European Languages and Societies Commons^™

Al-Manfiyun Exiliados: Voices Of The Lebanese Diaspora In Mexican Literature, Mia Del Rosario

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This thesis explores two key works of Mexican literature published in the late 20^th century in terms of their cultural relevance in the Mexican literary sphere. The novels En el verano, la tierra by Carlos Martínez Assad and Las hojas muertas by Bárbara Jacobs center around the infrequently-explored identities of Lebanese immigrants to Mexico and their Mexican-born descendants through a sociocultural lens, discussing their identity negotiation in the context of 20^th-century Mexico, which was in the process of redefining its national identity after the Mexican Revolution. During this time, people of ethnicities that did not fall into …

A Constructional Approach To Multimodal Linguistic Analysis, Fredy A. Mendieta Rodriguez

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This dissertation investigates the systematic organization of co‑speech gestures in referential communication, using data from Spanish‑speaking monolinguals and Spanish–English bilinguals. While traditional gesture research treats pointing as a universal phenomenon, the current analyses show that gestural productions display internal phonological patterning and context‑conditioned variability that parallels spoken constructions. Quantitative results demonstrate how referential distance and communicative context (find‑it versus misunderstanding situations) shape the selection of embodied phonological features—handshape, orientation, movement, and beats—revealing consistent associations between form and interactional demands. Qualitative analyses trace how gestural realizations reduce across discourse as shared understanding emerges. A new complexity metric, based on token frequency …

El Presidio Hispano-Colonial: Estudio Del Discurso Moderno De Fortificación Del Imperio Español A Traves De Planos Y Mapas, Javier E. Astorga Villarroel Ph.D.

Latin American Studies ETDs

This dissertation project delves into the processes of ideation, design, projection, and knowledge-transfer around the Presidio, an iconoclastic fortification system deployed by the Spanish Empire while projecting its colonial power toward the Transatlantic region. Based on Bruno Latour’s classic theory on the agency of networks of meanings (also known as new materialism) applied to historical cartography, my investigation examines the production of techno-military knowledge around the presidios as they were depicted through plans, maps, and manuals while mapping out border areas over North America and the Caribbean, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. With archival research work performed at …

What Is A Nation? Colonial Legacies, Identity, And Reclaiming In Métisse Autobiographical Narratives – A Case Study Of Sugar And Slate And Garçon Manqué, Thaïs Maëlle Autin

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis examines the question of national belonging in autobiographical narratives of second-generation immigrant métisse women. I study the similar aesthetic manner in which individuals with different regional and cultural influences grapple with concepts of identity, gender, racism, exile, and negotiation, and the way in which the authors anchor themselves in a broader familial and national heritage. I argue that such an enterprise can be understood as part of the alternative heritage wave, based on Andrew Higson’s theory. The texts put in question traditional understandings of nation. Doing so opens the possibility of engaging in a dialogue that expands the …

Foreign Language And Study Abroad Funding Opportunities, Dr. Todd Karr, Dr. Lenny Ureña Valerio

LAII Events

Join LAII and GEO to learn more about foreign language and study abroad funding opportunities, including: Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships, Boren Awards, Critical Language Scholarships (CLS), Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships, and the Freeman-Asia Program.

Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship: The FLAS Fellowship supports the study of less-commonly taught languages, area studies, and international competencies related to Latin America.

Boren Awards: Boren Awards support the study of critical languages and cultural field studies ofworld regions that are underrepresented in study abroad.

Critical Language Scholarship: CLS provides opportunities for American college and universitystudents to study languages …

Reduction Of The Vocalic Sequence /Ea/ In Tapatío Spanish, Karol Ibarra Zetter

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Reduction of the Vocalic Sequence /ea/ in Tapatío Spanish

This study investigates reduction in the vocalic sequence /ea/ in spontaneous conversational Tapatío Spanish from CCT: El Corpus Conversacional Tapatío (Martínez Gómez & Ibarra Zetter, 2017). An example of this phenomenon is the vocalic sequence /ea/ in the word in teatro ‘theater,’ which is often produced as [ˈtja.tɾo]. However, the word azotea ‘rooftop’ is usually pronounced [a.so.ˈte.a] by CCT speakers. The lexical frequency of these words is one factor that influences the degree of /ea/ reduction. Typically, there is a correlation between the frequency of lexical items and their phonetic reduction …

