Adaptation and the Edge Effects of Latin American Cultures

This book delves into the vibrant and dynamic cultural landscape of Latin America, exploring the creative frictions that arise from the coexistence among, and tensions between, diverse cultures. Inviting readers to think through critical questions about cultural and textual adaptation, this book examines how stories, texts, genres, and cultural practices develop into configurations that are both distinct and intimately connected to their progenitors. The metaphor of the “edge effect,” borrowed from ecology, serves as a lens to understand these productive tensions. This book addresses a wide range of topics, including cultural change in the Americas, intertextual relationships, and adaptive histories. Ideal for scholars in Latin American studies, film studies, and adaptation studies, this book offers a novel analytical framework that enriches current academic practices and theories of hybridity, contact zones, and rhizomatic connections. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the complex interrelations between Latin American cultures and their textual and artistic expressions.

Elisabeth L. Austin, Associate Professor of Spanish at Virginia Tech, USA is author of Exemplary Ambivalence in Late Nineteenth-Century Spanish America.

Elena Lahr-Vivaz, Professor of Spanish at Rutgers University–Newark, USA is author of Writing Islands: Space and Identity in the Transnational Cuban Archipelago and Mexican Melodrama: Film and Nation from the Golden Age to the New Wave.