Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

Managing The Wear Of Heavy Construction Equipment Steel Track Undercarriage By Soil Sand Content, Frederick Ashburn Rich

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Heavy construction equipment owners and managers have few predictive tools that can estimate wear rate of undercarriage track propulsion systems working in various soil types and changing operational conditions. Managing the timely maintenance of these track systems is critical for they represent over half of the non-fuel operating cost of the equipment fleet. Understanding the major influencing factors that impact undercarriage system wear rate can help determine the most economical time to stop a machine for track maintenance thus positively impacting the equipment’s return on investment (ROI). This research analyzed the population of track type dozers in the eastern half …

Hotel De Vagabundos: Reviewing African American Theatre Journey., Manuel Francisco Viveros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This analysis examines how Hotel de Vagabundos, a play written by a black playwright from Colombia, fits into the core of definitions of Black Theatre in the United States. I will examine six documents I consider relevant to shape the idea of Black Theatre in the US from 1900 through 2005. The author's experience in New York during the 1940s inspires Hotel de Vagabundos. The author navigates the globalized ethos idea unleashing clashes about identity to criticize aspects of American culture about immigrants, poor people, and internalized racism within African American and Black diasporic communities. The play “like a …

A Qualitative Study Of Information Technology Project Portfolio Management In Higher Education, L. Andy Miller

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted to understand the variables, processes, organizational structures, and governance structures that are important and/or that support higher education decision makers in their selection and prioritization of information technology (IT) projects into their universities’ portfolios. IT project portfolio management (PPM) is comprised of many different activities, and the selection and prioritization of projects are just two interconnected activities amongst many. Research has suggested that these PPM activities are both important and beneficial; but there is a dearth of research on the subject specifically within higher education IT environments, and some higher education organizations struggle in this area. …

Manuel Puig Y Los Espacios Queer : Una Tercera Lectura De La Realidad, Matthew Berg

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Manuel Puig es una de las figuras más importantes de la literatura latinoamericana. Si bien comparte la capacidad de capturar la realidad latinoamericana con sus contemporáneos, Puig es único en su interpretación del mundo a su alrededor desde la perspectiva queer, como corresponde a su estatus de hombre gay. Además, el tejido de referencias populares en sus novelas para representar la realidad, los personajes y sus vidas demuestra una práctica de la comunidad queer de tomar elementos populares y aplicarlas a la vida nuestra, haciendo una lectura queer de estas obras y haciéndolas aplicar a nuestra realidad. De esta manera, …

Departments And Disciplinary Gatekeeping: The Sociolinguistics Of Spanish In Us Academia, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In his contribution, José del Valle looks at the intersection of the sociolinguistic study of Spanish in the US and the transformations of Spanish language departments in higher education. Del Valle traces the history of the institutionalization of Spanish teaching and study and its effects on linguistic research’s position within Spanish departments. Shifts in approaches to the use of language in social practice, and the growing demands on language units to act as service departments for language learners, has isolated scholars in those institutional homes from broader integration into sociolinguistic research.

Immigrants: A Threat To The Economy Or Cultural Identity? A Case Study Of Haitian And Venezuelan Immigrants In Chile, Erin Geist

Honors Theses

Historically, countries often faced the difficult task of favoring one immigrant group over another. Typically, this is in response to their inability to support those immigrants due to an unstable economy. However, some scholars argue that during times of economic prosperity, excluding immigrants may be the result of the group’s incapacity to assimilate to the nation’s “cultural identity”. Since Chile’s conception as a nation and as one of the most prosperous Latin American countries, they have received notably minuscule immigration rates. As a result, Chileans prides themselves as a relatively homogeneous country. Consequently, in 2018, President Sebastián Piñera differentiated visas …

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 …

La Llorona In Nuevomexicana Poetic Narratives: Reflections On Writing And Memory, Sutherland Jaramillo

