Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Language For Specific Purposes: Using Hispanic Films And Current Hispanic Issues To Teach Specific Vocabulary And Context Related To The Professions Online, Chita Espino-Bravo Ph.D.

Modern Languages Faculty Publications

In this study I explain how an advanced Spanish conversation course can be created for virtual students using Spanish for Specific Purposes. The course is divided in different online homework students need to work on using four Hispanic films. This course is taught online and asynchronously. Students need to watch four films in this course, work on quizzes about the films, work on debates, and group presentations that are uploaded on VT (VoiceThread). The most important aspect of creating an advanced Spanish conversation course online is to define the goals and outcomes of the course very well and find the …

Print Media And The Question Of Slavery In Cuba: Discursive Strategies In Barcelona’S La Flaca And Havana’S El Moro Muza And Don Junípero, Ana Garcia Chichester

Modern Languages & Literatures Articles

This article explores the portrayal of the first Cuban war of independence against Spain (Ten Years’ War, 1868–1878) in print media in both Spain (Barcelona) and in Cuba (Havana). The Spanish press portrayed official reports on the war as falsehood and denounced the exclusionary treatment of Cubans of African descent. The Havana print media, although careful to avoid direct references to participation in the war by former slaves, addressed the racial composition of the Cuban army in a series of images questioning revolutionary values. In their illustrations, both journals derided the aspiration of Cubans living in the United States, and …

Characterization And The Aesthetic Representation Of Violence In The Graphic Novel "Esperaré Siempre Tu Regreso", By Jordi Peidro, Deirdre Kelly

Books/Book Chapters

The graphic novel, Esperaré siempre tu regreso (2016, Desfiladero Ediciones) by the author and illustrator, Jordi Peidro (Alcoy, 1965), is a biographical and historical text that centres on the life in exile of Francisco Aura Boronat (or Paco Aura, Alcoy, 1918-2018), a Spanish communist and Republican who survived the horrors of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Drawing on comics studies and memory studies, the analysis will discuss how Peidro navigates ethical and aesthetic issues when representing traumatic and violent memories related to the Spanish experience of Civil War, exile and deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. Firstly, it will …

Rechazos Del Español: Una Comparación De Mexicanos Monolingües, Hablantes De Herencia Y Aprendices De Español, Maribel Fernández Moctezuma

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Learners of Spanish as a second language can use advanced grammatical structures, vocabulary, idiomatic expressions and have good pronunciation and communication skills. However, the speech act of refusal is not a natural act for them. The aim of this study is to analyze the structure and function of the refusal speech act by comparing three populations: 1) monolingual Mexicans, 2) Spanish heritage speakers and 3) second-language learners of Spanish (3 groups). This research will serve and help heritage speakers and Spanish learners improve their communicative competence to express themselves more clearly and concisely, as well as learn to communicate more …

Fostering Engagement With Voicethread In Online Intermediate Spanish Language Classes, Karen Acosta, Ericka H. Parra Dr

The Coastal Review

It is estimated that more than 1.5 billion students have been affected during the course of the global coronavirus pandemic by school and university closures. As a way to navigate this new instructional landscape, the researchers aimed to find a tool that would allow students to develop and practice communicative language skills in their online Spanish classes. In this research study, participants used VoiceThread over the course of a semester and then reflected on their comfort level using communicative skills in Spanish before and after using the tool, as well as whether they perceived that using the platform in their …

Communicating With The Past Via Javier Cercas’ Las Leyes De La Frontera, Bobby D. Nixon

The Coastal Review

Cercas’ protagonist, Gafitas, narrates his memories of being a member of "el Zarco's" youth gang in the barrio chino of Girona during the summer of 1978, from the vantage point of the early 2000s. The novel is simultaneously viewed through the intertextual lens of José Antonio de la Loma’s cycle of quinqui films based on the life of the famous Catalan delinquent, El Vaquilla, Juan José Moreno Cuenca. There is renewed interest in these films from the Transition period of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the success of this novel and director Daniel Monzón's film based on Cercas’ …

La Radical Imperfección Del Mundo: El Crimen Perfecto De Jean Baudrillard Y El Crimen Ferpecto De Alex De La Iglesia, Maria A. Gomez

