Studies in Latin American Popular Culture

Editor: Melissa A. Fitch, The University of Arizona

Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, an annual interdisciplinary journal, publishes articles, review essays, and interviews on diverse aspects of popular culture in Latin America. Articles are written in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Studies in Latin American Popular Culture is indexed or abstracted in America: History and Life, Anthropological Index Online, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Communication Abstracts, Current Contents/Arts and Humanities, Film Literature Index, Hispanic American Periodical Index, Historical Abstracts, Humanities International Index, MLA International Bibliography, Revista Interamericana de Bibliografia/Inter-American Review of Bibliography, and SCOPUS.

Manuscripts and editorial correspondence: The Editor, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, Modern Languages Bldg., Room 545, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0067.

Information for Contributors

Submissions Guidelines
Editorial Policy
Books for Review

Submissions Guidelines

Studies in Latin American Popular Culture invites you to submit scholarly articles, book review essays, and interviews on the theory and practice of popular culture in Latin America. Articles should not exceed thirty-five double-spaced pages (including illustrations, charts and graphs), should be in English, Spanish, or Portuguese, and should follow the latest edition of the Modern Language Association guidelines. Extensive endnotes and footnotes are discouraged. Submissions should be sent by email to mfitch@email.arizona.edu in a Word-compatible attachment. In the body of the main message, authors should include the title of their manuscript, institutional affiliation, home and work address. The author's name should not appear in the header or footer of the attachment.

Illustrations are welcome. Photographs and other images may be submitted as they are, or in high-resolution electronic format. Please make sure to provide captions that briefly describe content and source. It is the author's responsibility to obtain permission to use copyrighted or privately owned images. Identify illustrations by Figure (1, 2, 3 . . .) at the head of the accompanying caption and in the text, and indicate in the text your preferred location for each figure, e.g., "Figure 1 about here."

Inquiries should be directed to:

Melissa A. Fitch, Editor
Studies in Latin American Popular Culture
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Modern Languages Building, Room 545
The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721-0067

Manuscripts must not be submitted elsewhere while being reviewed by the journal's editorial board and outside readers.

Editorial Policy

Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, an annual interdisciplinary journal, publishes articles, review essays, and interviews on diverse aspects of popular culture in Latin America. Since its inception in 1982, the journal has defined popular culture broadly as "some aspect of culture which is accepted by or consumed by significant numbers of people." This definition has had one caveat: it does not normally include what is frequently called folk culture or folklore. Within these parameters, submissions are welcome on any aspect of the production, circulation, and consumption of cultural goods in Latin America from any disciplinary perspective.

In addition, the journal seeks essays that offer new methodological and theoretical approaches to the subject; explore the impact of modernization and globalization on Latin American cultural practices; discuss the implications of cultural hybridity; examine popular culture as a site of contention over social meanings and relations of power in cultural practices; study relations between socio-political phenomena and cultural expression. SLAPC will generally not accept theoretical essays that do not have an empirical ground or essays that engage in close reading of individual texts, unless the analysis has broader theoretical or methodological implications. The essays should be written in a lively, reader-friendly manner. Over specialized and discipline-specific terminology is discouraged.

One section of the journal is devoted to book review essays, which both critically review a given corpus of books and reflect on their larger significance for the study of popular culture, including future research possibilities. The journal also publishes interviews with those involved in the creation, distribution, and consumption of popular culture.

Articles may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Book Review Guidelines

Reviews should be computer written in Microsoft Word using Times New Roman or equivalent. Font size should be set at twelve and the line spacing should be at least 18 points. While this is the preferred format for review copy, other formats will be accepted as noted in the "Instructions to Contributors." If at all possible, book review copy should be sent as an e-mail attachment to: pobutsky@oakland.edu. Reviews should be more critically focused than simply a commentary on the book and should draw the reader's attention on how the book fits into scholarship dealing with popular culture and current theories and practices. Reviews of single books should be no longer than 800 words. Review essays should integrate the books reviewed into a coherent theme driven by the content of the book and should be about 800 words per book (e.g., three books would result in an essay of some 2400 words) including introductory and concluding comments.

Those interested in serving as future book reviewers should send a short vita statement. This statement should focus on the area of popular culture scholarship where the reviewer wishes to provide reviews. It is critical that you include an e-mail address in your statement. It is our desire to establish a pool of interested reviewers so that we can provide our readers with a variety of views and a geographic distribution of reviewers reflective of the SLAPC readership.

Publishers wishing to have books reviewed should send only those titles that fit into the framework established in the "Editorial Policy."

Submit review copies of print publications to:

Aldona Pobutsky, Book Review Editor
Studies in Latin American Popular Culture
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
407 Wilson Hall
Oakland University
Rochester, MI 48309-4401