Overview

No book until now has tied in two centuries of Mexican serial narratives—striking tales of glory, of fame, of colorful epic characters, grounded in oral folklore—with their subsequent retelling in comics, radio, and television soap operas. Amy Wright's colorful multidisciplinary Serial Mexico delves deep into this rich national storytelling tradition for the first time: examining nostalgic tales told and reimagined from popular novelas to radionovelas then telenovelas and onwards, examining the enduring foundational figures woven into the very fabric of society, from the country's beginnings into the twenty-first century. This panoramic view offers a glimpse into how the Mexican people have experienced their stories from the country's early days until now, showcasing a penchant for protagonists that mock authority, that make light of hierarchy, that embrace the hybridity and mestizaje of Mexico itself. These tales vividly reflect and respond to a variety of crucial cultural concerns such as family, patriarchy, gender roles, racial mixing, urbanization, modernization and political idealism. Serial Mexico shows clearly how serialized storytelling's mix of melodrama and sensationalism was not devoid of revealing political and cultural messaging. In a detailed yet accessible style, Wright highlights how these stories and concerns have continued to morph, along with changing social media, into current times. Will these tropes and traditions carry on within new and reimagined serial storytelling forms? Only time will tell. Stay tuned for the next surprising episode.

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9780826505620

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Reviews

Serial Mexico belongs to a critical continuum, guided by Benjamin's Age of mechanical reproduction , Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, Doris Sommer's Foundational Fictions, that studies modern national identity. As befits this lineage, Serial Mexico concerns itself with family romance (and domestication) as national allegory. --John A. Ochoa, author of The Uses of Failure in Mexican Literature and Identity

Serial Mexico belongs to a critical continuum, guided by Benjamin's 'Age of mechanical reproduction, ' Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, Doris Sommer's Foundational Fictions, that studies modern national identity. As befits this lineage, Serial Mexico concerns itself with family romance (and domestication) as national allegory. --John A. Ochoa, author of The Uses of Failure in Mexican Literature and Identity

Serial Mexico belongs to a critical continuum, guided by Benjamin's 'Age of mechanical reproduction,' Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, and Doris Sommer's Foundational Fictions, that studies modern national identity. As befits this lineage, Serial Mexico concerns itself with family romance (and domestication) as national allegory. -John A. Ochoa, author of The Uses of Failure in Mexican Literature and Identity

Author Information

Amy Wright is an associate professor of Hispanic studies at Saint Louis University.

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