Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Anita Brenner’S Vision: A Transnational Search For Mexican Jewish Identity, Gina Malagold

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation traces U.S.-Mexico cross-border networks during the cultural Renaissance of early 20^th century influenced by artistic and intellectual encounters in post-revolutionary Mexico. I explore from a transnational perspective the representation of Mexican-Jewish identity in post-revolutionary Mexico through the lens of Mexican-American Jewish anthropologist, artist, and journalist Anita Brenner (1905-1974). In my dissertation, Anita Brenner’s Vision: A Transnational Search for Mexican Jewish Identity, I expand on the notion of mexicanidad and reframe the cosmopolitanism of the time and its manifestation in the United States, arguing that Brenner’s contributions were instrumental in linking Mexico to the larger map of …

Ships In Houston, Nadia Villafuerte, Julie Ann Ward

Undiscovered Americas

Ships in Houston by Nadia Villafuerte, translated by Julie Ann Ward, is a harrowing and heartrending collection of fifteen stories that bring to life characters who, though they exist independently from one another, inhabit the same world: Mexico’s southern border. Using acute attention to language, such as various dialects and slang, to create a nuanced and varied mood and setting, Villafuerte’s stories track exotic dancers, sex workers, truck drivers, drug dealers, immigration officials, and even a mayor’s daughter to create compelling fictions rooted in the harsh realities of borderlands that many choose to overlook. While the US’s southern border with …

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, Editor. Mexican Literature As World Literature. Bloomsbury Academic, 2022., Caroline E. Tracey

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, editor. Mexican Literature as World Literature. Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. 266 pp.

Ya Llegamos | We Are Here, Audrey Hermila Salgado

Senior Projects Spring 2023

ya llegamos | we are here, a Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College, is piece on gender and migration. It is a play that explores how family dynamics, class issues, education, and gender play a role in why people leave their home country. It explores the journey and relationship of Saturnina and Francisco as they travel across the Mexico/U.S. border.

Beyond "Viuda De": Practical Approaches To Promoting Mexican Books Printed At Women-Owned Businesses, Taylor Leigh, Colleen Barrett

Library Presentations

Women print shop owners have existed for much longer than most people realize; the first examples in Mexico date to the seventeenth century. Unfortunately, these texts are not always clearly described in a way that is findable beyond searching “viuda de.” Though many title-pages describe their businesses in terms of being a widow of their husband, these business owners deserve credit for their entrepreneurial efforts and should be findable in their own right. This poster would highlight the strategies and steps taken by a Hispanic Studies Librarian and a Rare Books Librarian to better promote these types of works held …

Science Under The Microscope And Legality On Trial: How Female Authors In Latin America Confront And Challenge The Patriarchal Control Of Science And Legality In The Representation Of Women, Anna Bellum

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In this dissertation, I analyze a selection of works by eight Latin American female authors in order to explore how they represent the process of the social construction of women’s identities and roles in the male-dominated social, institutional, familial, and personal spaces that force women into particular positions of subordination. This analysis will focus, in particular, on how women writers represent the hegemonic systems of legality and science in order to highlight their role in the reproduction of values, practices, and institutions that maintain male control and female exploitation.

Each of the authors I analyze addresses the construction of women’s …

Rielle Navitski. Public Spectacles Of Violence: Sensational Cinema And Journalism In Early Twentieth-Century Mexico And Brazil. Duke Up, 2017., Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Rielle Navitski. Public Spectacles of Violence: Sensational Cinema and Journalism in Early Twentieth-Century Mexico and Brazil. Duke UP, 2017. xiv + 344pp.

Postcolonial Pandemics And Undead Revolutions: Contagion As Resistance In Con Z De Zombie And Juan De Los Muertos, Sara A. Potter

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

Argentinian director Alejandro Brugués’s 2011 Cuban-Spanish film Juan de los muertos and Mexican playwright Pedro Valencia’s 2013 play Con Z de zombie spring from similar roots: both initially place the blame for each country’s zombie apocalypse at the feet of the United States. In Brugués’s film, the accusation is clear but never proven: news reports interspersed through the film state that the country is being invaded by “dissidents” paid by the U.S. government, though there is no political or military U.S. presence in the film beyond the symbolic presence of the country’s flag. In Valencia’s Mexico, the cause is entirely …

From Borderlands To Border Islands: Intersections Between Anzaldúa's Chicana Feminist Theory And U.S. Latina Literature From The Hispanic Caribbean, Cristina Gonzalez Martin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies three texts by three U.S. Latina authors from the Hispanic Caribbean through the lens of Chicana feminist border theory. The works analyzed are How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) by Dominican author Julia Alvarez, Dreaming in Cuban (1992) by Cuban-American novelist Cristina García, and the memoir Almost a Woman (1998) by Puerto Rican author Esmeralda Santiago. The theoretical framework used is Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. The objective is to show how these texts manifest the formation of a hybrid, diasporic, in-between identity that corresponds with Anzaldúa’s definition of mestiza consciousness or la …

