"In this rich and engaging work, Laura Podalsky explores the sensorial and emotional appeals of recent Latin American films and offers analternate account of their contemporary social and political significance. Drawing on studies of feeling from a variety of disciplines, The Politics of Affect and Emotion in Contemporary Latin American Cinema also goes beyond notions of "national" or "Third" cinemas to engage in expansive and productive dialogue about filmmaking within global, transnational, and pan-regional trends. This dynamic, interdisciplinary study skillfully accounts for the range and complexity of Latin American films to show how they are neither resistant to nor complicit with contemporary media culture, but rather how they offer an emotionally-charged reflection on the legacies of Third Cinema and authoritarian political regimes, emergent consumer culture and youth culture, and the poetics and politics of memory today." - Patrice Petro, author of Aftershocks of the New: Feminism and Film History

"In this compelling study, Podalsky reveals the ways in which films from and about Latin America evoke and employ emotion so as to engage with contemporary socio-political discourse. By jettisoning dichotomies - global and national paradigms, popular and critical reception, high and mass culture - the author forges a new critical approach, one highly appropriate for this era of connectedness and interdependence." - Ann Marie Stock, author of On Location in Cuba: Street Filmmaking during Times of Transition and editor of Framing Latin American Cinema: Contemporary Critical Perspectives