Cinema and Inter-American Relations studies the key role that commercial narrative films have played in the articulation of the political and cultural relationship between the United States and Latin America since the onset of the Good Neighbor policy (1933). Pérez Melgosa analyzes the evolution of inter-American narratives in films from across the continent, highlights the social effects of the technologies used to produce these works, and explores the connections of cinema to successive shifts in hemispheric policy. As a result, Cinema and Inter-American Relations reveals the existence of a continued cinematic conversation between Anglo and Latin America about a cluster of shared allegories representing the continent and its cultures. Pérez Melgosa contends that cinema has become a virtual contact zone of the Americas, mediating in a variety of hemispheric political debates about the articulation of Anglo, Latin American, and Latino identities. Cinema and Inter-American Relations brings sustained attention to ongoing calls for a transnational focus on the disciplines of film studies, American studies, and Latin American studies and engages with current theories of the transmission of affect to delineate a new cartography of how to understand the Americas in relation to cinema.

Cinema and Inter-American Relations studies the key role that commercial narrative films have played in the articulation of the political and cultural relationship between the United States and Latin America since the onset of the Good Neighbor policy (1933). As a result, it reveals the existence of a continued cinematic conversation between Anglo and Latin America about a cluster of shared allegories representing the continent and its cultures.

This volume is a collection of essays presented at the 20th annual Eugene Scassa Mock Organization of American States conference, which is the nation’s only “hybrid” conference including an inter-collegiate competition and simulation of the Organization of American States, a moot court simulation of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and a traditional academic conference for faculty and graduate students centered on the study of Inter-American relations and politics within the Western Hemisphere. The conference invited recognized authorities and promising new scholars in the vastly varied fields associated with Latin American studies. Taking a broad view of the academic study of the Western Hemisphere, the conference and, subsequently, this volume includes research from fields as diverse as international law, spatial geography, literature, religion, political science, and history. Taken together, these essays provide a fascinating multi-dimensional look at the intricate relationships between the polities and cultures of the Americas.

Drawing on the research and experience of fifteen internationally recognized Latin America scholars, this insightful text presents an overview of inter-American relations during the first decade of the twenty-first century. This unique collection identifies broad changes in the international system that have had significant affects in the Western Hemisphere, including issues of politics and economics, the securitization of U.S. foreign policy, balancing U.S. primacy, the wider impact of the world beyond the Americas, especially the rise of China, and the complexities of relationships between neighbors. Contemporary U.S.-Latin American Relations focuses on the near-neighbors of the United States—Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean and Central America—as well as the larger countries of South America—including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. Each chapter addresses a country’s relations with the United States, and each considers themes that are unique to that country’s bilateral relations as well as those themes that are more general to the relations of Latin America as a whole. This cohesive and accessible volume is required reading for Latin American politics students and scholars alike.

Given its features as a modern mass medium and thus closely related to the nation, cinema has rightly been regarded as a privileged site for putting forward contesting representations of national identity, or in short, as a main area in which narratives of national identity are negotiated.What do films such as Amores Perros or Traffic say about Mexican identity? In what way could Bread and Roses or The Crime of Padre Amaro be part of its transformation? This book looks at representations of "e;Mexicanity"e; in Mexican cinema and also in Hollywood throughout the 20th century and beyond, arguing that the international context plays at least as important a role as ethnicity, religion and language in the construction of images of the national self, although it is seldom taken into account in theories of national identity.The Mexican film may reveal much about Mexican society, e.g., Traffic and the prevalence of drug trafficking, Bread and Roses, and the problems of migration; Amores Perros, in relation to metaphors of the nation as an extended family; The Crime of Father Amaro, in discussing the changing position of the Catholic Church; and Herod's Law, a scathing critique of the political system that dominated Mexico for the best past of the 20th century.Throughout, the book emphases the contingent nature of hegemonic representations, and our ongoing need to tell and to listen to - or indeed, view - stories that weave together a variety of strands to convincingly tell us who we are.

Historically, Argentina has been one of the strongest, most independent countries of Latin America. It seems odd then, that Argentina should develop a foreign policy during the post-Cold War period characterized by a strong allegiance to the United States. However, the end of the bilateral world left the U.S. foreign policy much less focused at the same time that Argentine foreign policy became much more focused. For Argentina, domestic changes-especially economic and political instability-encouraged the government to redefine U.S.-Argentine relations from prior patterns of conflict and distrust, in order to improve the country's international image and attract foreign support. Covering two decades of history, this book seeks to explain for the first time, the reasons for the emergence of a strong friendship between the United States and Argentina. Beginning with the history of U.S.-Argentine relations up until the end of the Cold War, the text then considers changes in: The international political system The nature of domestic politics and their influence on foreign policy-making in both countries Recent issues in U.S.-Argentine relations The United States and Argentina sets out to explore the nature of U.S.-Argentinean relations by concentrating on the issues which have shaped and stood out in the dialogue between the two countries and how this shifting relationship has been played out in international institutions. This will be the fourth in our Contemporary Inter-American Relations Series.

This book examines U.S.-Latin American relations from an historical, contemporary, and theoretical perspective. By drawing examples from the distant and more recent past—and interweaving history with theory—Williams illustrates the enduring principles of International Relations theory and provides students the conceptual tools required to make sense of inter-American relations. It is a masterful guide for how to organize facts, think systematically about issues, weigh competing explanations, and confidently draw your own conclusions regarding the past, present, and future of international politics in the region.