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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Horror Stories: Oblivious Women In Luis Puenzo’S La Historia Oficial (1985) And Santiago Mitre’S Argentina 1985 (2022), Stephanie R. Orozco Jan 2024

Horror Stories: Oblivious Women In Luis Puenzo’S La Historia Oficial (1985) And Santiago Mitre’S Argentina 1985 (2022), Stephanie R. Orozco

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Adriana Cavarero's conceptualization of Medusa serves as a potent metaphor for the subtle redirection of violence of oblivious women who ignored the brutalization of pregnant victims during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-83). In Luis Puenzo’s La historia oficial (1985) and Santiago Mitre’s Argentina 1985 (2022), skillfully unveil the ghastly practice of torturing pregnant women, unraveling the vulnerability of both mothers and their infants, evoking a sense of disgust and repugnance that is eventually shared by oblivious women. Beyond mere storytelling, these films challenge prevailing power dynamics and discourses, shedding light on the complicit ignorance of elite women during an era marked …


Between Pain And Glory: Memory Disputes Of The Brazilian Dictatorship In Retrato Calado And O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, Angela R. Mooney Jan 2024

Between Pain And Glory: Memory Disputes Of The Brazilian Dictatorship In Retrato Calado And O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, Angela R. Mooney

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyzes Luiz Roberto Salinas Fortes’ Retrato calado (Silent Portrait) published in 1988, considering the theoretical discussions on testimonio's epistemology—addressing the challenge of narrating trauma and the risk of stylization. It compares Fortes' memoir with Fernando Gabeira's O que é isso, companheiro? (What's This, Comrade?) from 1979, examining diverse approaches to capturing historical trauma through literature and its impact on collective memory about Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-1985).


Learning Chinese Vocabulary: Understanding Students' Perspectives, Austin Gasiecki, Zuotang Zhang Jan 2024

Learning Chinese Vocabulary: Understanding Students' Perspectives, Austin Gasiecki, Zuotang Zhang

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This study used a survey to investigate self-study and university-enrolled Chinese learners’ habits in studying Chinese vocabulary in order to determine what study methods influence a.) learners’ confidence in learning Chinese vocabulary and b.) what aspects of Chinese vocabulary they consider easy or difficult. We were particularly interested in seeing what the data had to say about students’ attitudes towards characters and the written language, given that the field of Chinese language pedagogy is known for a stronger focus on the written language as opposed to the spoken language. We found that aspects of Chinese vocabulary associated with the spoken …


Decolonizing French: Afrophonics In Ken Bugul’S Aller Et Retour (2013), Hapsatou Wane Oct 2023

Decolonizing French: Afrophonics In Ken Bugul’S Aller Et Retour (2013), Hapsatou Wane

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article explores the innovative language strategies employed by Senegalese writer Ken Bugul in her novel Aller et retour to construct a dynamic and interconnected linguistic landscape that challenges fixed language boundaries. Ken Bugul's "langue fabriquée" combines elements of French, Wolof, and English, reflecting a transglocal dimension that embodies the essence of afrophonics—a poetics of resistance that empowers local cultures in a globalized context. Through a detailed analysis of Ken Bugul's linguistic choices, including the use of quotation marks, footnotes, and arbitrary transcription, the study reveals how she creates a language that defies categorization and decolonizes French without resorting to …


Fostering Engagement With Voicethread In Online Intermediate Spanish Language Classes, Karen Acosta, Ericka H. Parra Dr Jan 2023

Fostering Engagement With Voicethread In Online Intermediate Spanish Language Classes, Karen Acosta, Ericka H. Parra Dr

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

It is estimated that more than 1.5 billion students have been affected during the course of the global coronavirus pandemic by school and university closures. As a way to navigate this new instructional landscape, the researchers aimed to find a tool that would allow students to develop and practice communicative language skills in their online Spanish classes. In this research study, participants used VoiceThread over the course of a semester and then reflected on their comfort level using communicative skills in Spanish before and after using the tool, as well as whether they perceived that using the platform in their …


La Radical Imperfección Del Mundo: El Crimen Perfecto De Jean Baudrillard Y El Crimen Ferpecto De Alex De La Iglesia, Maria A. Gomez Jan 2023

La Radical Imperfección Del Mundo: El Crimen Perfecto De Jean Baudrillard Y El Crimen Ferpecto De Alex De La Iglesia, Maria A. Gomez

