Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature

(Ef)Facing The Face Of Nationalism: Wrestling Masks In Chicano And Mexican Performance Art , Robert Neustadt Jun 2001

(Ef)Facing The Face Of Nationalism: Wrestling Masks In Chicano And Mexican Performance Art , Robert Neustadt

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Masks serve as particularly effective props in contemporary Mexican and Chicano performance art because of a number of deeply rooted traditions in Mexican culture. This essay explores the mask as code of honor in Mexican culture, and foregrounds the manner in which a number of contemporary Mexican and Chicano artists and performers strategically employ wrestling masks to (ef)face the mask-like image of Mexican or U.S. nationalism. I apply the label "performance artist" broadly, to include musicians and political figures that integrate an exaggerated sense of theatricality into their performances. Following the early work of Roland Barthes, I read performances as …


Introduction , Charles Tatum Jan 2001

Introduction , Charles Tatum

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Contemporary cultural critics have theorized the multiple aspects of "location" in many different ways…


Reading The Other Side Of The Story: Ominous Voice And The Sociocultural And Political Implications Of Luis Spota's Murieron A Mitad Del Río , Francisco Manzo-Robledo Jan 2001

Reading The Other Side Of The Story: Ominous Voice And The Sociocultural And Political Implications Of Luis Spota's Murieron A Mitad Del Río , Francisco Manzo-Robledo

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

It is always contoversial to proclaim a literary work, at face value, as a sociocultural study of a particular society. It is even more controversial when one deals with a hybrid work, combining factors from two completely distinct societies. Yet, there are some literary works that seem to call for exactly this type of analysis, presenting a range of ideas which in retrospect reveal origins of significant sociocultural trends. Such is the case of Luis Spota's Murieron a mitad del río (1948). This novel presents a panorama of ancestral problems in the life of thousands of immigrants and inhabitants of …


Border Crossings: Images Of The Pachuco In Mexican Literature, Javier Durán Jan 2001

Border Crossings: Images Of The Pachuco In Mexican Literature, Javier Durán

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This study suggests that an analysis of the image of the pachuco in Mexican literature can provide useful insights about the role and position of subaltern expressions as they become integrated into a larger mapping of cultural production. The paper argues that the pachuco's representation in Mexican culture undergoes a series of transformations that ultimately materialize in a symbolic entity which functions as a buffer mechanism of inclusion and/or exclusion. The pachuco is then a contra modern element that becomes de-territorialized from both Mexican and U.S. culture due to its aesthetic and linguistic hybridity which becomes a menace for essentialist …


Hegemony And Identity: The Chicano Hybrid In Francisco X. Alarcón's Snake Poems , George Hartley Jan 2001

Hegemony And Identity: The Chicano Hybrid In Francisco X. Alarcón's Snake Poems , George Hartley

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Snake Poems renegotiates power relations between the discourse of Spanish imperialism and Aztec poetic practice. Alarcón's extended poem enacts a process of ethnic, cultural, and spiritual identification through a confrontation between texts—Alarcón's original poems, passages of commentary from the Spanish Inquisitor Hernando Ruíz de Alarcón's treatise on Aztec spells and invocations, and the Aztec spells themselves in the original Náhuatl, the Aztec language. Each of these three layers of text represents a unique and competing people, ideology, and culture, and it is the clash and the hybrid fusion of these distinct discourses that Alarcón the poet stages in Snake Poems …