Event Details

Join the Department of Spanish and Portuguese for a talk by Professor Alicia Muñoz on "The criminal and corporeal in Daniel Peña's Bang." The talk will be held in ArtCom 102, pizza will be served. 

The surge in representation of narco topics in contemporary Mexican literature, provoked by President Felipe Calderón's narcoguerra (2006-2012), brings up questions of political and capitalist culpability, the popularization and commodification of violence, and the abjection of marginalized bodies. The novel Bang (2018) written by Mexican-American writer Daniel Peña, provides a distinct opportunity to parallel the corporeal disposability prevalent in the narco war with that stemming from the status of Mexican migrants in the US. This talk will unpack the bodily consequences of both, drawing attention to what Sayak Valencia refers to as Gore Capitalism within the narco context.