Research Colloquium Series: Professor John Holmes McDowell
Friday, February 4th
3:30 - 5 pm
Performance & Lecture Hall
800 N. Indiana Ave.
3:30 - 5 pm
Performance & Lecture Hall
800 N. Indiana Ave.
The Ballad of Narcomexico
Violence associated with underworld activity is everywhere, but Mexico is perhaps unique in having a grass-roots chronicle of the events that shape its history - the corrido, a ballad form deeply intertwined with the Mexican experience in all its phases. In this presentation, Folklore Professor and Departmental Chair John Holmes McDowell inspects the contemporary manifestation of this ballad tradition, the narcocorrido, that is, corridos telling tales from the Mexican drug underworld. He seeks to identify the main tendencies in today's narcocorrido and to assess lines of continuity with past expressions in this genre. It emerges that the narcocorrido is a legitimate heir to the corridos that accompanied the Mexican Revolution, yet it presents some facets that are distinctive to the current moment. One of these is the integration of corridos, their composers, and their performers, into a messaging system connecting (sometimes in quite grisly manner) rival cartels in the Mexican drug world.
This colloquy is part of the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Research Colloquium Series: The Aesthetics of Fear.
Violence associated with underworld activity is everywhere, but Mexico is perhaps unique in having a grass-roots chronicle of the events that shape its history - the corrido, a ballad form deeply intertwined with the Mexican experience in all its phases. In this presentation, Folklore Professor and Departmental Chair John Holmes McDowell inspects the contemporary manifestation of this ballad tradition, the narcocorrido, that is, corridos telling tales from the Mexican drug underworld. He seeks to identify the main tendencies in today's narcocorrido and to assess lines of continuity with past expressions in this genre. It emerges that the narcocorrido is a legitimate heir to the corridos that accompanied the Mexican Revolution, yet it presents some facets that are distinctive to the current moment. One of these is the integration of corridos, their composers, and their performers, into a messaging system connecting (sometimes in quite grisly manner) rival cartels in the Mexican drug world.
This colloquy is part of the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Research Colloquium Series: The Aesthetics of Fear.
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