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03/09/2009
CLACLS lecture by Henry Geddes

As part of the The Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies (CLACLS) Spring '09 Research Colloquium Series, Prof. Henry Geddes in the Dept. of Communication, UMass, will present a talk entitled "From Colonial Encounters to Transnational Media Flows: The Making of Visual Culture in the Greater Yucatan Peninsula."

This talk traces the conditions for the emergence of a visual culture in Mexico, particularly those derived from colonialism, tourism and contemporary mass media texts, in order to ascertain their implications for governance and popular culture. Colonial and contemporary visual and graphic texts are examined in relation to a wider, historically contingent textual environment that produces asymmetrical symbolic and material relations. Of special interest are the conditions of production and consumption of visual culture since the colonial encounter, particularly in relation to the prevailing neoliberal political and economic order.

The paper begins by reviewing the colonial legacy of visual culture in the Americas, with a specific focus on its spatial and cultural implications in the Yucatan Peninsula's Caribbean coastline known as Quintana Roo, the site of major tourism development. It then turns to the evolution of Mexican visual culture in relation to mimesis, a particularly Western construct. This is followed by a section on the implications of a contemporary transnational space for the production and consumption of visual culture defined by film, television, advertising and tourism. The final section deals with the recent Hollywood obsession with the Yucatan Peninsula, focusing on specific film and video examples.

A flyer is below.

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