Stereotypes in Black is a sharp examination of the representations and self-representations of Afro-descendants in Buenos Aires through the nineteenth century. Originally published in Spanish, this English language translation spotlights various forms of representation, focusing on the stereotypical images and visual culture constructed and repeated, and the important role they played in highlighting the need for a culturally and racially homogeneous nation in social discourse. María de Lourdes Ghidoli provides a detailed account of one of the most serious cases of social exclusion in Latin American and Argentine history, examining strategies adopted by some of the most recognized members of the Afro-Porteño community, and assessing whether they refuted the negative stereotypes or reinforced them. The book will aid in the revisualization of Afro-descendent Argentines, while highlighting how the repeated use of stereotypes exacerbated the invisibilization suffered by the Afro-descendant population in the Argentine Republic.

‘Ghidoli’s book is more than an excellent work of art history. It is a cutting-edge intellectual, cultural, and social history of Argentine racial imaginaries, with Afro-Argentines at its center, that will speak to scholars of race and of the African Diaspora well beyond Argentina.’

Paulina L. Alberto - Harvard University, and author of Black Legend: The Many Lives of Raúl Grigera and the Power of Racial Storytelling in Argentina

‘This book represents a real contribution to the role of images in the construction of a racially homogeneous nation in nineteenth century Argentina and allows for a comparative analysis with North America and other Latin American nations. Ghidoli’s research is important, original, and academically distinguished.’

Laura Malosetti Costa - Senior Researcher at CONICET and Director of the Museum of Decorative Arts

‘A significant blind spot in the study of Latin American cultures is the persistent occlusion-or outright erasure-of the histories of enslavement and Blackness in the Southern Cone. Ghidoli’s book offers a crucial corrective to this skewed vision by making visible the meaningful presence of Afro-descendants in nineteenth-century Argentine art. Meticulously researched and rigorously argued, Stereotypes in Black offers a new image of the question of race in Argentina and compels a reconsideration of established narratives about Latin American art of the period.’

Agnes Lugo-Ortiz - University of Chicago, and co-editor of Slave Portraiture in the Atlantic World