Across Canons (Book Presentation) Author. Professor Thania Muñoz
book presentation, latinidades,
Across Canons: A comparative study of Latin American immigrant literature and the making of Latinx narratives.
Dr. Thania Muñoz will present her recent book, Across Canons: A comparative study of Latin American immigrant literature, in which she reframes language as a creative force that preserves and transforms memory. The presentation will be at the Performing Arts and Humanities Building, room 216, on May 4th at noon. Let´s join Dr. Muñoz to celebrate her work and the Latinidades on campus.
Congratulations to Dr. Muñoz!!!!!
You can buy the book directly from the Arizona Press website. https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/across-canons
Across Canons: Language, Latin American Immigrant Literature, and the Making of Latinx Narratives
Spanish in Across Canons is more than a language—it carries Latin American immigrant stories. Against dominant monolingual ideologies that cast Spanish as a threat, Thania Muñoz D. reframes language as a creative force that both preserves and transforms memory. Through her concept of "narrative memory," she shows how writers reshape Latin American literary canons while reconstructing migrant histories, turning literature into a political and performative practice that transforms how readers understand identity and migration.
Grounded in her own experience as a Mexican immigrant, student, and educator, Muñoz D. examines contemporary immigrant texts as shaped by interconnected social and political forces in the 1990s and 2000's —including free trade agreements, drug trafficking, political violence, massive foreign debt, and economic dependency. By also treating translation as a creative, performative act, the book advocates for a translingual and inclusive approach to Latin American and Latinx studies, one that incorporates Spanish, Portuguese, Indigenous languages, and other linguistic practices.
Ultimately, Thania Muñoz D. makes a compelling case for recognizing an emergent field within Latinx literature: Latin American immigrant writing in Spanish. She demonstrates why this body of work is indispensable to Latin American, Latinx, and U.S. literary studies alike—and why language itself remains central to the politics of culture, memory, and belonging in the United States.