Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Catholicism In Context: Religious Practice In Latin America, Gustavo Morello Sj

Journal of Global Catholicism

A critical problem to study Catholicism in the context of Latin American modernity, is that the conceptual tools we use to study religion were designed to understand the transformations that modernity provoked in European religiosity. Studies on the religion of Latin Americans have largely explored the religiosity of the population through surveys that measure attendance, adherence and affiliation. While some anthropologists have explored religious practices among particular groups, we do not know how ordinary, urban Latin Americans practice religion. To fill this gap, a group of researchers from Boston College, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Catholic University of Córdoba, and …

Editor's Introduction, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Power, Policy, Profit: The Spanish Language In The United States, Eva C. Vazquez

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Over the past several decades, the Spanish language has been considered secondary to English, specifically in the United States. However, this paper argues that Spanish is one of the primary languages in the country because it is the second most spoken language, despite efforts to maintain a monolingual nation. Due to the impact of capitalism, if one’s first language is not English, they are separated and viewed as inferior in society. After providing background on the history of Spanish in the United States, this paper explores the impact of power, Americanization, education and cheap work on the Spanish language with …

Influencia De Las Culturas Indígenas Nativas Latinoamericanas En El Género De La Ciencia Ficción. El Caso De Las Plantas Sagradas Y Los Rituales Místicos De La Novela Ygdrasil De Jorge Baradit, Luz G. Hernández Valderrama

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

Se presenta un análisis del papel que cumplen elementos provenientes de las culturas indígenas en la construcción del universo narrativo futurista de la novela Ygdrasil, escrita por el autor chileno Jorge Baradit. La hipótesis de trabajo es que los elementos provenientes de las culturas nativas, tales como las plantas sagradas y los rituales asociados a estas, son elementos que contribuyen a la verosimilitud del relato, toda vez que la literatura funge como especio en el cual se reflejan y proyectan las transformaciones culturales vividas en el territorio. También se identifica que el autor alimenta la fábula novelesca con elementos ancestrales …

Inés Del Alma Mía (Inés Of My Soul) Or How To Retrain The Chronicle, Chris Schulenburg

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Among the multitude of lettered discourses employed to communicate Latin America’s marvels during the conquest, the chronicle constituted a particularly effective option. That is, its necessary framing for a Spanish or Portuguese courtly audience with heterogeneous contents mixing history and fiction allowed for a text that served to validate personal service to the crown. Part and parcel of these chronicles’ objectives, of course, consisted of portraying an indigenous population supposedly anxious to accept the work load of the encomienda as well as the Catholic conversions that accompanied this legislated slavery. Moreover, this Eurocentric perspective also boasted an almost completely masculine …

Religious Mega-Events And Their Assemblages In Devotional Pilgrimages: The Case Of Círio De Nazaré In Belém, Pará State, Brazil, José Rogério Lopes, André Luiz Da Silva

Journal of Global Catholicism

The article presents a typological categorization of contemporary mega-events and their characteristics, in order to interpret the assemblages mobilized by sectors of the Catholic Church in traditional devotional pilgrimages in the northern region of Brazil. It uses ethnographic accounts of the Círio de Nazaré feast, in Belém, Pará state, Brazil, considered the largest Catholic procession in the West, in order to analyze how the promotion of this event is organized through institutional and market logics that overlap with the religious phenomenon, evincing a contemporary trend. These assemblages open a field of possibilities for institutional religious reproduction and generate concentric flows …

Young Brazilian Catholics Reaffiliating: A Case Study In The City Of Campos, Rj, Brazil, Cecilia L. Mariz, Wânia Amélia Belchior Mesquita, Michelle Piraciaba Araújo

Journal of Global Catholicism

Through a case study in Campos, a northern city of Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, this article analyzes reports from young people who state that they have undergone a process of revival or reactivation of their Catholic faith. They all declared to have participated in the “St Andrew’s School of Evangelization.” They also mentioned having experienced an "encounter with God." Their narratives were similar to conversion accounts reported by practitioners of other religious traditions. The interviewees describe faith as a personal choice, and emphasize the need for religious study and the value of religious knowledge. To what extent these values …

Contemporary Brazilian Catholicism And Healing Practices: Notes On Environmentalism And Medicalization, Juliano F. Almeida

Journal of Global Catholicism

Anthropological studies on Brazilian Catholicism traditionally focused on popular variants of this religious practice and their relationship with the official Catholicism. Encouraged by recent anthropological perspectives, which highlight the relevance of devoting researches not only on the margins, but also on the center of social practices, this paper analyzes contemporary practices of Brazilian Catholic friars and priests on health promotion. The analysis of their publications (books that include practices and tips on health and that became best sellers etc.), as well as interviews, allows us to perceive a process of environmentalization on the contemporary Brazilian Catholicism. This process seems to …

Strong Church, Weak Catholicism: Transformations In Brazilian Catholicism, Carlos Alberto Steil, Rodrigo Toniol

Journal of Global Catholicism

In this paper we explore data on Catholicism from the 2010 census in Brazil, as well as other data from the Center for Religious Statistics and Social Investigation. Using these statistics, we question those arguments that explain the reduction in the number of Catholics in Brazilian society as a problem in the institution’s adaptation in response to the challenges of evangelization, or as a lack of ministerial vocations to meet the religious demands of the people. Pursuing an alternative argument, we consider the weakening of the relationship between the Catholic institution and traditional popular Catholicism to be a fundamental aspect …

Editor's Introduction, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Re-Reading Alencar's Iracema Through Saer's Lens, Felicia Trievel

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

Abstract:

The topic of European colonization is one that is discussed frequently throughout Latin American literature in a variety of different manners. Two books that discuss the colonization of different countries in extremely different ways are Iracema (1865) by José de Alencar and El entenado (1983) by Juan José Saer. The former examines the colonization of Brazil by Portuguese colonists, taking away much of the culture of the indigenous people previously inhabiting Brazil. El entenado examines the colonization of Argentina by the Spaniards. When one reads these two novels it is impossible not to compare the two due to the …

María Teresa Ramírez Nieva: La Griot De Los Ancestros Y Las Ancestras, Catalina Rojas

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

María Teresa Ramírez Nieva: La Griot de los Ancestros y las Ancestras

La poesía de María Teresa Ramírez es una poesía de resistencia y cimarronaje, de reafirmación de la vida y la libertad, de “recuperación y defensa de los territorios ancestrales” que han sido históricamente amenazados y usurpados en un Pacífico colombiano de abandono, guerra territorial, desplazamiento y muerte. Es a través de sus obras La noche de mi piel (1988), Flor de Palenque (2008), Abalenga (2008), Mabungú Triunfo (2013), Mabungú Triunfo: Cosmogonía Africana Tomo II (2016), como se eleva la voz poética de la ancestralidad Pacífica alrededor de la …

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 …