Rafael Nuñez ’18 presents his Honors Thesis at the University at Buffalo

Rafael’s Honors thesis investigates the renaissance of Argentine tango and its poetics of resistance in the 21st century. In his presentation, Rafael connects his findings to the overall theme of this year’s conference which is  “Spectacular, Spectacular! Truth, Violence, Politics and Performance”. He connects the political resistance found in contemporary tango to Guy Debord’s theory of the spectacle in order to demonstrate the processes by which cultural expressions can subvert traditional capitalist hegemony.  

The conference is the Romance Languages and Literatures 7^th Annual Graduate Student Conference hosted by the University at Buffalo. 

This theme of this year’s conference is “Spectacular, Spectacular! Truth, Violence, Politics and Performance” and explores vital questions related to these topics such as “what operation of critical and political resistance are available to us when everything is spectacle?” and “In what ways can we see how society has become controlled by the things which we ourselves have created?” By examining these concepts in an interdisciplinary fashion, the goal the conference is to begin to form connections that open pathways to a deeper understanding of the interplay of truth, violence, politics, and performance. 

Here is the link to the official description