Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Argentine Women’S Narratives Of Leadership, Ileana Andrea Mocciola

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated and examined the narratives of Argentine women leaders while obtaining and exercising leadership positions. This research was based on narrative theory and the feminist standpoint theory. Argentine female participants (N = 10) were subject to interviews that overall lasted 600 minutes and were conducted through the Zoom platform. Fifty-five pages of single-spaced transcripts were analyzed and studied. The results of this study revealed that Argentine women face major challenges when it comes to tokenism, exclusion, mentorship, and stereotypes that prevent and limit them from reaching and succeeding in leadership positions.

Historical Memory And Feminist Consciousness In Almudena Grandes’ Episodios De Una Guerra Interminable, Alba Fernández-Fernández

Dissertations

General Francisco Franco’s brutal dictatorship (1939-1975) was one of the darkest periods in Spain’s recent history. During this dictatorial regime, political detractors were mercilessly persecuted, tortured and massacred. In 1975, Franco died leaving the legacy of nearly four decades of repression and over 150,000 victims on his back. Spain then cautiously headed into a process of democratization, with fear and horror still etched on the country’s memory. While politicians promised a smooth transition to democracy, their insistence to look ahead meant Spaniards were asked to neglect the country’s painful past. No legal action was taken against those responsible for mass …

Anger, Genre Bending, And Space In Kincaid, Ferré, And Vilar, Suzanne M. Uzzilia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how women’s anger sparks the bending of genre, which ultimately leads to the development of space in the work of three Caribbean-American authors: Jamaica Kincaid, Rosario Ferré, and Irene Vilar. Women often occupy subject positions that restrict them, and women writers harness the anger provoked by such limitations to test the traditional borders of genre and create new forms that better reflect their realities.

These three writers represent Anglophone and Hispanophone Caribbean literary traditions and are united by their interest in addressing feminist issues in their work. Accordingly, my research is guided by the feminist theoretical frameworks …

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, …

Los Efectos Del Machismo En El Desarrollo De Los Trastornos De Salud Mental De Las Mujeres En México, Tiffany George

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the role of machismo and how it impacts women in Mexico. Machismo dominates Mexican society where men have complete authority and control over women, thus trapping them under patriarchal rule. This thesis examines how the novel, La Genara written by Rosina Conde, highlights the detrimental effects of machismo through letters between two sisters, Genara and Luisa. This study examines the ways in which Mexican women are silenced, oppressed and abused and the ways in which societal norms affects their mental state, and sometimes to mental disorders, and it also shows that in such a society, there is …

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 …

Feminist Strategies And The Advancement Of Women In 19th-Century Spain: Press And Freethinking, Benjamín García Egea

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reexamines the rise of feminism in 19th-century Spain. In this historical context, the female writers who received recognition were mostly from the upper-middle classes: Fernán Caballero, Rosalía de Castro, Concepción Arenal and Emilia Pardo Bazán, to name a few. However, at the end of the 19th century there was also a group of female authors from lower-middle classes who were promoting freethinking, secular education and equal rights for women in the press. Unfortunately, their contributions have been largely forgotten and ignored by critics. The main purpose of this study is to give well-deserved recognition to three female authors, …

Para Donde Miran Los Ojos: Confluencias Entre Locura, (Des)Identidad Y Violencia En La Obra De João Guimarães Rosa, Silvina Ocampo Y Luis Martín-Santos, Giseli C. Tordin

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies the representation of madness in the literary works of three twentieth-century authors, namely, João Guimarães Rosa (from Brazil), Silvina Ocampo (from Argentina), and Luis Martín-Santos (from Spain). The first chapter argues that madness in Ocampo’s “El castigo”, Rosa’s “Buriti”, and Martín-Santos, Tiempo de silencio, reveals a series of conflicts between tradition and modernity, rather than the alleged symptoms of an individual suffering from a mental illness. After comparing the three works, it is evident that the decisions of their characters reproduce certain values idealized by authoritarian cultures. The second chapter discusses Rosa’s “Substância”, Ocampo’s “La casa …

Mujeres En Movimiento: La Representación De La Migración Femenina En Los Cuentos De Cristina Pacheco, Nadia Villafuerte Y Rosario Sanmiguel, Sonia A. Rodríguez Hicks

