Art and Culture

Dangerous Misconceptions about Latin America and “Third World Countries”

By Rachel Bierly
January 29, 2019

Latitude is defined as “a measurement on a globe or map of location north or south of the Equator” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). A unit of measurement created by the Ancient Greeks using astronomical observations, latitude was created to aid sailors in navigation. Thousands of years later, just as Medieval Christians believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, so too did European cartographers believe that the center of Christianity was positioned higher on the map of the earth than other ‘heathen’ countries.

Are narcocorridos the new gangsta rap?

By Rachel Rozak
January 14, 2019

About two decades ago, gangsta rap evolved from being an underground movement born on the East coast of the United States to a popular genre that swept the nation with the release of N.W.A.’s album “Straight Outta Compton.”  In addition to casting light on gangsta rap, the group moved the geographic center of the genre to the West coast, or more specifically, the inner-city of Los Angeles.

Could dark tourism bring a light to Latin American issues?

By Rachel Rozak
December 20, 2018

While the concept of tourism in areas of historic tragedies is far from being a modern phenomenon, it was only recently that the term dark tourism was created and regarded by academics.  Dark tourism was first written about by two men, John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, in their 2000 book that investigated “tourist interest in recent death, disaster, and atrocity.”  In 2011, Dom Joly published what would become one of the first reflections of such travel in his book called The Dark Tourist (Gilbert 2018).

Tropicália no Brasil

By Allison Marie Bustin
December 4, 2018

Tropicália

O que é Tropicália? Tropicália foi um movimento artístico no Brasil que aconteceu no início da ditadura militar brasileira (começou em 1967 e terminou em 1969). O movimento tropicalista teve muitas influências e incluiu muitos meios artísticos. Os artistas do movimento misturaram poesia, dança, literatura e música, que foram uma forma de “antropofagia.”

Latin Music and Latino Identity

By Rachel Bierly
October 4, 2018

Latin music has been growing in popularity in the United States over the past several years. Although hit Spanish language songs in the U.S. are nothing new, until recently there would only be one or two Spanish language songs to reach billboard status in the U.S. every five to ten years since the ‘60s. As U.S. music affects Latin American music, Latin music struggled to leave an impact on U.S. mainstream music— that is, until this decade. In 2014, if a person tuned in to a pop radio station, they would have heard ‘Bailando’, the hit Spanish language song by Enrique Iglesias’.

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