Critical Passions : Duke University Press : 9780822322481 : 082232248X : 01 Nov 1999 : Jean Franco&;s work as a pathbreaking theorist, cultural critic, and scholar has helped to define Latin American studies over the last three decades. In the process, Franco has played a crucial role in developing cultural studies in both the English- and Spanish-speaking worlds. Critical Passions is the first volume to gather a wide-ranging selection of Franco&;s influential essays. A key participant in the major debates in Latin American studies&;beginning with the &;boom&; period of the 1960s and continuing through debates on ideology and discourse, Marxism, mass culture, and postmodernism&;Franco is recognized for her feminist critique of Latin American writing. While her principal books are all readily available, Franco&;s several dozen articles are dispersed in a variety of periodicals in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Although many of these essays are considered pioneering and cl