Romance Studies
Soviet Culture and Cultural Exchange in Mexico during the Cold War
My dissertation centers on the complex rapport that Mexican intellectuals developed with Soviet Russia and its cultural propaganda through the lens of editorial practices in the immediate aftermath of World War II. To this end, the unifying threads of my study are the main publications of the Mexican-Russian Institute of Cultural Exchange (founded in Mexico City in 1944): the journals Cultura Soviética (1944-1955) and Intercambio Cultural (1955-1958). By studying these publications and their collaborators, the controversies associated with them, their relationships with other journals, and the political and aesthetic contexts in which they were immersed, I intend to fulfill several aims: first, to explore the ideological landscape that shaped intellectual life in Mexico during the Cold War; second, to highlight the role of journals in the circulation of ideas within transnational contexts; and third, to contribute to the debates on the importance of the journal genre regarding cultural and material processes. In short, my work sheds light on the history of Soviet propaganda in Latin America through the case of Mexico and contributes to the field of Mexican Studies and intellectual history at large.