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This paper focuses on poetic narratives that consider the folklore figure of La Llorona. I argue that contemporary nuevomexicana poets are responding to regional narratives as a way of challenging traditional structures of the lore and female archetypes to reclaim the identity and voice of the figure of La Llorona. Through literature that considers structure and archetype of the lore, Chicana feminist theory, and spectral theory, this essay surveys a selection of poems: “La Llorona Speaks” (2018) by Mercedez Holtry, “Una Carta de Amor de la Llorona” (2011) by Jessica Helen Lopez and “La Llorona” (2018) by Joanna Vidaurre-Trujillo. Through …

Fantasmas O Fantasia: Un Análisis De Casa Tomada, Christopher Good

Research and Creativity Symposium

Literary analysis of Casa tomada (House overtaken), a short story written by Julio Cortazar in his book: “Bestiario” (bestiary). The story has features of magical realism, mystery, and horror in its account of two siblings whose home is overtaken after hearing strange sounds. This essay was written by a student in Professor Fajardo-Cardenas’ writing-intensive, Advanced Writing class (Spanish 413).

Outperformed: Exploration And Comparison Of The Tongue-And-Cheek Tragedies Of Women-Animal Relationships In Selected Short Stories By Samanta Schweblin And In Apichatpong Weerasethakul’S Film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Sawnie Smith

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

The unsettling short stories that comprise Samanta Schweblin’s 2008 collection Pájaros en la boca are textured and populated by the flesh of not only humans, but also the skins of species that belong to a wider zoological and mythical scope. Those creatures in Schweblin’s literary output who possess scales, feathers, and wings find themselves variously rubbing up against, crushed under, and orally engulfed by human dermis. This essay seeks to explore the charge of gender politics that courses through interactions between human women and (demi-) animals in two short stories from this collection: “El hombre sirena” and “Olingiris”—animal contact with …

Simbolismo Y Metáfora: Paralelismos Filosóficos En “La Biblioteca De Babel” De Jorge Luis Borges, Alberto Fernández-Diego

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

El relato titulado “La Biblioteca de Babel” de Jorge Luis Borges nos cuenta la historia de un hombre cuya vida ha transcurrido en “la Biblioteca” (sinónimo de “universo”) y que ha pasado sus años buscando algo que ni él ni ningún otro morador de la misma ha podido encontrar: su razón de ser, sus límites, el contenido de sus obras, etc. El texto está narrado en primera persona por el protagonista, que nos hace partícipes de la frustración que se ha apoderado de él en sus últimos años de su vida, después de dedicar toda su biografía a intentar, sin …

El Quijote En Alcalá De Henares: Graffiti, Arte Urbano Y Autorrepresentación, Juan Fernandez Cantero

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

En el presente trabajo se realizará un estudio de los procesos culturales existentes en la ciudad de Alcalá de Henares en la actualidad a través del arte urbano. Concretamente, se analizarán las representaciones del Quijote, personaje universal de Miguel de Cervantes, en el casco antiguo y en los barrios periféricos de la urbe. Se demostrará cómo la figura del Quijote es un medio para la autorrepresentación de la ciudad. Más allá de las decisiones políticas sobre el arte urbano en el centro histórico de la ciudad, se verá cómo la iconografía del Quijote se consolida como un elemento cohesivo para …

Being Portuguese In Spanish: Reimagining Early Modern Iberian Literature, 1580–1640, Jonathan William Wade

Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Among the many consequences of Spain’s annexation of Portugal from 1580 to 1640 was an increase in the number of Portuguese authors writing in Spanish. One can trace this practice as far back as the medieval period, although it was through Gil Vicente, Jorge de Montemayor, and others that Spanish-language texts entered the mainstream of literary expression in Portugal. Proficiency in both languages gave Portuguese authors increased mobility throughout the empire. For those with literary aspirations, Spanish offered more opportunities to publish and greater readership, which may be why it is nearly impossible to find a Portuguese author who did …

Teaching Don Quixote Online - Course Redesign (Span 290 Literatue In Translation), Jesus-David Jerez-Gomez

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This course syllabus was developed thanks to the E-Learning Academy workshop in course redesign and Quality Matters online workshop for online teaching innovative development. The redesigned course, SPAN 290: Spanish Literature in Translation, was piloted in Fall 2019, and it is being offered again with improvements and revisions this Spring 2020.

