Dr. Colin Gunckel

Dr. Colin Gunckel is a historian of Latinx media and art, Latin American cinema, and popular culture between the U.S. and Mexico. His first book, "Mexico on Main Street: Transnational Film Culture in Los Angeles before World War II" (Rutgers University Press, 2015) examines the relationship of Mexican audiences to the birth of Hollywood, the rise of Mexican cinema, and the transformation of Los Angeles into an urban metropolis. His research and scholarship on Chicanx art and culture include work on cultural center Self Help Graphics and Art, the artist collective Asco, photographer Oscar Castillo, social movement print culture and photography, and early punk from East L.A. In every case, Gunckel engages archival materials, primary sources, and oral histories to rethink prevalent assumptions about Chicanx cultural production, challenging entrenched historical accounts of art, music, and media in the United States.