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Le parfait crime (1995) by Jean Baudrillard and Crimen ferpecto (2004) by the Basque director Alex de la Iglesia are two works that not only have in common almost identical titles. They both reflect on how in consumer societies, an imperfect real world is substituted for an illusory hyperreality in which the distinction between subject and object has disappeared. While Baudrillard explains how the denial of a transcendent reality in contemporary society is “a perfect crime” that destroys the real, Alex de la Iglesia uses black humor and a mix of genres (mainly grotesque comedy and thriller) to show the …


De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe Jan 2023

De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

In La Sorcière, Jules Michelet uses the strength and the myth of the Medea character, which had already fascinated Corneille. In the second part of his work, Michelet creates nominative witches after authentic texts. In the first part, he creates an allegoric witch on the Medea model: the Woman, a victim of arbitrariness, injustice and repression, rises up against her oppressors, figuring the march of Humanity towards Enlightenment and Liberty. The analogies between the Witch and Medea are therefore numerous and necessary, since they help to render the defense of the oppressed against the oppressor. Would the somber Medea, …


Communicating With The Past Via Javier Cercas’ Las Leyes De La Frontera, Bobby D. Nixon Jan 2023

Communicating With The Past Via Javier Cercas’ Las Leyes De La Frontera, Bobby D. Nixon

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Cercas’ protagonist, Gafitas, narrates his memories of being a member of "el Zarco's" youth gang in the barrio chino of Girona during the summer of 1978, from the vantage point of the early 2000s. The novel is simultaneously viewed through the intertextual lens of José Antonio de la Loma’s cycle of quinqui films based on the life of the famous Catalan delinquent, El Vaquilla, Juan José Moreno Cuenca. There is renewed interest in these films from the Transition period of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the success of this novel and director Daniel Monzón's film based on Cercas’ …


Native Versus Non-Native Speaker Teachers’ Perceptions About English Varieties In Designing/Developing Efl Curriculum Development, Mohamed A. Mekheimer Jan 2023

Native Versus Non-Native Speaker Teachers’ Perceptions About English Varieties In Designing/Developing Efl Curriculum Development, Mohamed A. Mekheimer

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This study seeks to identify the perceptions of teachers, native speakers, and non-native speakers in terms of the influence of teaching varieties of English on EFL curriculum development and teaching designs and which of these factors could predict how the English curriculum should be developed for a particular variety and culture. Using the Teaching Varieties Influence Survey (TVIS), this study introspected 126 respondents of native-speaker teachers (NESTs) and non-native-speaker teachers (non-NESTs) to reflect their views using t-tests, correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression analysis. General findings from this study revealed no statistically significant differences in the two samples’ …


Hauntology And Epistemology In Guillermo Del Toro’S Pan’S Labyrinth And Juan Antonio Bayona’S The Orphanage, Timothy P. Reed Jan 2022

Hauntology And Epistemology In Guillermo Del Toro’S Pan’S Labyrinth And Juan Antonio Bayona’S The Orphanage, Timothy P. Reed

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyzes the narrative function of the fantastic in two commercial Spanish language movies, Guillermo Del Toro’s 2006 Pan’s Labyrinth and Juan Antonio Bayona’s 2007 The Orphanage, to compare how they encompass and reflect aspects of hauntological theory. The movies show how Ofelia and Laura embrace the fantastic to acquire knowledge and agency by deliberately communicating with specters. Through acknowledging the epistemological implications of the fantastic, deliberate disobedience and self-sacrifice, Ofelia and Laura are able to liberate themselves from a repressive present and envisage a more optimistic future for others too. Hauntological discourse in both films ultimately functions …


Pensar El Límite: El Símbolo Indígena En Los Proyectos Políticos Cubanos De Principios Del Siglo Xix, Jorge L. Camacho Jan 2022

Pensar El Límite: El Símbolo Indígena En Los Proyectos Políticos Cubanos De Principios Del Siglo Xix, Jorge L. Camacho

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article investigates the way in which Cuban literature reflected on indigenous people during the early half of the nineteenth century and uses the symbol of the Amerindians to demonstrate a moral disjuncture between them and the colonizer. In this article, I call attention to the way Cuban independentists and Spanish nationalists used this figure to support their views and thus created a split in the Cuban creole imagination. I start by pointing out that these appropriations started at the end of the 18th century when historian José Martín Félix de Arrate, and poets such as Miguel González and Manuel …