The Coastal Review

Le parfait crime (1995) by Jean Baudrillard and Crimen ferpecto (2004) by the Basque director Alex de la Iglesia are two works that not only have in common almost identical titles. They both reflect on how in consumer societies, an imperfect real world is substituted for an illusory hyperreality in which the distinction between subject and object has disappeared. While Baudrillard explains how the denial of a transcendent reality in contemporary society is “a perfect crime” that destroys the real, Alex de la Iglesia uses black humor and a mix of genres (mainly grotesque comedy and thriller) to show the …

De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe

The Coastal Review

In La Sorcière, Jules Michelet uses the strength and the myth of the Medea character, which had already fascinated Corneille. In the second part of his work, Michelet creates nominative witches after authentic texts. In the first part, he creates an allegoric witch on the Medea model: the Woman, a victim of arbitrariness, injustice and repression, rises up against her oppressors, figuring the march of Humanity towards Enlightenment and Liberty. The analogies between the Witch and Medea are therefore numerous and necessary, since they help to render the defense of the oppressed against the oppressor. Would the somber Medea, …

Cultivating Carrots, Community, And Health-Conscious Children: Investigating The Effects Of Community Garden Implementation On Nutrition Attitudes Of Elementary Students In The Los Angeles Unified School District, Hannah Michele Tiedemann

Scripps Senior Theses

Growing up in an urban food desert can significantly affect children's development, health, and well-being (Jencks et al., 1990; Leventhal et al., 2000). Compared to their more affluent peers, youth living in low-socioeconomic urban neighborhoods are at greater risk of experiencing poor-quality diets, food insecurity, unhealthy body weights, and mental health problems (Duncan et al., 1997; Sampson et al., 1997). Moreover, children living in food-insecure households are more likely to consume calorically dense diets high in trans fat and added sugar, putting them at risk for poor health, childhood obesity, and chronic, diet-related diseases as adults (Nielsen et al., 2002). …

Review Of Maureen Tobin Stanley, Francoist Repression And Incarceration In Contemporary Spanish Culture: Justice Through Memory, Iker Gonzalez-Allende

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

Este libro analiza la representación de la violencia contra los republicanos durante la dictadura franquista—especialmente durante la posguerra, en la década de 1940—en diversas obras narrativas y fílmicas de autores españoles desde finales del siglo XX hasta la actualidad. La represión que ejerció la dictadura de Franco contra los españoles a los que consideraba enemigos de la llamada “Nueva España” fue múltiple y polivalente, tanto a nivel físico como psicológico, incluyendo métodos como torturas, encarcelamientos, ejecuciones, enterramientos en fosas comunes, robos de niños de padres republicanos, marginación social, depuraciones de trabajadores e imposición del silencio en torno a los crímenes …

Sexualidad, Afectos Y Sociedad: Las No Monogamias Consensuadas (Nmc) En La Literatura Y El Cine Español, Sandra Nava Nieto

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Cuando pensamos en las relaciones sexo-afectivas que podemos tener en la sociedad occidental, el sistema monógamo es la opción estándar. La amatonormatividad, el patriarcado y la monogamia son un potente trío que se retroalimentan en cuanto a la promoción de la discriminación de la mujer y de los afectos no heteronormativos. El sistema monógamo sigue vigente, no solo mediante legalizaciones, sino mediante refuerzos sociales de las normas de género. Las relaciones no monógamas consensuadas (NMC), un grupo heterogéneo de relaciones sexo-afectivas fura de la monogamia, pueden ser un punto de inflexión para cambiar los roles de género y desestructurar la …

Álvaro Cunqueiro: La Existencia Fabulada, Patricia Maria Gamboa

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

My dissertation focuses on the narrative works by Galician writer Álvaro Cunqueiro (1911-1981): Merlín y familia, Las crónicas del sochantre, Cuando el viejo Sinbad vuelva a las islas, Las mocedades de Ulises, Un hombre que se parecía a Orestes, Vida y fugas de Fanto Fantini della Gherardesca and El año del cometa con la batalla de los cuatro reyes. Specifically, I analyze their existential dimension through the study of three concepts—journey, dream and myth—which, in my view, articulate Cunqueiro’s peculiar form of existentialism. Filled with fantastic characters and situations, Cunqueiro’s work has been critiqued …

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 …

Mujeres En Crisis: Posturas Divergentes Frente Al Neoliberalismo, Silvia Encinas Caballero

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Popular belief has always attributed women an innate capacity to overcome periods of crisis, whether these are provoked by an economic debacle or by a natural disaster. My dissertation explores the representation of women in Spanish narrative and film from the beginning of the global economic crisis in 2008 up to the recession caused by the Covid- 19 pandemic in 2020. I study how specific cultural production can serve to perpetuate models of patriarchal domination or to provide alternative representations of women as independent, resilient individuals in times of economic crisis.

