Buenos Aires: Perspectives on the City and Cultural Production

Displaying the power of cultural studies to construct and analyze urban life, this book captures the breath and soul of one of Latin America's most dynamic cosmopolitan centers.

Since the nineteenth century, Buenos Aires, the largest city of Spanish-speaking South America, has been one of the continent's major cultural centers. Until now, however, no work explored the multileveled integration of the city and cultural production. David Foster analyzes a standard aspect of Argentine culture, the tango, but with attention to gender issues; he looks at theater in terms of its interpretation of Argentine social life; the "dirty realism" of Enrique Medina provides a focus for marginal, subaltern, and suppressed sectors of the urban landscape; and gender emerges again in his discussion of photography (highlighting the work of Sara Facio, one of the city's great feminist artists), of Jewish ethnicity and immigrant culture, and of lesbian and gay identity in public spaces.

Combining an eclectic dimension in its research (Foster is willing to analyze such ephemera as slogans, catch-phrases, and the decoration of public transportation) with a breadth of scope (the book encompasses history, literature, anthropology, architecture, and cultural politics), Buenos Aires will engage the reader in the imagination of one of the most vibrant cities of the world.