Language Learning Through Interaction: Online And In The Classroom, Andrew J. Demil, Rachel Kozikowski Jan 2022

Language Learning Through Interaction: Online And In The Classroom, Andrew J. Demil, Rachel Kozikowski

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Online language teaching has become a popular alternative to classroom learning (Liu et al; Warschauer and Meskill). This led to research comparing the two learning environments (Young). Regardless of the learning environment, in order to be effective, the second language classroom must be designed to lead learners to acquisition. Studies suggest that collaborative tasks that push learners to negotiate meaning lead to acquisition (Leeser; Loewen and Erlam; Mackey and Philp; Stafford, Bowden, Sanz). Participants in this study were in two environments; a second language classroom in the typical in person classroom format, and a language learning course in an online …


La “Border Culture” Del Personaje Mexicoamericano En El Sureste De Estados Unidos En Los Cuentos De Lorraine López Y Mijito Doesn’T Live Here Anymore De Jaime Martínez, Jaime Chavez Jan 2022

La “Border Culture” Del Personaje Mexicoamericano En El Sureste De Estados Unidos En Los Cuentos De Lorraine López Y Mijito Doesn’T Live Here Anymore De Jaime Martínez, Jaime Chavez

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This paper explores the concepts of "Border Culture" and "Borderlands" by Gloria Anzaldúa in Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories, Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, by Lorraine López and the novel Mijito Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Jaime Martínez. The paper argues that the Mexican American character in the southeast of the United States lives in the "Borderlands" and practices a "Border Culture" because they don't follow the traditional stereotypical role of the Mexican American character within the literary canon of both the dominant culture and Chicana/o literature.


Using A Smart Phone To Learn Spanish: Does It Work And Will Students Use It?, Andrew J. Demil, Alysha Assaf, Ryan Cragun Jan 2021

Using A Smart Phone To Learn Spanish: Does It Work And Will Students Use It?, Andrew J. Demil, Alysha Assaf, Ryan Cragun

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Over time, mobile devices have penetrated the classroom, requiring new and beneficial ways to implement classroom instruction. Research suggests that Short Message Service (SMS) based instruction is an effective tool for acquiring second language (L2) vocabulary and idiom knowledge (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu,). Additionally, studies have found that students believe that mobile learning (m-learning) is beneficial to acquiring a second language (Cavus & Ibrahim; Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu, 2008). This study examined whether m-learning can lead to Spanish vocabulary familiarity and if sentence comprehension outperforms reading definitions. Participants were 29 native English speakers studying Spanish as a second …


A Story To Tell… How To Integrate The Three Modes Of Communication Through A Story Time Program In French, Frederique Grim Jan 2020

A Story To Tell… How To Integrate The Three Modes Of Communication Through A Story Time Program In French, Frederique Grim

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Bilingual story time programs found in local community libraries not only benefit children, they can also serve a need for L2 college students: the development of their communicative skills in an authentic environment. In addition to linguistic benefits, experiential learning has proven to prepare students for real-world skills, such as networking, mock professional experience and a sense of community engagement. This paper recounts how a world language story time program supports L2 learners’ three modes of communication, as articulated by ACTFL, and necessary for language development. Based on students’ perceptions, this study highlights their increase in motivation and confidence in …


Performing Militancy In Laura Alcoba’S The Rabbit House (2008), Stephanie R. Orozco Jan 2020

Performing Militancy In Laura Alcoba’S The Rabbit House (2008), Stephanie R. Orozco

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Laura Alcoba’s The Rabbit House (2008), belongs to the cannon of post- dictatorship child survivors—who themselves lived under the precarious life of militancy during Argentina’s Dictatorship (1976-1983). This paper exams the image of a young seven-year-old child’s who undergoes serious confrontational mischief's due to her inability to fully acquire militant norms and live by adult rules because of her child-like nature during her stay in la clandestindad. Moreover, rather than assuming the role of an innocent child figure of the 1970s Left-wing revolutionary war, Alcoba’s child protagonist assumes a politically active character that has the ability to perform childhood as …


Mujeres Al Rescate De Figuras Femeninas Mitificadas: Claire, Catalina De Los Ríos Y Lisperguer Y Malinalli, Giada Biasetti Jan 2019

Mujeres Al Rescate De Figuras Femeninas Mitificadas: Claire, Catalina De Los Ríos Y Lisperguer Y Malinalli, Giada Biasetti