La Economía De La Violencia: La Ciudad Juárez Y El Mercado Libre De La Muerte, Kritika Amanjee

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the utilization of human life to further the parallel economies of manufacture and narco-trafficking in Mexico. It begins by recalling the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Mexico’s local economies. Shifts in economic dynamics that resulted from NAFTA internally displaced thousands of impoverished Mexicans, ultimately pushing them into the growing economies of manufacture and narco-trafficking. The manufacture industry and its effects on the common people are examined with a specific focus on Ciudad Juárez, a border city in the state of Chihuahua. The growth of maquiladoras attracted thousands of young women to work, …

La Genara: La Libertad Falsa De La Mujer Elite En México, Emily Sullivan

Honors Theses

The goal of feminism is to ensure the equality of all genders. This goal means that women are supposed to be seen as equal to men in society. However, despite the many feminist efforts to bring this equality into reality, many in the world still believe that women are inferior to men. This belief stems from historical oppression of women that has continued up until modern day times. In Mexico, there is still strong beliefs that exist that prevent women from achieving liberation and freedom in society. Ideas related to traditional family values, machismo, and internalized misogyny all act as …

Los Códices: An Exhibit Of Illustrated Books From Indigenous Mesoamerica, Jacob S. Neely

Hispanic Studies Student Research

This is an exhibit of facsimile codices housed in the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center.

The exhibit is on display in the Great Hall on the second floor of the Margaret I. King Library at the University of Kentucky from September 17, 2018 to November 9, 2018.

The exhibit is also available online.

Mexican Working-Class Literature, Or The Work Of Literature In Mexico, Eugenio Di Stefano

Foreign Languages and Literature Faculty Publications

Working-class literature has never had a wide audience in Mexico, always overshadowed by other types of literature, such as the novel of the Mexican Revolution, the regionalist novel, and the indigenous novel. Nevertheless, there is no better place, as this chapter will suggest, to consider the status of literature and its relationship to history and ideology than from the genre of work and the worker. Approaching working-class literature as an evolving genre in relation to different modernization projects, this chapter will map out similarities and point to differences between various labor literatures—including proletarian literature in the 1930s, the testimonio (a …

Crossing Language Barriers: Using Translation To Bridge Socioeconomic, Cultural, And Gender-Based Gaps, Audrey L. Cannon

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this thesis is to show to process required to translate a previously untranslated work of literature from Spanish to English. After the introduction, it begins with a study of literary translation focusing on John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte’s The Craft of Translation, a compilation of essays by scholars in the field of translation. The thesis includes the English translation of two full chapters of Mexican author Elena Poniatowska’s novel Paseo de la Reforma. Prior to the two chapters is a section outlining specific examples of the research and decisions made during the translation process. The …

Considering Triple Self-Portraiture In The Work Of María Izquierdo, Brooke Lashley

The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary Journal

This paper looks to María Izquierdo’s paintings, Prisioneras (Prisoners) of 1936 and Sueño y presentimiento (Dream and Premonition) of 1947, as case studies for activating a theory of triple self-portraiture. The theory reflects how plurality arises in the singular or in single significations of the self and disrupts homogeneity in thinking about identities for the self and others within the genre of self-portraiture. In activating a theory of triple self-portraiture, I found three forms of the self in Izquierdo's works: the self as oppressed (the past); the self as oppressing (the current); and the self as an emancipator (future). Although …

Un Cuento Satírico En Medio Del Debate Sobre El Darwinismo En México, Miguel A. Fernández Delgado Mafd

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

Charles Darwin's theory of biological evolution of species was accepted or rejected by Mexican scientists, including Gabino Barreda, representative of Comte's philosophy. It was also included by Justo Sierra in a history book for the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, a decision which raised a lot of criticism from conservative groups. It is also discussed the implications of social Darwinism in the early Twentieth Century Mexico. The document we offer is a satire published in those years, which resembles the tone of Swift's Gulliver Travels.

Una Mirada Histórica Y Cultural Del Movimiento Lgbttti Mexicano, Juan Carlos Rocha Osornio

Juan Carlos Rocha Osornio, Ph.D

No abstract provided.

