University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press
Pages: 292
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-61148-652-0 • Hardback • February 2015 • $128.00 • (£98.00)
978-1-61148-654-4 • Paperback • November 2016 • $57.99 • (£45.00)
978-1-61148-653-7 • eBook • February 2015 • $55.00 • (£42.00)
Melissa A. Fitch is associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona.
Notes on Translations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Arrival
Chapter One: Foundational Clichés: From Valentino to Viagra
Chapter Two: Tango “Discovery” and the Neocolonial Gaze
Chapter Three: Queer Rebellions
Chapter Four: Touch, Healing and Zen
Chapter Five: Activism, Social Media, Crisis and Community
Conclusion: Departure
Appendix: Tango in Numbers
Bibliography
Sound Recordings
Index
About the Author
Global Tangos overturns many of the myths that have enshrouded Argentina’s national dance since it became a global dance craze more than a century ago. Reviewing an impressive array of materials drawn from mass media, social media, and her own experience on the dance floor on seemingly every continent, Melissa A. Fitch reveals how tango has been deployed to reimagine traditional gender roles, heal physical and emotional ills, and ignite social protest. This is an important contribution to our understanding of how popular dance forms cross borders and establish powerful transnational networks.
— Celeste Fraser Delgado, co-editor of Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America
Global Tangos: Travels in the Transnational Imaginary is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on contemporary tango. In thought-provoking snapshots of tango around the globe, Fitch connects its myriad manifestations to larger themes of cultural appropriation, neocolonialism, commodification, and identitarian politics. Her critique of the tango memoir is incisive, while she evokes the depths beneath its clichéd surface image in portraits of social activism, healing, and queer liberation via tango. Throughout, Fitch underscores the global pursuit of connection and community through the dance today.
— Carolyn Merritt, author of Tango Nuevo, University Press of Florida