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

“Mujeres al rescate de figuras femeninas mitificadas: Malinalli, Claire y Catalina de los Ríos y Lisperguer,” focuses on three novels that emphasize the act of rewriting the past by means of techniques such as the use of polyphony, the focus on intrahistory, and the act of narrating from the margins of society. In these novels "Maldita yo entre las mujeres" (1991), by Mercedes Valdivieso; "Malinche" (2005), by Laura Esquivel; and "Duerme" (1994), by Carmen Boullosa--, the marginal voice is created through the point of contact between history and fiction. The texts present a reading of history based on the conflicts …


Memory, Metatheater, And Intertextuality In "La Madrugada" By Juan Tovar, Brian T. Chandler Jan 2018

Memory, Metatheater, And Intertextuality In "La Madrugada" By Juan Tovar, Brian T. Chandler

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This work explores the concepts of temporality, memory and history in the play La madrugada by Juan Tovar presented through the use of metatheatricality and intertextuality with works such as Pedro Páramo and various historical corridos. The processes through which official history is constructed are shown in contrast with collective memory that endures in the corrido, the “authentic” voice of the people, suggesting that the only possibility for redemption is found in memory, a space where one can learn from history to rectify the mistakes of the past whose impact in politics and society is felt to this …


Flora Tristan’S Plural Identities In "Peregrinaciones De Una Paria": Challenging And Reproducing Existing Power Structures, Nancy Tille-Victorica Jan 2017

Flora Tristan’S Plural Identities In "Peregrinaciones De Una Paria": Challenging And Reproducing Existing Power Structures, Nancy Tille-Victorica

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyses the ways in which Franco-Peruvian author Flora Tristan crosses the border of her plural identities in her famous travel book Peregrinaciones de una paria (1837). It especially looks at how she performs as a male in certain situations and how these are generally associated with her French identity. It also considers her identification as a woman and how it is linked to her Peruvian identity. These examinations reveal how Tristan actually redefines herself as a pariah and how her definition differs from that of outcast imposed on her in France prior to her departure for Peru.


Lispector Y Valenzuela: Hacia Una Poética Del Devenir, Fatima R. Nogueira Jan 2013

Lispector Y Valenzuela: Hacia Una Poética Del Devenir, Fatima R. Nogueira

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Considering the metaliterary focalization as well as the importance of sensible and sensorial traits in the novels El gato eficaz by Luisa Valenzuela and Un soplo de vida by Clarice Lispector this study proposes the realization of a becoming poetics in both literary works, in the sense that Deleuze and Guattari have developed the theory of becoming. Such an aesthetic is based mainly on two significant factors: first, the transformation of the subject in a virtual entity; secondly, the conversion of the discourse into a modality of becoming guided by a proliferation of voices, planes and fictions.


Fresa Y Chocolate: A Subtle Critique Of The Revolution In Crisis, William O. Deaver Jr. Jan 2013

Fresa Y Chocolate: A Subtle Critique Of The Revolution In Crisis, William O. Deaver Jr.

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article uses Paulo Freire’s theories to illustrate Gutiérrez Alea’s attempts to continue a dynamic, Cuban revolution in light of what he depicts as a static revolution that has ceased to evolve. In fact, the film under study seems to present the achievements of Castro’s revolution as counter-revolutionary since the movement has suffered from bureaucratization, sloganism, and the banking model of education, which are all characteristics of an oppressive regime.


La Gran Aldea De Lucio Vicente López Como Crítica De La Argentina De 1880, Vicente Gomis-Izquierdo Jan 2013

La Gran Aldea De Lucio Vicente López Como Crítica De La Argentina De 1880, Vicente Gomis-Izquierdo

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This paper analyzes the relationship that La gran aldea (1884) proposes between the lower-middle classes and the Argentinean process of modernization in order to criticize the lack of progress due to socio-economic factors. The author, a member of the Generation of 1880, shows this criticism in the text in aspects such as education, the mix of social classes, family disintegration, the contrast between Buenos Aires in 1862 and 1882, immigration and the deficient role that the upper classes played in the development of a strong national industry and economy.


La Repolitización Del Autor En Margarita, Está Linda La Mar De Sergio Ramírez, Brian T. Chandler Jan 2013

La Repolitización Del Autor En Margarita, Está Linda La Mar De Sergio Ramírez, Brian T. Chandler

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Margarita, está linda la mar (1998) by Sergio Ramírez presents the reader with two key periods in Nicaraguan history: Ruben Darío’s return to Nicaragua in 1916 and the assassination of Anastasio Somoza in 1956. Through parody and artistic license, the narrator demystifies these grand figures of Nicaragua, highlighting the cultural, historical, and political ties between the modernist poet and the struggle for freedom under the Somoza dictatorship. As a result, a metaphorical space is created where discourse about historical figures is freed from previous ideological constraints allowing the reader to more completely explore the relationships between past and present.