Verlorene Heimat, Gefundene Leere - Michael Hanekes Trilogie Der Emotionalen Vergletscherung Und Die Nicht-Orte Des Alltags, Amber Lane

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This work examines the incorporation of the concept of non-place in Michael Haneke's Trilogy of Emotional Glaciation (1989-1994) and its connection to elements of the Heimatfilm. The trilogy introduces the concept of non-place in urban or domestic settings while exploring the decay of human relationships and societal alienation. Despite individual stories, the films share a dark atmosphere and question human existence in an alienated world. Haneke's unique film style, characterized by long takes and minimalist aesthetics, is used to examine human behavior with emotional distance. This work sheds light on Haneke's contribution to the Austrian film tradition and contributes to …

¿Qué Lengua Hablas?: The Interaction Of Languages, Education And Identity In A Majority/Minority Sociolinguistic Setting, Luisa F. Hurtado Iglesias

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This thesis presents a comparative analysis of language dynamics in two distinct contexts: the Tres Fronteras region, where Spanish and Portuguese intersect, and Cauca, Colombia, where Namtrik and Spanish coexist. Through qualitative research methods including interviews and ethnographic observations, the study examines the roles of these languages in shaping social interactions, cultural identities, and community dynamics.

By exploring language use patterns, attitudes, and policies in these regions, the thesis seeks to uncover similarities and differences in the ways Spanish, Portuguese, and Namtrik influence individuals' sense of belonging and cultural expression. Furthermore, the study examines the impact of historical, social, and …

Muertos Made In México: Necrocapitalismo En La Cultura Mexicana, Luis A. Gamboa

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Muertos Made in México: Necrocapitalismo en la cultura mexicana examina textos de la literatura mexicana desde 1810 hasta la actualidad, junto con estudios cinematográficos, para explorar los contextos históricos y culturales que han contribuido al surgimiento de la violencia en México como fenómeno social. Asimismo, siguiendo la teoría de la necropolítica (2019) de Joseph-Achille Mbembe (1967), se analizan el realismo-gore y la doctrina neoliberal en México (1980-presente) que impulsan la deshumanización y cosificación de colectivos marginados y la trata de personas en el mercado global. Muertos Made in México propone que en una sociedad caracterizada por la muerte y la …

Returning To Northern New Mexico. A Study Of The Nuevomexicano Lexicon., Guevara Del Angel

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Spanish in New Mexico prior to the 1900s was the predominant language of the region that began to be displaced with the growth of the English-speaking population during the 20th century. In this dissertation I refer to the Spanish language variety that has had the longest historical presence in northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado as Traditional New Mexican Spanish (TNMS, as per Bills & Vigil, 2008). This study aims to document aspects of maintenance and change regarding TNMS. The traditional heritage variety of New Mexican Spanish is changing in many ways, evolving from what has been documented in the …

Aging And Learning: Community Engagemente And Self-Efficacy In L2 Teaching To Elderly Learners, Leticia Rinaldi Souza

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

The elderly population (60 years or older) has been increasing during the past decades around the world and is expected to reach two billion by 2050 (Scult, Haime, et al 2015). However, the misconception that elderly people are uncapable, or incompetent is still part of the imaginary constructed around such populations (Minichiello and Coulson, 2005). Older adults present powerful functional capacities and social activities lead to better performance and slower decreases in their memory and executive function (Scott, Masser, & Pachana, 2020). Thus, second language learning plays an effective role in enabling active and regular engagement in social and psychological …

O Ventre Como Espaço De Resistência Em Maria Firmina Dos Reis E Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Jessica Luana Bueno Dos Santos Ms.

