This past May, I had the distinct honor of participating in the 2024 Scholars Convening on the Telenovela, hosted by the Americas Society / Council of the Americas. Held in New York City on May 23, this intimate, invitation-only gathering brought together a vibrant cohort of scholars, journalists, media practitioners, and cultural critics to engage in critical, transnational dialogue on the past, present, and future of the telenovela as a cultural form.
As part of my sabbatical-year research into the history and evolution of serialized storytelling in Mexico, I was invited to present work from my book. My intervention traced a genealogy of serial formats—from El Periquillo Sarniento (1816) and 19th-century folletín novels to comic strips, radionovelas, and landmark telenovelas like El extraño retorno de Diana Salazar (1988). In doing so, I explored how serial melodrama became the dominant expressive form in Latin America: a format that lent itself to affective storytelling, historical reflection, and mass engagement across media and generations.
One of the driving questions of the convening—articulated brilliantly by co-organizer and cultural theorist Mariano López Soane —was deceptively simple: Why did melodrama, of all genres, become Latin America’s most beloved and enduring narrative form? In other words, why did it become our cultural matriarch—our “mother,” to echo one of the event’s playful yet profound organizing themes?
In response, I argued that if melodrama is the genre of modernity, then seriality is its format. Serialized melodrama created the conditions for repetition, feedback loops, cliffhangers, and public participation, from the printed folletín to contemporary streaming platforms and digital fandoms. Far from being passé, the telenovela remains a potent site of cultural memory, affective intensity, and popular creativity. Its power lies in its ability to render the everyday dramatic, to democratize emotion, and to create community through shared repetition and recognition.
Equally compelling were the insights of fellow conveners and presenters. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru offered reflections toward the morphing ontology of Latin American telenovelas, while Mexican journalist and television critic Álvaro Cueva ‘shocked and awed’ the group with his video on Mexican telenovelas’ role in society, particularly with regards to gender, affect and emotional intimacy. The gathering has been skillfully curated and facilitated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin (Director of Literature at AS/COA) & Soane (Director of Graduate Programs & Fellow in Curatorial Studies – Bard College), with the skillful organization of Tatiana Marcel, all of whom deserve deep thanks.
What made this convening so rich was its insistence on the seriousness yet playfulness—of the telenovela. Long derided in elite circles, this sentimental genre is finally being recognized: as a powerful archive of collective memory, a laboratory of national and transnational identity, and a storytelling form that has never stopped evolving. This is especially true in the age of streaming, where new hybrid formats blur the line between series and novela, and where audiences continue to reshape narratives through commentary, memes, and remakes.
We embark on this reflection at a time when the genre’s dominance is shifting—and some might say, waning—in the face of algorithmic AI-generated “culture,” social media ephemerality, and globalized entertainment. But it is precisely in this moment, with the boom in streaming series that recycle so many elements from las novelas, that we can best understand the genre’s influence—not as a relic of the past, but as a formative presence in the aesthetic and emotional education of Latin America.
My thanks to all who are making this on-going conversation possible. Stay tuned for future convenings that reflect on the power of popular narrative, as well as future related art installations and related publications on telenovela from AS/COA!
