Jacqueline Avila | CSMC Series

Jacqueline Avila (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) is a musicologist who specializes in film music studies, sound studies, and the intersections of identity, tradition, and modernity in the musical cultures and new media of Mexico, Latin America, and the Latinx community in the United States. Her book, Cinesonidos: Film Music and National Identity in Mexico’s Época de Oro was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press, Music and Media Series. Building on sound and media studies, Mexican film history, and cultural studies, Cinesonidos examines the varying roles and functions of film music in genres considered significant to the national film industry, including the comedia ranchera (ranch comedy), the prostitute melodrama, and the cine de añoranza porfiriana (films of Porfirian longing). Featuring a wide variety of primary sources and several films as case studies, Cinesonidos is the first book to focus on the music and sound practices of Mexican cinema and how these practices impacted national identity construction during the so-called época de oro (Golden Age). Dr. Avila’s current projects focus on transnationalism, nostalgia, and cultural identity in Latinx film and streaming media and the musical cultures on the US-Mexico border. She is also working on an edited volume that features interdisciplinary approaches to discussing film music in Latin American film industries.