Revolutionary Visions examines recent cinematic depictions of Jewish involvement in 1960s and 1970s revolutionary movements in Latin America. In order to explore the topic, the book bridges critical theory on religion, politics, and hegemony from regional Latin American, national, and global perspectives. Placing these theories in dialogue with recent films, the author asks the following questions: How did revolutionary commitment change Jewish community and families in twentieth-century Latin America? How did Jews contribute to revolutionary causes, and what is the place of Jews in the legacies of revolutionary movements? How is film used to project self-representations of Jewish communities in the national project for a mainstream audience?
Jewish involvement in revolutionary movements is rife with contradictions. On the one hand, it was a natural progression of patterns of political participation, based on the ideological affinities shared between socialist movements and Marxist revolutionary politics. On the other hand, involvement in revolutionary politics would also upset the status quo of Jewish communities because of the extreme nature of revolutionary practices (e.g., guerrilla warfare), revolutionary groups' alignment with Palestine, and the assimilation into non-Jewish culture that revolutionary involvement often entailed. These contradictions between Jewish self-identification and revolutionary activity continue to confound cultural understandings of the points of contact between identities and political affinities. In this way, Revolutionary Visions contributes to timely debates within cultural studies surrounding identities and politics.
By:
Stephanie M. Pridgeon
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 159mm,
Spine: 18mm
Weight: 450g
ISBN: 9781487508142
ISBN 10: 148750814X
Series: LATINOAMERICANA
Pages: 277
Publication Date: 17 November 2020
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgments 1. A Place in the Economy of Being: Revolutionary Visions 2. Saintly Politics: Christianity, Revolution, and Jews 3. Here We Are to Build a Nation: Jewish Immigrants to Early-Twentieth-Century Latin America 4. Poner el cuerpo femenino judío: Jewish Women and Revolutionary Movements 5. Lost Embraces: Jewish Parent-Child Relationships and 1970s Politics 6. What Sort of Affinity? Conclusions and Areas for Future Study Notes Bibliography
Stephanie M. Pridgeon is an associate professor of Hispanic studies at Bates College.
Reviews for Revolutionary Visions: Jewish Life and Politics in Latin American Film
"""Representing an important contribution to the field, Revolutionary Visions highlights for the first time the role of Jewish political participation in the sixties and seventies as it is depicted in films from the nineties onward. None of the recent publications on this topic deal with the revolutionary politics from this era, and with this book Stephanie Pridgeon builds a new praxis of Jewish Latin American film studies."" --Ariana Huberman, Associate Professor of Spanish, Haverford College ""Stephanie Pridgeon has aptly identified a gap in current bibliography. Supported by sound scholarship, Revolutionary Visions is a serious contribution to the field of Jewish Latin American studies."" --Carolina Rocha, Professor of Spanish, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville"
- Commended for Best Book in Latin American Visual Culture Studies, 2022 awarded by the Latin American Studies 2022 (United States)
- Commended for Best Book in Latin American Visual Culture Studies, 2022 awarded by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) 2022 (United States)
