Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Forum On “Conquest”: Past-Present Politics Of Coloniality In Cinema On Latin America, Stephen Jakob Turner

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

My dissertation analyzes the representation of Spanish “Conquest” in film as a critical commentary on the cultural present. Chapter 1, “Directorial Discord: The Cultural Politics of Representation in Apocalypto (USA/Mexico/UK, 2006) and Retorno a Aztlán (Return to Aztlán, Mexico, 1991)” focuses on the representation of the (im)possibility of Indigenous heroic protagonism and futurity in the origins of “Conquest.” Chapter 2, “‘The World is Thus’: Resistance and the Power of Ambivalent Conversion in Gabriel Retes’s Nuevo Mundo (The New World; Mexico, 1976) and Roland Joffé’s The Mission (USA/Paraguay, 1986)” posits that the “Conquest” problematizes the myth of …

Mapping Memory: Locational Memory In The First-Person Narrative Of Three Latinx Writers, Stephanie R. Beasley

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Locational memory, which relies upon our natural inclination to store and recall images, adds spatial orientation to a narrative, and provides an accessible framework for the recreation of the past in first-person narrative. The power of locational imagery as a device of memory is both historically and scientifically supported. It is essential to the system of artificial memory that the ancient Greeks called a memory palace, described by both Mary Carruthers and Paul Ricouer. Scientifically, studies show that the strongest autobiographical memories are based on visual imagery and that recall of specific locations provides a cognitive basis for the recreation …

First-Person Politics: Strategies Of Latin/X American Women To Change The Neoliberal Requirements For Empowerment And Inclusion One Share, Like, Subscribe At A Time, Marlee Northcutt

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This project investigates the strategies of Latin/x American women who have used their voices and influence in the media to break barriers, enter spaces that have excluded them, and advocate for changes so that young girls like them do not have to face these same limitations. Chapter One investigates politicians who, from their political power positions, interweave personal stories with their accomplishments to provide role models for these careers. Chapter Two identifies actors who combine their personal stories with activist causes to alter representation in TV and film. The YouTubers in Chapter Three bolster a rhetoric of empowerment to encourage …

El Bildungsroman Femenino Mexicano: Nuevas Perspectivas De La Novela De Formación Femenina Fronteriza, Yorki Junior Encalada Egúsquiza

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The late 20^th and early 21^st centuries have not only favored a steady growth in Chicana literary production but have also revealed an alternative identity of the Mexican American border woman, the meXicana. Rosa Linda Fregoso, in MeXicana Encounters (2003), coins and defines this term as “the interface between Mexicana and Chicana,” and employs it to examine the experiences and representations of Mexicanas and Chicanas without eliminating the differences between them. This study borrows this term but uses it specifically to describe North American women of Mexican origin whose identities and border-crossing experiences make it difficult to solely …

Terminal Youth: The Failure Narrative Of The Dysfunctional Family As The Non-Viability Of Capitalist Economic Liberalism In Contemporary Latin American Film, Sharrah Lane

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This project examines the desire for national and international belonging and citizenship in the figure of the child intersectionally marked by race, class, and gender in contemporary Latin American film, a desire that is ultimately met only with precarity and violence. Chapter One analyzes the figure of the orphaned street child in terms of the desire for connection with a mother figure as a stand-in for the lack of affective community in Pixote: a lei do mais fraco (Brazil, 1981), La vendedora de rosas (Colombia, 1998), and Huelepega: ley de la calle (Venezuela, 1999) in which the protagonists either die, …

El Enclave Bananero En Las Novelas Centroamericanas De Miguel Angel Asturias, Ramon Amaya Amador Y Carlos Luis Fallas, Johana Pérez Weisenberger

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The Central American literary community and historiographical critics maintain a constant dialogue in regards to banana literature. Authors such as Asturias, Fallas, and Amador capture the pervasive nature of the banana enclave in their works. My research reveals the ways in which capitalist power controls and redefines spaces in the banner enclave. By taking a closer look these novels reveal the monopolistic power of the United Fruit Company exploits and destroys the natural space, this manuscript becomes a geographical map of the fictionalized banana enclaves, exposing the capitalist oppressing forces, which dominate nature and control the company workers.

Chapter one …

La Ciudad De Las Letradas: Reescribiendo Santo Domingo En La Narrativa Femenina Urbana Dominicana Del Nuevo Milenio, Lucía M. Montás

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

In the last few decades, Dominican female writers have contributed significantly to the literary representation of the city of Santo Domingo and urban life. This dissertation studies how these female writers produce a cultural paradigm for criticizing the urban crisis in the Dominican Republic that at times is at odds with much narrative written by men and with key concepts in Urban Theory that are taken for granted. The authors I study, Ángela Hernández, Emilia Pereyra, Emelda Ramos, Aurora Arias and Rita Indiana Hernández, understand the city and redefine the urban model by expressing their dissatisfaction in the civilizing and …

La Representación De Los Ecuatorianos En España: El Discurso Como Expresión De Poder, Racismo E Ideologías, Francesco Masala

