Matthew B. Karush
Matthew B. Karush
Professor
Modern Latin American history: twentieth-century Argentina, cultural history
Matt Karush received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1997. He teaches a broad range of undergraduate and graduate courses on modern Latin American history and has published extensively on labor politics and mass culture in Argentina. He is the author of three books and co-editor of a fourth, and he has published numerous book chapters and articles in leading journals including Past and Present and the Hispanic American Historical Review.
His most recent book, Musicians in Transit: Argentina and the Globalization of Popular Music (Duke University Press, 2017), examines the transnational careers of seven of the most influential Argentine musicians of the twentieth century. The book reveals the way these artists navigated the economic and ideological structures of the global music business, in the process producing new musical forms and new identities. The research for this book was supported by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Since August 2015, Karush has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Social History. Founded 50 years ago, the JSH is one of the nation's leading history journals.
Current Research
Karush is currently writing a book on the history of the Movida Tropical, a hugely popular Argentine dance and music phenomenon of the 1990s. The book will explore the political consequences of this apparently frivolous popular culture. Dancing to cumbia and other genres, poor people in Greater Buenos Aires created the conditions that enabled popular resistance to draconian neoliberal economic policies.
Selected Publications
Books:
Musicians in Transit: Argentina and the Globalization of Popular Music (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017). Published in translation as Músicos en tránsito: La globalización de la música popular argentina (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2019).
Culture of Class: Radio and Cinema in the Making of a Divided Argentina, 1920-1946 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012). Published in translation as: Cultura de clase: Radio y cine en la creación de una Argentina dividida, 1920-1946 (Buenos Aires: Ariel Historia, 2013).
The New Cultural History of Peronism: Power & Identity in Mid-Twentieth Century Argentina (Duke University Press, 2010) [edited with Oscar Chamosa]
Workers or Citizens: Democracy and Identity in Rosario, Argentina (1912-1930), Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.
Recent Articles and Chapters:
“Mixed Messages: Tango and Argentine Politics,” in Kristin Wendland and Kacey Link, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Tango (Cambridge, 2024).
Co-authored with Sam Lebovic, “Global Forms, Contested Meanings: Mass Culture in the Interwar Period,” in Andrew Denning and Heidi Tworek, eds., The Interwar World (Routledge, 2023).
Co-authored with Jessica Dauterive and Michael O’Malley, “Hearing the Americas: Understanding the Early Recording Industry with Digital Tools,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 22:4 (2023), 427-451.
“Juan Moreira y Leonardo Favio: el significado político de un gaucho rebelde en 1973,” in Política y cultura de masas en la Argentina en la segunda mitad del siglo XX (Buenos Aires: Ediciones UNGS, 2023).
“The Politics of Tango: A Response to Michael Denning’s Noise Uprising,” Journal of Popular Music Studies 31:4 (2019), 51-66.
“Música y nación en la Argentina posperonista,” Boletín del Insituto de Historia Argentina y Americana ‘Dr. Emilio Ravignani,’ 50 (2019), 198-222.
Collaborative Digital Project:
(with Michael O’Malley) Hearing the Americas, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, an exploration of the early decades of the recording industry (launched, August 2022). Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Courses Taught
HIST 272: Intro to Modern Latin American History
HIST 364: Revolutions & Radical Politics in Latin America
HIST 367: History, Fiction & Film in Latin America
HIST 387: Topics in World History: Race & Nation in Latin America
HIST 499: Latin America in the Cold War
HIST 510: Approaches to Modern World History
HIST 525/615: Popular Music in the Americas
Recent Presentations
“From International Fad to Local Tradition: The Myth of Tango Essentialism” invited presentation at Tango in the Humanities, Emory University, Nov 21-23, 2024.
“Cumbia in Argentina: The Politics of Transnational Memory,” Memory Studies Association Conference, Lima, Peru, July 20, 2024.
“La movida tropical y la transformación de la política popular en el fin de siglo,” keynote address, VIII Congreso de Estudios sobre el Peronismo, Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche, Argentina, September 13, 2023.
“Sonidos y representaciones: La música como fuente para la historia social y política,” invited talk at CeDInCI, Buenos Aires, July 7, 2023
Dissertations Supervised
John R. Garnett, “Wheat Man's Burden”: Wheat Rust, Trickle Down Agricultural Economics, and the Origins of the Green Revolution in Mexico (1842-1970) (2021)
Rwany Sibaja, ¡Animales! Civility, Disorder, and Class Tensions in Argentinean Football, 1955-1970 (2013)