these essays by critics, theorists and artists explore the allusive nexus of the dark in contemporary mexican literature and visual culture. they chart the poetics of 'negrura-oscuridad' in creative media during decades of deepening crisis marked by the high-profile staging of atrocities, the re-emergence of an ironic noir aesthetic and the consolidation of forensically inspired art-making.

in the wake of walter benjamin's 'unfinished' thinking structures, this volume operates through contiguous directions, transitions and regressions, incorporating images as part of the discussion of a ruinous visuality. its polycentric mesh covers a wide range of art, writing, photography and film: from ritual uses of the 'darksome' and its legacies in pre-hispanic cultures to colonial religious iconography of penitential blindness; from narco-noir in the novels of roberto bola o and yuri herrera to techno-noir in dystopian border films; from the quotidian taxonomy of horror expurgated in art practice to the haunted 'other darkness' of the photographic blink. it also explores how we can contest the threat of dark ecology and 'horrorism' through sense expansion within new media and by positing fruitful blind spots in text and art.

reimagining how we understand and write about the indigenous listening experience?

hungry listening is the first book to consider listening from both indigenous and settler colonial perspectives. a critical response to what has been called the “whiteness of sound studies,” dylan robinson evaluates how decolonial practices of listening emerge from increasing awareness of our listening positionality. this, he argues, involves identifying habits of settler colonial perception and contending with settler colonialism’s “tin ear” that renders silent the epistemic foundations of indigenous song as history, law, and medicine. 

with case studies on indigenous participation in classical music, musicals, and popular music, hungry listening examines structures of inclusion that reinforce western musical values. alongside this inquiry on the unmarked terms of inclusion in performing arts organizations and compositional practice, hungry listening offers examples of “doing sovereignty” in indigenous performance art, museum exhibition, and gatherings that support an indigenous listening resurgence.

throughout the book, robinson shows how decolonial and resurgent forms of listening might be affirmed by writing otherwise about musical experience. through event scores, dialogic improvisation, and forms of poetic response and refusal, he demands a reorientation toward the act of reading as a way of listening. indigenous relationships to the life of song are here sustained in writing that finds resonance in the intersubjective experience between listener, sound, and space. 

el chavo del ocho is one of the most influential pieces of popular culture to have hit latin america in the last 50 years, having, at the peak of its popularity in the mid-1970s, reached an approximate audience of 350 million across the americas. it is also a rare example of a cultural product that has travelled through latin america, leaving a lasting impact for several decades.

resonances of el chavo del ocho in latin american childhood, schooling, and societies analyses the phenomenon of el chavo, and its images of schooling and childhood, latin american-ness, class and experience. with contributions from scholars emerging from or based in countries including brazil, mexico, chile, puerto rico, argentina, venezuela, colombia and the us, the book combines reflections from a variety of international perspectives without attempting to compare or reach consensus on any ultimate meaning(s) of the work. the book explores themes such as images of schooling and childhood, romantization of poverty, the prevalence of non-traditional families and the bordering cynicism towards the economic structures and inequalities which, some argue, make the show transgressive and quite uniquely latin american. investigating the connection between visual culture studies and transcultural curriculum studies, this innovative title provides scholars with original new insights into conceptualizing childhood, schooling and society in latin america.