Revisiting the Mexican Student Movement of 1968

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction: Silencing the Storm—The Never-Ending Search for “Truth” After Tlatelolco

   • Juan J. Rojo

   Pages 1-18

3. Testimonio as Metahistory in González de Alba’s Los días y los años

   • Juan J. Rojo

   Pages 19-49

4. At the Center of the Periphery: Arretche’s El grito and the Rhizomatic Visual Discourse of the 1968 Student Movement

   • Juan J. Rojo

   Pages 51-84

5. Cárcel de mujeres: Gender and Gendering in “La Tita” Avendaño’s De la libertad y el encierro

   • Juan J. Rojo

   Pages 85-113

6. The Specters Come Back to Life: Rojo amanecer and El Bulto

   • Juan J. Rojo

   Pages 115-148

7. Looking Back After 40 Years: El Memorial del 68

   • Juan J. Rojo

   Pages 149-170

8. Conclusion

   • Juan J. Rojo

   Pages 171-173

9. Back Matter

   Pages 175-191

   PDF

Tracing the evolution of Mexican literary and cultural production following the Tlatelolco massacre, this book shows its progression from a homogeneous construct set on establishing the “true” history of Tlatelolco against the version of the State, to a more nuanced and complex series of historical narratives.  The initial representations of the events of 1968 were essentially limited to that of the State and that of the Consejo Nacional de Huelga (National Strike Council) and only later incorporated novels and films. Juan J. Rojo examines the manner in which films, posters, testimonios, and the Memorial del 68 expanded the boundaries of those initial articulations to a more democratic representation of key participants in the student movement of 1968.

• 1968
• Mexican student movement
• rhizome
• Los dias y los años
• El grito

“This outstanding book takes on aspects of the Mexican Student Movement’s legacy that have traditionally been understudied, such as the posters designed by students and the testimonio by Roberta Avendaño, “La Tita.” Added to these are carefully researched and original analyses of other texts, interviews, films, and museum exhibits, all of which demonstrate more clearly than ever before how defining the Mexican Student Movement has been a contentious process from the outset, even, and perhaps especially, for its participants and supporters.” (Ryan Long, Associate Professor of Spanish, The University of Maryland, College Park, USA, and author of Fictions of Totality: The Mexican Novel, 1968, and the National-Popular State)

 “Juan Rojo provocatively suggests that early 68 texts set a frame of tragic, intimate loss; a frame dogging subsequent academic and artistic accounts and thus leading to grave underestimation of the broader impact of '68.  Rojo revisits quintessential cultural materials on '68 spanning four decades to evidence its reshaping of the literary, political, and cultural boundaries of the nation ...A crucial piece of Mexico 68 scholarship for historians and cultural critics alike.” (Lessie Frazier, Associate Professor of American Studies and Gender Studies, Indiana University, USA, and Deborah Cohen, Associate Professor of History, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA, editors of Gender and Sexuality in 1968: Transformative Politics in the Cultural Imagination)

• Lafayette College, USA

  Juan J. Rojo

Juan J. Rojo is Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Lafayette College, USA.

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