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

MUJERES EN MOVIMIENTO: LA REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA MIGRACIÓN FEMENINA EN LOS CUENTOS DE CRISTINA PACHECO, NADIA VILLAFUERTE Y ROSARIO SANMIGUEL

by

Sonia A. Rodríguez Hicks

B.A., Tourism Planning, Universidad Hispano-Mexicana, 1986

M.A., Spanish, University of Wyoming, 2002

Ph. D. Spanish, University of New Mexico, 2017

ABSTRACT

This dissertation focuses on the representation of migrant women in recent Mexican narrative through the examination of three short story collections, El oro del desierto (2005) by Cristina Pacheco, Barcos en Houston (2005) by Nadia Villafuerte and Bajo el Puente (1998) by Rosario Sanmiguel.

During most of the twentieth century, Mexican literary representations of …

Chivalry And Religion In Three Spanish Pro-Woman Treatises: Para Probar La Virtud Cuando La Tentaçión Es Rresistida..., Linda P. Gonzalez

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

ABSTRACT

Medieval authors repeatedly warned men of the dangers of going to hell due to their interactions with women. The authors listed here discuss the theological question of the act of contrition while warning men that they should repent for defaming women. This topic is present in the three following, pre-modern defenses about women where the men who wrote these treatises glorifiy the opposite sex for her ability to save man. The manuscripts examined in this project are: MS 9.985 Triunfo de las donas (1439-1441) by Juan Rodríguez del Padrón (c. 1390-1450), MS 1.341 Tratado de las virtuosas mugeres (1441) …

Monstrous Dolls: The Abject Body In Rosario Ferré’S Works, Mackenzie Fraser

Senior Theses

In this Honors Thesis project, I examine two literary texts, “The Youngest Doll” (1991) and The House on the Lagoon (1995), by Puerto Rican author Rosario Ferré (1938-2016) with attention to her depiction of the abject female body as a figure analyzed by both theories of gender and the subaltern. Using these critical frameworks as well as my own textual analysis, I argue that Ferré offers a postcolonial feminist critique of the double oppression—patriarchal and colonial— operating upon her female Puerto Rican characters. Yet these women also turn this abjection into transgression, allowing Ferré to expose the paradoxes of female …

Mujer, Tradición Y Conciencia Histórica En Gertrudis Gómez De Avellaneda, Ana Lydia Barrios

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies the historical consciousness in the literary production of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (1814, Cuba – 1873, Spain). The numerous novels, plays, and legends, as well as articles written by her, display an array of female characters selected from history, traditions, and the Bible. This focus of women undoubtedly shows the author’s concern with the condition of women in society, which transcends her own time and place in history, nineteenth century Spain, as her stories attempt to establish a connection between herself and her readers, and women of different times in history. In doing so, Gómez de Avellaneda’s …

Fantastic Sexism? Subverting The Femme Fatale And Femme Fragile In The Fantastic Fiction Of Machado De Assis, Jordan Benjamin Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, arguably the most famous Brazilian author, has been studied perhaps more than any other figure in Brazilian literature. Because Machado's novels are so exceptional, many of his good short stories have been neglected by scholars, particularly those categorized by some as “fantastic.” This study attempts to fill that gap by analyzing the most prominent female characters in Machado's fantastic fiction. After providing a brief overview of the term fantastic and explaining how the stories used qualify as fantastic, this study identifies several tropes into which their female characters fit. Chapter 1: The Femme Fragile analyzes …

The Life Of Spanish Noblewomen In The Secular World And Their One Alternative: The Role Of The Convent In María De Zayas' Desengaños Amorosos, Maria Middleton

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the literary works of María de Zayas y Sotomayor called the Desengaños amorosos (1647) and the message these works suggest about life choices for women in sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain. In these novellas, María de Zayas makes a connection to the actual life of noblewomen both in the convent and outside of it. Her writing suggests through virtual and narrated experience that life in the convent allows for greater self actualization than life as a married woman. For the female characters in Desengaños amorosos, María de Zayas often utilized the convent as the superior alternative to …