Chaos As Ecological And Autochthonous Expression: An Ecocritical Study Of La Vorágine, Danion L. Doman Jun 2011

Chaos As Ecological And Autochthonous Expression: An Ecocritical Study Of La Vorágine, Danion L. Doman

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article utilizes principles of ecological criticism to provide new readings of both the role and presentation of nature in José Eustasio Rivera’s novel La vorágine. Whereas critics have heretofore focused on Rivera’s memorable subjective descriptions of the Amazon jungle, the present study foregrounds the rich diversity of the real organisms represented in these depictions. In addition, this essay explores the connections between the text’s core trope, chaos, and the current ecological and social scientific understanding of the ecology and the human history of the Amazon Basin.


La Máscara Afro-Puertorriqueña: Una Auto-Re-Presentación A Través De La Búsqueda De La Identidad Racial, Étnica Y Nacional En Down These Mean Streets, Forrest Blackbourn Jun 2011

La Máscara Afro-Puertorriqueña: Una Auto-Re-Presentación A Través De La Búsqueda De La Identidad Racial, Étnica Y Nacional En Down These Mean Streets, Forrest Blackbourn

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyzes the textual elements of Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets that demonstrate, in addition to the continual problematization of closed racial categories, the problems that are associated with static categorizations of ethnicity and nationality. This article calls into question traditional definitions of race, yet it also challenges definitions of Puerto Rican and Nuyorican identities. Race, nationality, and ethnicity are all vital elements to the human experience, and we will discover who is/are responsible for the protagonist Piri’s lack of racial recognition in the United States.


Charamicos: Bildungsroman Femenino O Aprendizaje Político A Través De La Memoria Histórica, Lucia M. Montas Jun 2011

Charamicos: Bildungsroman Femenino O Aprendizaje Político A Través De La Memoria Histórica, Lucia M. Montas

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

In Latin America, the combination of history and fiction, especially during the last decades has allowed marginalized groups, specifically women, to contribute to the rewriting and reevaluation of their national history. Women writers in contemporary Dominican literature have been able to actively participate in this process after a long period of silence. Dominican author Angela Hernandez exemplifies this idea within contemporary Dominican narrative. In her novel Charamicos (2003), Hernandez reinterprets the Post Trujillo era from a feminist point of view. Thus, the purpose of this article is to analyze this novel as a depository of historical memory and construction of …


De ‘La Civilización Y La Barbarie’ A ‘Lo Visible Y Lo Invisible’: Etapas En El Desarrollo De Un Centro Argentino, L. Nannette Mosley Jun 2011

De ‘La Civilización Y La Barbarie’ A ‘Lo Visible Y Lo Invisible’: Etapas En El Desarrollo De Un Centro Argentino, L. Nannette Mosley

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Argentinean essayists Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Eduardo Mallea both applied antithetical terms in their explorations of Argentinean identity. Sarmiento juxtaposed “la civilización” and “la barbarie,” while Mallea applied “lo visible” and “’lo invisible.” In response to a somewhat superficial comparison of the terms found within current criticism, and in light of their importance within the writings of both essayists, an in-depth exploration of the terms is undertaken here, addressing the differing objectives and contexts of the writers and revealing a significant evolution in Argentinean thought. From Sarmiento to Mallea, progress is being …


Global Health And Politics: Julia Alvarez’ Saving The World, Amrita Das Jun 2008

Global Health And Politics: Julia Alvarez’ Saving The World, Amrita Das

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Julia Alvarez’ novel Saving the World (2006) is a comment on the politics of Global Health. Alvarez reconstructs the tale of Isabel Sendales y Gomez, the lone female participant in the early 19th century’s Spanish Royal Expedition to eradicate smallpox around the world, mainly in the Spanish colonies. The historical narrative is paralleled by the tale of Alma Rodríguez, a 21st Century Dominican American author who is faced with a similar situation, aiding in an idealistic project to eradicate AIDS in the Dominican Republic. Alvarez’ work throws into sharp relief what happens when the philanthropic ideals of healing the world …