Overview

From its earliest manifestations on the street corners of nineteenth-century Buenos Aires to its ascendancy as a global cultural form, tango has continually exceeded the confines of the dance floor or the music hall. In Tango Lessons, scholars from Latin America and the United States explore tango's enduring vitality. The interdisciplinary group of contributors-including specialists in dance, music, anthropology, linguistics, literature, film, and fine art-take up a broad range of topics. Among these are the productive tensions between tradition and experimentation in tango nuevo, representations of tango in film and contemporary art, and the role of tango in the imagination of Jorge Luis Borges. Taken together, the essays show that tango provides a kaleidoscopic perspective on Argentina's social, cultural, and intellectual history from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. Contributors. Esteban Buch, Oscar Conde, Antonio Gomez, Morgan James Luker, Carolyn Merritt, Marilyn G. Miller, Fernando Rosenberg, Alejandro Susti

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9780822355496

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Reviews

Tango is unique in Argentine history. More than a national music and dance, it has been considered the defining icon of Buenos Aires and of Argentina's vibrant cultural history. Yet, despite its notoriety, scholarship on tango, especially in English, is surprisingly scant. Tango Lessons makes an important contribution by bringing together in one volume profoundly original essays investigating tango as a multifaceted cultural form. -Florencia Garramuno, author of Primitive Modernities: Tango, Samba, and Nation Until now, scholars have known little about the social, cultural, and economic aspects of contemporary tango. This collection brings tango scholarship up to date. Deeply involved in the contemporary tango scene, contributors convey a broad and timely appreciation of tango as a dance, a musical genre, a type of lyrical song, a historical archive, and a cultural form that is alive and evolving. -Arlene Davila, author of Culture Works: Space, Value, and Mobility across the Neoliberal Americas This is a book to read carefully and to savor for each essay's distinctive take on the contemporary tango... It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to such a varied collection of essays... [T]his is a solid and diverse collection, and the detailed and highly informative footnotes further embellish the essays. Even those readers who are well versed in tango history will learn a great deal from Tango Lessons. -- Deborah Jakubs Hispanic American Historical Review

"""Tango is unique in Argentine history. More than a national music and dance, it has been considered the defining icon of Buenos Aires and of Argentina's vibrant cultural history. Yet, despite its notoriety, scholarship on tango, especially in English, is surprisingly scant. Tango Lessons makes an important contribution by bringing together in one volume profoundly original essays investigating tango as a multifaceted cultural form."" - Florencia Garramuno, author of Primitive Modernities: Tango, Samba, and Nation ""Until now, scholars have known little about the social, cultural, and economic aspects of contemporary tango. This collection brings tango scholarship up to date. Deeply involved in the contemporary tango scene, contributors convey a broad and timely appreciation of tango as a dance, a musical genre, a type of lyrical song, a historical archive, and a cultural form that is alive and evolving."" - Arlene Davila, author of Culture Works: Space, Value, and Mobility across the Neoliberal Americas"

""Tango is unique in Argentine history. More than a national music and dance, it has been considered the defining icon of Buenos Aires and of Argentina's vibrant cultural history. Yet, despite its notoriety, scholarship on tango, especially in English, is surprisingly scant. Tango Lessons makes an important contribution by bringing together in one volume profoundly original essays investigating tango as a multifaceted cultural form."" - Florencia Garramuno, author of Primitive Modernities: Tango, Samba, and Nation ""Until now, scholars have known little about the social, cultural, and economic aspects of contemporary tango. This collection brings tango scholarship up to date. Deeply involved in the contemporary tango scene, contributors convey a broad and timely appreciation of tango as a dance, a musical genre, a type of lyrical song, a historical archive, and a cultural form that is alive and evolving."" - Arlene Davila, author of Culture Works: Space, Value, and Mobility across the Neoliberal Americas

Tango is unique in Argentine history. More than a national music and dance, it has been considered the defining icon of Buenos Aires and of Argentina's vibrant cultural history. Yet, despite its notoriety, scholarship on tango, especially in English, is surprisingly scant. Tango Lessons makes an important contribution by bringing together in one volume profoundly original essays investigating tango as a multifaceted cultural form. - Florencia Garramuno, author of Primitive Modernities: Tango, Samba, and Nation Until now, scholars have known little about the social, cultural, and economic aspects of contemporary tango. This collection brings tango scholarship up to date. Deeply involved in the contemporary tango scene, contributors convey a broad and timely appreciation of tango as a dance, a musical genre, a type of lyrical song, a historical archive, and a cultural form that is alive and evolving. - Arlene Davila, author of Culture Works: Space, Value, and Mobility across the Neoliberal Americas

Author Information

Marilyn G. Miller is Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Tulane University. She is the author of Rise and Fall of the Cosmic Race: The Cult of Mestizaje in Latin America.

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