Publisher's Synopsis
How much does popular culture tell us about the country in which it is found. This collection of essays explores both the practices of popular culture in Latin America - from tangos to ""telenovelas"" - and the discipline that studies them. The book features studies of iconography in Mexico, ""telenovelas"" in Venezuela, drama in Chile, cinema in Brazil, comic strips and tango in Argentina, and ceramics in Peru. In examining these popular arts, the scholars ask the same broad questions: what precisely is a national culture at the level of the popular? Is it separate from the state? Can it ever be coherent?