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation focuses on the representation of Ecuadorians in Spain between 2000 and 2015 in literature, film and the press. After enduring a decade of economic, climatic, and political problems, more than 175,000 Ecuadorians emigrated to Spain in 2001 alone (Herrera 2005). This process marked the beginning of a major migratory movement which has caused Spain to become a premier destination. The response to such migration has been disparate, yet both Ecuadorian and Spanish artists as well as the Spanish press have shown the different perspectives related to a discriminatory ideology. This dissertation focuses on three cultural products and three …

Letras De Uma Resistência: Fantasmas Transgeneracionais E Ditadura. Brasil, Argentina E Cuba 1964-2002, Fabrício Silva

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

During the period of military government in Argentina, Brazil (1964 –1982) and the present day communist Cuban regime, a machinery of cultural repression was established in these countries, these states had a systematic plan of cultural repression of any kind of opposition, dictatorships had an organized and sophisticated operating control over the press and all publications. The dissident writers examined in this dissertation developed strategies of resistance that depended largely on allegory to carry their messages against their respective oppressive regimes. By means of a detailed rhetorical analysis, our study examines the lookings of allegory and cultural resistance under the …

A Case For Empathy: Immigration In Spanish Contemporary Media, Music, Film, And Novels, Constantin C. Icleanu

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation analyzes the representations of immigrants from North Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe in Spain. As engaged scholarship, it seeks to better the portrayal of immigrants in the mass media through the study of literature, film, and music about immigration spanning from the year 2000 to 2016. Because misconceptions continue to propagate in the media, this dissertation works to counteract anti-immigrant, xenophobic representations as well as balance out overly positive and orientalized portrayal of immigrants with a call to recognize immigrants as human beings who deserve the same respect, dignity, and rights as any other citizen.

Chapter 1 …

Modernidades Contra-Natura: Crítica Ilustrada, Prensa Periódica Y Cultura Manuscrita En El Siglo Xviii Americano, Kevin R. Sedeño-Guillén

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation studies the emergence of literary history and criticism in the Americas during the eighteenth century. It focuses upon the study of 1.) Natural history as a matrix of literary history and criticism; 2.) The geopolitical functions of literary history and criticism in the periodical press; and 3.) The recovery of manuscripts as a residual product of modernity. Texts associated with a hegemonic Enlightenment, such as “Disertación sobre el derecho público universal” by Francisco Javier de Uriortúa, are analyzed. Next, we study modern historical-critical thought as emphasized in the periodical press of Bogotá and Quito. Finally, the circulation of …

Indigenista Heroes And Femmes Fatales: Myth-Making In Latin American Literature And Film, Megan O'Neil

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation explores myth-making in Latin America by focusing specifically upon four Amerindian and mestizo figures: Doña Bárbara, mestiza protagonist of Rómulo Gallegos’ 1929 novel; Anacaona and Hatuey, Taíno caciques who first appeared in Bartolomé de las Casas’ Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552); and Andrés Chiliquinga, indigenous protagonist of Jorge Icaza’s Huasipungo (1934). The present analysis examines the evolution of these myths from their original appearance to literary and film versions throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries in the Caribbean and Andean regions. The project focuses upon the ways in which artists have interpreted these …

Largo Viaje En Breve. La Minificción De Max Aub, María Luisa Elío Y José De La Colina En El Exilio, Gonzalo Hernández-Baptista

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

A pesar del interés que suscita, la minificción del exilio republicano español en México ha sido mayormente ignorada por la crítica y, cuando se ha reparado en ella, su acercamiento descontextualizado ha provocado inexactitudes que se reflejan en el canon minificcional propuesto para la Península. Por ello, examino algunas vías de contacto entre el exterior y el interior de España y propongo una primera aproximación a un corpus de autores en exilio, entre los que destacan Max Aub, María Luisa Elío y José de la Colina.

Además, el estudio de estos tres autores revela una minificción que no está ubicada …

For The Love Of Robots: Posthumanism In Latin American Science Fiction Between 1960-1999, Grace A. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Posthumanism—understood as a symbiotic relationship between humans and technology—is quickly and surely becoming an inextricable part of daily life. In an era where technology can be worn as an extension of—and an enhancement to—our bodies, traditional science fiction tropes such as robots and cyborgs resurface and reformulate questions on critical aspects of human experience: who are we and what do our (imagined) technologies say about our world? Such questions are far more complex than they appear. Their answers should not come from one source alone, as humanness is experienced differently across time and cultural systems. In this sense, it is …

Crítica Contextural: El Corazón Del Instante De Alberto Blanco: Ensayo De Un Método, Carlos Zamora-Zapata

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The most common approaches to arranged Poetic Collection are the chronological and the bibliographical orders, that is, the ones that privileges a book that normally would be called an anthology: the arrangements of poems following the order of the compositions of the poems (chronological), or the order of previous publications (bibliographical). "El corazón del instante" (The Heart of the Instant, 1998) by the Mexican poet Alberto Blanco (Mexico City, 1951) is a collection of twelve books of poems in one volume. The books in the collection --or the “chapters”, as Alberto Blanco call them in his “Introductory Note” of the …

