Routledge Handbook on the Sociology and History of Cinema and Television in Latin America

The Routledge Handbook on the Sociology and History of Cinema and Television in Latin America explores the historical and sociological dimensions of Latin American cinema and television from the 1960s and 1970s onward, decentering the New Latin American Cinema (NLAC) without diminishing its significance. The political and experimental energy that animated it has not vanished; instead, it reemerges across diverse objects, periods, and media forms, sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely. In this sense, the political is located not only in audiovisual texts but also in the interpretive frameworks scholars in the region bring to their analysis, revealing the enduring impact of that radical movement throughout the following decades.

By foregrounding scholarship produced in Latin America, the volume maps both convergences and divergences within the broad field of film and audiovisual studies. It brings together multiple scales of analysis (national, regional, transnational), alongside varied epistemological approaches (canonical inquiry, archival reconstruction, feminist praxis), as well as a wide range of archives spanning film, television, digital, and private collections. In doing so, the volume situates Latin American audiovisual media within longer transnational traditions and intellectual histories.

Adopting a sociological and historical approach to media and film studies, this handbook offers a critical framework for understanding Latin America’s political, social, and cultural dynamics since the 1960s. It features key scholars based in the region in the social sciences, humanities, and the arts, presenting a field in motion that revisits its disciplinary foundations while engaging new archival practices and challenging enduring political and social exclusions.

Paula Halperin is Associate Professor of Cinema and Television Studies and History, and Director of the School of Film and Media Studies at Purchase College, SUNY, as well as Visiting Professor at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). Her research examines the intersections of visual culture, nationalism, and the public sphere in Latin America, with a particular emphasis on Brazil and Argentina from the 1960s to the 1980s. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes in Brazil, Argentina, the US, and France, contributing to scholarly debates on media history, television cultures, and the politics of representation. Interdisciplinary in scope, her work bridges film and media studies, cultural history, and Latin American studies.