can download software to read this file here.

Click or touch here to learn more about Fluxus via moma.org

Click image to enlarge the back cover!    

$17.95 via AMAZON.com


Perversions on Parade: Brazilian Literature of
Transgression and Postmodern Anti-Aesthetics in Glauco Mattoso

This is the first book-length scholarly treatment in English of the Brazilian poet Glauco Mattoso's work, some of which was written during Brazil's most recent dictatorship (1964-85). Steven Butterman highlights Mattoso's themes of homosexuality, fetishism, and symbolic sadomasochism within a context of a comparative examination of transgressive literature in the Western canon (Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine et al) with particular emphasis on Luso-Brazilian literature from the Middle Ages to the present.