Acoustic Epistemologies And Aurality In Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz, Sarah E. Finley

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation considers the intersection of aurality and visuality in seventeenth-century New Spanish poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s (1648/1651-95) acoustico-poetic discourse. Prior scholarship has focused either on the author’s engagement with Western music theory and compositional practices or else the role of musical references in her works. This has resulted in the marginalization of Sor Juana’s engagement with sound through disciplines that are not strictly musical or poetic, including: acoustics, cognitive theory and visual art. I address these lacunae by considering such concepts as echo, reflection, Ear, Voice, musica poetica (links between music and rhetoric) and musical pathos …

Simulacro, Hiperrealidad Y Pos-Humanismo: La Ciencia Ficción En Argentina Y España En Torno Al 2000, Mirta Rímolo De Rienzi

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This project focuses on science fiction literature of Spain and Argentina produced in the last twenty years (1990-2010). It hypothesizes that in this period a change of perspective substantially modified science fiction productions in both countries and converges into a new model of narrative. As a consequence of this reformulated vision, a new narrative perspective immerses readers in an era of simulation, hyperreality, and post-humanism. When advanced technology is able to modify the basic human anatomy, and persons are trapped between virtual and real universes, simulacra facilitate control of people in an effective and impersonal manner. Simultaneously, fictional scenarios show …

Telling The Story Of Mexican Migration: Chronicle, Literature, And Film From The Post-Gatekeeper Period, Ruth Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This study examines how the social process of undocumented Mexican migration is interpreted in the chronicle, literature, and film of the post-Gatekeeper period, which is defined here at 1994-2008. Bounded on one side by the Mexican economic crisis of 1994, and increased border security measures begun in that same year, and on the other by the advent of the global economic crisis of 2008, the post-Gatkeeper period represents a time in which undocumented migration through the southern U.S. border reached unprecedented levels. The dramatic, tragic, and compelling stories that emerged from this period have been retold and interpreted from a …

Deconstructing An Icon: Fidel Castro And Revolutionary Masculinity, Krissie Butler

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The goal of this project is to investigate the way in which various representations of Fidel Castro, between the years 1957-1965, have left an indelible mark on Cuba, transforming its landscape, I argue, through gendered means and conscious strategies. Thus it is less concerned with Fidel as an historical person than with examining with a gendered lens the ways in which he has been represented in foundational photographs, interviews, songs, and texts (both narrative and poetry as well as blogs). Drawing from theories of masculinity, which conceive masculinity as both a social construction and material body, my dissertation explores the …

Specters Of The Unspeakable: The Rhetoric Of Torture In Guatemalan Literature, 1975-1985, William Jarrod Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation examines the ways in which torture was imagined and narrated in Guatemalan literature during the Internal Armed Conflict. For nearly four decades, Guatemala suffered one of the longest and most violent wars in Latin America. During that time, it is estimated that more than 100,000 people were tortured at the hands of the Guatemalan military. Torture, as suggested by Ariel Dorman, is most fundamentally “a crime committed against the imagination” (8), disrupting and often dissolving the boundaries between fact and fiction, the real and the unreal. The Introduction and Chapter One of this study explore the destabilization of …

Cultural Production And Ephemeral Art: Feminicide And The Geography Of Memory In Ciudad Juárez, 1998-2008, Alice Laurel Driver

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation examines representations of feminicide victims in documentary film, novels, non-fiction, art, and graffiti and argues that these images express anxiety about they way women traverse and inhabit the geography of Ciudad Juárez, often giving precedence to the idea of the public female body as hypersexualized. In order to reclaim memory of the victims some cultural producers focus on the testimonial form in which victims’ families and other activists share their stories or construct informal memorials in the city; these remembrances later appear in works of non-fiction, film, and art, as markers of the process of creating and preserving …

Poetics Of Enchantment: Language, Sacramentality, And Meaning In Twentieth-Century Argentine Poetry, Adam Gregory Glover

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation explores the relationship between language, sacramentality, and enchantment in three twentieth-century Argentine poets: Francisco Luis Bernárdez (1900-1976), Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), and Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972). It seeks to ask and answer two fundamental questions. First, to what extent might it be possible to understand the conception of poetic language characteristic of modern poetry as an articulation, however muffled and secularized, of a sacramental apprehension of language and world? Second, how might such a conception be related to what Max Weber famously called “the disenchantment of the world”? The dissertation begins with a broad overview of the development of …

Image, Expression, And Meaning Of The Mulato In Four Moments Of Cuban Literature (1968-1948), Luciano E. Cruz-Morgado

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

My thesis grows out of a reflection on Cuban literature, race, and national identity within the broader framework of the canon and its marginal literature. It explores the dynamics of the Cuban canon and specific visions of race and nation, and studies one play, two novels, a book of poems and a radio script from four different moments in Cuban history.

Fernández Vilarós´s play Los negros catedráticos (1868) sets for the first time the topic of race at the center of the national debate, immediately before the first and longest Cuban independence war.

The play contrasts with Cecilia Valdés (1882), …