Teaching Mexican Music in a Post-National Age
In the last fifteen years, influenced by globalization and neoliberal trends, new dynamics of migration, labor, capitalist expansion, and the effects of lobbying on democratic practices have weakened the nation-state as a form of political organization. This has led scholars to propose the notion of postnationalism to describe this moment of crisis of the nation-state and the need to reinvent it in order to account for the new forms of citizenship, democratic activism, and cultural participation such moment entails. In the case of Mexico, besides the effects of globalization and neoliberalism, the political and cultural consequences of the war against drugs has prompted critics to label the country a failed state. This seminar will explore how the notion of Mexican music is defined within this historical contingency, how it helps reformulate notions of Mexicanness in a transnational setting, and how can we approach its study in order to engage larger intellectual questions about citizenship, identity, and political participation from a transnational perspective.
The webinar was recorded on January 9, 2015.