One of the most meaningful moments of my sabbatical year was the invitation to travel from Mérida to Boston to speak at Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS), a premier hub for interdisciplinary dialogue and regional expertise. My talk formed part of their Arts and Humanities Workshop Series and focused on the enduring power of serialized narrative across Mexican history by focusing on the chapter that has most to do with sound and sound theory, an area of interest that is near and dear to my heart. [In September 2025, I will be presenting on these topics at a special invitation-only edition of MexicanEast.]
At the center of the DRCLAS presentation loomed the formidable figure of Chucho el Roto, a shape-shifting bandit whose story has traveled across newspapers, radio, theater, comic books, and television, constituting one of Mexico’s very first mass-media stars. This case study allowed me to reflect not only on Mexico’s long tradition of serial storytelling but also on the intimate soundscapes, affective politics, and moral economies that have shaped how audiences relate to serialized media over time. From reel-to-reel tapes and forgotten scripts to crackling broadcasts and whispered dialogues, this project has been, in many ways, an excavation of cultural memory—of the voices that still echo.
The setting could not have been more appropriate. DRCLAS—founded in 1994 through a partnership between Harvard and David Rockefeller—has spent three decades deepening global understanding of Latin America. With offices in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, and with a commitment to multilingual, multivocal scholarship, the Center supports transformative research and public engagement across borders. It was truly an honor to contribute to that mission, especially at a time when the stakes for humanistic research, language study, and hemispheric collaboration have never felt higher.
Equally inspiring was the company. In attendance were a dynamic community of scholars, students, and practitioners—including June Carolyn Erlick, editor of ReVista: The Harvard Review of Latin America and author of Telenovelas in Pan-Latino Context (Routledge, 2018). Erlick’s cross-cultural insights into serialized melodrama—from Betty la fea to narconovelas—address the genre as a vehicle of cultural resistance and social education. Her work offered a fitting backdrop for conversations that emerged after my talk: gender, popular memory, and the transmedial migration of narrative forms.
In reflecting on this event, I return to the sound of the audience—the attentive engagement and thoughtful questions that animated the room. I am grateful to DRCLAS, to Professors Mariano Siskind and Alejandra Vela Martínez for their generous welcome, and to the many interlocutors who reminded me that Latin American media studies is not just a scholarly pursuit but a political and public act. As I continue processing the ideas in Serial Mexico, I carry with me the spirit of this gathering: committed to interdisciplinary listening, to archival justice, and to the storytelling traditions that shape how we remember—and imagine—the Americas.
Read more about this event here.