Pégame Pero No Me Dejes: La Disputa Entre El Espacio Buga Y El Gay En Quizás No Entendí (1997) De Gerardo Guiza Lemus, Juan Carlos Rocha Osornio

Juan Carlos Rocha Osornio, Ph.D

El Pelado Y ‘La Desnudez De México:’ Reading Urban Poverty With Salvador Novo And Agustín Yáñez, Stephen Buttes

Stephen M Buttes

The paper examines the role that urban poor played in discourses of national identity in the post-revolutionary period in Mexico (1920-1950). As Mexico emphasized its indigenous, rural past while at the same time becoming increasingly urban during its process of modernization, the underpinnings of a “proper” or “autochthonous” national identity were also necessarily questioned. These tensions are perhaps best exemplified in what Guillermo Sheridan has called the “dilemma” of “formative” and “speculative” models of the “national soul” (57). While the former saw itself as prescriptive, this “speculative” model of national identity, in which “la nacionalidad se convierte … en una …

La Herida De Moctezuma, Mark K. Warford

Spanish Model Lesson Plans

A Sociocultural Model Lesson Plan centered on a folktale about the demise of Moctezuma. La Herida de Moctezuma comes from John Bierhorst's Cuentos Folclóricos Latinoamericanos. A Google search will yield an excerpt, but it is recommended that you use the entire tale. Targeted to Intermediate-High learners.

La Malinche De Rascón Banda: Deconstruyendo Un Símbolo Colonial Y Recreando Una Imagen Nueva A Través Del Anacronismo, Alicia E. Jones

Honors Theses

La Malinche has been a popular figure in the national culture not only of Mexico but also beyond its borders. Since its image is so ambiguous, it is used very frequently to symbolize popular ideas of an era. As a result, the symbol of La Malinche continues to transform. Historically, his image has characterized the traitorous woman, prostitute, and mestizo Mexican mother. In some ways this symbol has been maintained over the years, but there are also clear efforts to deconstruct this colonial image and create a more modern Malinche that is consistent with a growing interest in feminism. Introduced …

La Taquillera, Hector Hugo Montero

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Esta es la historia de una obsesión. Del amor por el cine y sus historias, los seres que de él se derivan y multiplican. Es el amor que una mujer siente po una clase de música, actores y películas de México.

Claiming The Discursive Self: Mestiza Rhetoric Of Mexican Women Jouranlists, 1876-1924, Cristina Devereaux Ramirez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the last two decades, scholars in Rhetoric and Writing Studies have been calling for a greater representation of voices of those from other cultures who participated in rhetorical practices. As Jacqueline Jones Royster contends, rhetoric has been framed as mostly white, male, and elite, and that these positions distort the democratic perspective of our discipline. Claiming the Discursive Self: Mestiza Rhetoric of Mexican Women Journalists, 1876-1924 presents women rhetors who were participating in not only creating a national identity, but also in constructing a public identity that would insure women's contribution and participation for future generations. It closely examines …

It’S My (National) Stage Too: Sabina Berman And Jesusa Rodríguez As Public Intellectuals, Stuart A. Day

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Based on interviews with Sabina Berman and Jesusa Rodríguez, this article offers a view of artists as public intellectuals in Mexico. These two prominent figures, in addition to staging biting commentaries on Mexican politics, have reached beyond the traditional theater to take on the role of public intellectuals (artists, activists, professors, performers, writers, among others, who speak truth to power) on the national stage, Berman through a book on the 2006 elections and her television program, Shalalá, and Rodríguez as the stage director for the massive public demonstrations of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Both artists see the importance of reaching …

Gorgeous Pedagogy, Debra Castillo

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Elena Poniatowska's recent Luz y luna, Ias lunitas immediately impresses the reader with its beauty; it is akin to a "coffee table book" in its sheer gorgeousness. I intend to explore the question of how to read the gorgeous object within the context of Poniatowska's oeuvre and within the frame of a pedagogical endeavor. Poniatowska, of course, represents the epitome of the elite but socially conscious Latin American author. As in certain of her other works (but perhaps more obviously here, because of the very nature of this book), the mix of elitism and social consciousness undergoes a multiple displacement. …

Dynamics Of Change In Latin American Literature: Contemporary Women Writers, Adelaida López De Martínez

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Over the last twenty-five years Latin American societies have undergone profound changes. Where once the legalized abuses of dictatorships gave new meaning to the word "silence" for both men and women, now large segments of the population fight hard to sustain democratic regimes throughout the Continent. Repressive governments are being replaced, and shattered economies have begun to recover. Encouraged by the ever-increasing strength of international feminism, Latin American women (from Chiapas, Mexico, to Plaza de Mayo in Argentina) have risen to play key roles in this socio-political reformation. The writing of female authors has proliferated in this environment, and the …

A Bibliographic Introduction To Twenty Manuscripts Of Classical Nahuatl Literature, Willard Gingerich

Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This bibliography is offered as a preliminary guide for students and professionals interested in the texts of the indigenous Nahuatl cultures of Mexico. It is the bibliography I would wish to have were I to begin again my own investigations, which were undertaken with only a general knowledge of Nahuatl culture of the kind available to any curious aficionado of antiquities. While many excellent bibliographies of Nahuatl materials are available (see Note), none have indicated clearly for the uninitiated the primary manuscript sources of the literature or what editions of facsimile, paleography, and translation have been prepared from each. And …