Digital Exhibit Of Human Monstrosity, Eli Cohen

Digital Humanities Curricular Development

The final project for SPAN/LITRS 058 is a digital exhibit of human monstrosity. Each student will identify a topic or theme related to human monstrosity in any form and choose representative examples. This project will be presented using an online tool (Scalar) that enables the creation of multimedia exhibits. Students will search for and collect text, images, video and sound recordings of their topic/theme and examples and curate an online exhibit that explores some facet (historical, biological, psychological, social, etc.) of the limits between the human and the monstrous.

Human Monsters: Representations Of The Limits Of Humanity In The Early Modern Period (Span/Litrs 058) Syllabus, Eli Cohen

Digital Humanities Curricular Development

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a monster? Under what conditions and at what point does one exceed or not meet the standards of humanity and become a monster? Focusing on the so-called ‘Age of Exploration,’ this course examines the ways in which authors, artists, politicians and philosophers imagined the limits between the human and the monstrous during the early modern period, identifying their sources and pursuing their lines of influence. Ranging from classical mythology and the medieval worldview to Renaissance drama and the chronicles of the discovery and conquest of the New …

Ecuador Is Black: Afro-Ecuadorian Literary Resistance In Drums Under My Skin, Gabriella Davis

Student Scholars Day Oral Presentations

The transcendence of Black Ecuadorian literature has the power to rewrite narratives that have constructed them as hypersexual or invisible. By telling their own stories, Black Ecuadorian writers not only place Blackness into the Ecuadorian national narrative. They make their existence the center of everything. In Drums Under My Skin, Luz Argentina Chiriboga writes of Rebeca, a mulata teenager struggling to accept her Blackness while spilt between the ideological spaces of Quito and Esmeraldas. Chiriboga confronts racism in Ecuador based around mestizaje by making Blackness the sole narrative voice and rejects ideas that Blackness doesn’t belong in Ecuador. Concurrently, she …

Somos Y Estamos, Primavera/Spring 2020, Western Michigan University

Somos y Estamos

For Friends of the Department of Spanish at Western Michigan University. In both Spanish and English.

Afro-Brazilian Music And Culture, Regina Castro Mcgowan

Open Educational Resources

In this course students will learn about the musical heritage Africans brought to Brazil and how through forced conversion and cultural adaptation, their traditions quickly syncretized into distinct Afro-Brazilian artistic expressions. This course will explore many musical traditions, including; Samba, Pagode, Baile Funk, Candomblé and Axé music for their social, religious and/or political significance, from the early twentieth century through today. In doing so, students will get to practice and learn the vocabulary and grammatical structures found in the music of these rich and varied genres, and acquire a familiarity with conversational Portuguese.

El Cuerpo En La Poesía De Mujeres Ecuatorianas, Chloe Hood

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este proyecto examina la presencia del cuerpo humano en la poesía de tres mujeres ecuatorianas: Aleyda Quevedo Rojas, Aurora Estrada y Ayala, y Sophia Yánez. Enfoco en como las imágenes del cuerpo en su poesía están relatados con algunos temas del poder y el genero. Específicamente, exploro los temas del patriarcado, el colonialismo, y la creación. En relación con el patriarcado, encontré que la poesía de Aleyda Quevedo Rojas aborda mucho con la expectativa social para la perfección del cuerpo femenino. Ella rechaza esta expectativa y abraza las imperfecciones de su cuerpo, incluyendo la fracasa del cuerpo a través de …