CANYON, TX—A movie music expert will discuss how music and sounds used in Mexican films provide connections with cultural identity and memory at the next West Texas A&M University Distinguished Lecture Series event.

Dr. Jacqueline Avila, associate professor of musicology at the University of Texas, will discuss “Nostalgia in Contemporary Mexican Media” at 6:30 p.m. March 22 in the Sybil B. Harrington Fine Arts Complex Recital Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Avila also will speak to WT students during a “Listening to Nostalgia in Contemporary Mexican Media” workshop at 11 a.m. March 22 in the Blackburn Reading Room of Cornette Library.

Avila’s research addresses film music studies, sound studies and the intersections of identity, tradition and modernity in the musical cultures and media of Mexico, Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic community.

“Dr. Avila’s visit to WT is an opportunity to celebrate not only Mexican culture, but how we relate to Mexican culture from the United States,” said Dr. Juan Garcia Oyervides, assistant professor of Spanish. “For some of us, this means a moment to reconnect with ideas, images and sounds that we had forgotten, but that remind us of home. For others, this is also an opportunity to reflect on how contemporary media intersects with transnational practices of representation and human connection.”

Avila’s book “Cinesonidos: Film Music and National Identity During Mexico’s Época de Oro” was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press.

Avila’s current work focuses on transnationalism, nostalgia and cultural identity in film and streaming media and the musical cultures on the U.S.-Mexico border. Her research has been supported and funded by numerous entities, including the American Musicological Society’s Howard Mayer Brown Fellowship, the University of New Mexico’s Robert E. Greenleaf Visiting Library Scholar Award, and the University of Tennessee’s Humanities Center.

“I believe Dr. Avila’s visit will allow us to connect as individuals beyond borders and apparent cultural differences,” Oyervides said.

For more information about this event, visit the Distinguished Lecture Series website.

Upcoming DLS events include playwright/actress Anna Deavere Smith on April 4, the Sexual Assault Awareness Month kickoff event on April 10, podcaster Aaron Mahnke on April 13, and artist Theodore Waddell on April 20.

Fostering an appreciation of the arts is a key component of the University’s long-range plan, WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World.

That plan is fueled by the historic, $125 million One West comprehensive fundraising campaign. To date, the five-year campaign — which publicly launched in September 2021 — has raised more than $120 million.