Texas - State & Local History, Mexican Literature - Literary Criticism, Latin American Folklore & Mythology, North American Folklore & Mythology, Regional Studies - Southern U.S., Literary Criticism - U.S. Fiction & Prose Literature - General & Miscellane

Folklore and Culture on theTexas-Mexican Border

Name: Folklore and Culture on theTexas-Mexican Border
Author: Am
ISBN: 9780292765641

by Am

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Overview

In an illustrious career spanning over forty years, Américo Paredes has often set the standard for scholarship and writing in folklore and Chicano studies. In folklore, he has been in the vanguard of important theoretical and methodological movements. In Chicano studies, he stands as one of the premier exponents.
Paredes's books are widely known and easily available, but his scholarly articles are not so familiar or accessible. To bring them to a wider readership, Richard Bauman has selected eleven essays that eloquently represent the range and excellence of Paredes's work. The hardcover edition of Folklore and Culture was published in 1993. This paperback edition will make the book more accessible to the general public and more practical for classroom use.

Synopsis

Americo Paredes, in a distinguished career spanning the last forty years, has often set the pace and the standard in the two fields with which he is most strongly identified: folklore and Chicano studies. In folklore, he has been instrumental in establishing a new theoretical and methodological framework; in Chicano studies, he has exerted a seminal influence, inspiring an entire generation of scholars. For this book, the noted folklorist Richard Bauman has selected eleven of Americo Paredes's most significant scholarly articles. The selected articles, first published during the years 1958-1987, faithfully reflect the depth and breadth of Paredes's scholarship, as well as the rigor and eloquence of his writing. They represent scholarly discourse at its best: at once erudite and clear, demanding yet accessible, rich in both substance and style. Throughout his career, Paredes has centered his work on the folklore and culture of the Lower Rio Grande Border of South Texas and northeastern Mexico. His studies have always been contextualized, though, by a deep knowledge of Greater Mexico, and by the comparative scope of the folklorist. The essays collected here illustrate the transdisciplinary richness of Paredes's perspective - a synthesis of folkloric, anthropological, literary, and historical theory and method. They also demonstrate the revisionist power of his analysis, which challenges traditionalist conceptions and constructions of Texas-Mexican culture, the social base of folklore, and folklore genres. Paredes is best known for his studies of the corrido, and several articles on this ballad form are included in the collection. Other essays focus variously on decimas, jokes, legends,and the "neighborly names" of ethnic slurs. More general subjects are also addressed, including the nature of the ethnographic encounter, machismo in the United States and Mexico, and the clash of cultures along the Lower Rio Grande Border. What emerges is perhaps the most well wro

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Editorials

Texas Observer

Vintage Paredes--at once erudite and clear, scholarly and accessible. . . . It could serve the general reader as an interesting, accessible introduction to this unique Texas scholar who, in Bauman's words, 'has produced the most important and influential scholarship of our generation on the folklore of Greater Mexico in general and the Lower Border in particular.' . . . The newly published collection of essays reflects the range and diversity of his work: ribald jokes and ethnic slurs, the rise and fall of the corrido, machismo in the United States and Mexico, how anthropologists and other scholars are led astray by their informants, the clash of cultures in the Rio Grande Valley today.

Booknews

Throughout a 40-year career, Paredes has centered his work on the folklore and culture of the Lower Rio Grande border of South Texas and northeastern Mexico, synthesizing folkloric, anthropological, literary, and historical theory and method, and challenging traditionalist conceptions and constructions of Texas-Mexican culture. Editor/folklorist Bauman supplies an introduction to this selection of 11 essays first published during the years 1958-1987. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)