Brazil marks the bicentennial of its political independence today, September 7th, but for many Brazilians it has been difficult to generate much excitement to celebrate the great date. Despite the country’s strong public health tradition and its high vaccination rate, its experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has been a brutal one, with almost 700,000 deaths second only to the United States. As Brazilians face the same inflation worries as much of the globe, the strong economic growth the country enjoyed in 2021 in the aftermath of the worst of pandemic-related woes has faltered this year. And the health of its…

The University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to welcome Jorge Coronado as the new series editor for Illuminations: Cultural Formations of the Americas! Featuring cutting-edge books on Latin American and inter-American societies, histories, and cultures that offer new perspectives from postcolonial, subaltern, feminist, and cultural studies, this series takes its inspiration from the idea of the illumination, which the critic Walter Benjamin defined as “that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to someone singled out by history at a moment of danger.” By emphasizing this recovery of the past in the context of a perilous present, the series concerns…

Chica Lit Popular Latina Fiction and Americanization in the Twenty-First Century Tace Hedrick LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES/LITERARY CRITICISM “In this highly anticipated text, Tace Hedrick provides an invaluable resource that finally scrutinizes chica lit while providing cues for understanding the heated love-hate emotions it often triggers among many Latina/o scholars and readers.” —Arlene Davila, New York University   Hedrick illuminates how discourses of Americanization, ethnicity, gender, class, and commodification shape the genre of “chica lit,” popular fiction written by Latina authors with Latina characters. Looking at chica lit’s market-driven representations of difference, poverty, and Americanization, Hedrick shows how this writing functions…

University of Pittsburgh Press is celebrating with the re-launch of our Cuban Studies series. The series recently came under the editorship of Alejandro de la Fuente, who is the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics and professor of African and African American studies at Harvard University. New volumes will feature an all-new look. Cuban Studies Volume 43 will be available in mid-July.

Sports Culture in Latin American History Edited by David M. K. Sheinin LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES “This book expanded my sense of Latinidad by exposing under-analyzed, vastly hybrid histories and sporting practices. Extending key works in sport studies, it offers a broad geopolitical lens on the role of sport in nation building, settlement, community activism, and social hierarchies. A much-needed corrective to a U.S. practice of over-reliance on a European-centered historical and cultural landscape for theorizing sport.” —Katherine Jamieson, University of North Carolina–Greensboro As this edited volume shows, the function of sport as a historical and cultural marker is particularly relevant…