I analyze four novels and three films in which …

Truth In Horror: Cinematic Representations Of Social Violence In Spain, Latin America, And The United States, Kelly Ferguson

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

My dissertation, Truth in Horror: Cinematic Representation of Social Violence in Spain, Latin American, and the Latinx United States, investigates the recent explosion of political horror films that straddle the past and present, reflecting both the current political moment and the polemic historical memories of state repression against racialized others and ideological dissidents. Chapter One, “Paranoid Horror and the Return of Franco,” studies four Spanish horror films, Tras el cristal (1986), Pa negre (2010), Mientras duermes (2011), and Musarañas (2014), all of which feature child protagonists that seek out truth about violent family secrets, but ultimately reject it as …

Masculinidades Insubordinadas Y Subversivas. La Construcción De La Figura Del Gaucho Rebelde En La Literatura Rioplatense A Través De La Representación De Tres De Sus Tipos Humanos Más Característicos: El Cantor, El Matrero Y El Caudillo, Miguel Angel Martos Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This research work explores the construction of the masculinity of the rebellious gaucho in several literary works written by authors from the River Plate, and how it serves as a vehicle for the transmission of ideas –often of political content– of their creators. The basic concept underlying this study is that some writers of works set in the rural world show a serious social commitment, and often combine their literary activity with politics. For this reason, they choose as a key figure in their writings a gaucho who rebels against authority and, emphasizing in him the traits traditionally considered as …

La Voz 2023, Loyola Marymount University, Modern Languages & Literatures Department

La Voz Student Journal

LA VOZ is published by the Modern Languages & Literatures Department, Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA.

Improving Diagnostic Outcomes For Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders Within The Hispanic Community In Bowling Green, Kentucky, Bethany Waddey

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Despite the importance of early identification and intervention of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Hispanic children are significantly under-diagnosed with ASD in comparison to non-Hispanic, white children due to barriers to ASD identification in this population. The purpose of this research is to determine the levels of ASD knowledge in the Hispanic community in Bowling Green, the barriers that may contribute to why ASD is underdiagnosed in Hispanic children, and how to mitigate these barriers. This research analyzes the results of a survey, called the “Autism Spectrum Knowledge Scale- General Population Version”, administered to 51 participants from the Hispanic population of …

“Thinking Across Bodies”: Percepción Woolfiana Y Giro Material En La Cuentística De Rodoreda, Roig, Alós Y Riera, Ana Álvarez Guillén

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Conventional understandings of perception have long undergirded traditional readings of Modernist texts in adopting a predominantly subject-centered perspective that separates subject from object in a vertical and hierarchical relationship. I argue that a consideration of Virginia Woolf’s short stories in dialogue with four generations of twentieth-century Catalan women writers who followed her work closely suggests an entirely different epistemological framework of perception in which subject and object are fluidly and horizontally organized. Mercè Rodoreda, Concha Alós, Montserrat Roig and Carme Riera establish a horizontal fictional dialogue that constitutes a return to matter that decenters the subject, resulting in an alternative …

A Cinematographic Comparison Of The Representation Of Las Cholitas In Two Bolivian Films: Los Andes No Creen En Dios Directed By Antonio Eguino (2007) And Zona Sur By Juan Carlos Valdivia (2010), Mackenzie Scheer

Honors Program Theses

From its founding on a colonial system to the current socioeconomic class structure in Bolivia, indigenous rights have been improving in the state. Las cholitas are an Aymaran, indigenous group within Bolivia. This essay looks at the portrayal of cholitas in two different Bolivian films: Los Andes no creen en Dios directed by Antonio Eguino (2007) and Zona sur by Juan Carlos Valdivia (2010). The former is set in the 1920s and the latter in 2010, thus showing the change in status of indigenous people over a 90-year gap. This cinematographic analysis focused on the indicators of the separation of …