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

The issue of violence against reproductive capacity and the right to motherhood in the context of the African diaspora in Brazil and Puerto Rico was systematically placed in the background, especially in the literary field, as was the case with the attitudes of resistance practiced against such violence. Considering this reality, this thesis compares two texts that approach such violence from a place of resistance, evidencing practices of insubordination common to such contexts: “A escrava” (1887) by Maria Firmina dos Reis (1822-1917) and “Matronas” (2012) by Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro (1970). Specifically, this study examines and compares the representational strategies used …

Disrupting The (Post) Neoliberal Order In Latin America Through The Representation Of Fictional Corporate Office Narratives In Argentina And Mexico (2007-2010), Juliana Todescan

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Due to the expansion of the neoliberal and global order in Latin America in the 1990s, national states and citizens are subjected to the free market interests regulated and managed by for profit corporations and the financial industry. Considering this a critical change in the social organization of Latin America, I compare narratives from Argentina and Mexico that imagine cosmopolitan cities being colonized by the corporate logic of profit. My analysis focuses on the representation of low level office workers in Antonio Ortuño’s novel Recursos humanos (2007), Guillermo Saccomanno’s novel El oficinista (2010), and Aníbal Jarkowski’s El trabajo (2007), and …

Trespassing And Transcending: Newcomer Crossing And Movement In Latina And Latin American Literature, Marina C. Todeschini

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In times when walls are raised and human diversity condemned, stories that present the free urban movement of marginalized characters become political. While the system excludes the brown/black newcomer bodies and restricted them to the margins, the texts analyzed here bring these bodies to the center, claiming their active role in the construction of the urban fabric. This way, Latin American and Latina authors are contesting the idea of citizenship and the right to the city of newcomer subjects by narrating the freedom of geographic and symbolic movement of often disenfranchised peoples. This dissertation analyzes the claims to urban rights …

The Translator-Function: Translating Bande-Dessinée For The Anglophone Reader, Ryan C. Gomez

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis focuses on the question of translator roles in literary theory. I characterize these roles between positions that have traditionally been described by literary and philosophical theorists such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. By examining the products of translation (French-language bandes-dessinées and their English translations), and considering critical literary and translation theories, I demonstrate the unique position held by translators and their work through the proposal of what I call the translator-function (modeled after Foucault’s author-function). The principal aim of this thesis is to problematize preconceived ideas about translators and to examine the unique position of the …

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 …

Written And Oral Histories Of The Chicano Movement At New Mexico Highlands University, 1968-1970, Julianna C. Wiggins

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This thesis presents spoken, written, and drawn histories produced before the Chicano Movement at New Mexico Highlands University in November 1970 and the discourses which have followed in the movement’s wake fifty years later. This qualitative study explores the campus climate at NMHU using the student newspaper Highlands Candle. Its contents from 1968 until 1971 are contrasted with the multiple voices of a generation which adopted the term Chicano as a racial identifier into the NMHU vernacular. Social factors including the formation of student-of-color groups and the return of veterans from the Vietnam War appear to change the student …

Nidus Idearum. Scilogs, Iv: Vinculum Vinculorum, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Welcome into my scientific lab! My lab[oratory] is a virtual facility with non-controlled conditions in which I mostly perform scientific meditation and chats: a nest of ideas (nidus idearum, in Latin). I called the jottings herein scilogs (truncations of the words scientific, and gr. Λόγος – appealing rather to its original meanings "ground", "opinion", "expectation"), combining the welly of both science and informal (via internet) talks (in English, French, and Romanian). * In this fourth book of scilogs collected from my nest of ideas, one may find new and old questions and solutions, referring mostly to topics on NEUTROSOPHY – …

Revealing Silences: The Representation Of Black Identities In Hispanic Afro-Caribbean Autobiographical And Biographical Writing, Bryn Campbell

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This project explores how the historical contexts of the Hispanic Caribbean, including the regions of the Circum-Caribbean and the Caribbean Diasporas in the United States, have sustained dominant racial and nationalist ideologies that continue to silence or negate the identity of Afro-Caribbean subjects in national letters. My research focuses on the autobiographical and biographical writing of four Hispanic Afro-Caribbean men: Autobiografía de un esclavo (1840) by Juan Francisco Manzano¾originally published and translated to English in 1840 by Richard R. Madden¾ Klabel (2002) by Víctor Virgilio López García, Down These Mean Streets (1967) by Piri Thomas, and Las criadas de la …

Material Culture In The Religious Narratives Of The Old English Exeter Book, Justin J. Larsen

English Language and Literature ETDs

The term “material culture” represents many different approaches and schools of thought across multiple academic disciplines, but its place in the study of medieval literature is particularly difficult to ascertain. The long tradition of simply using the archaeological record to “fill in” gaps left in the textual historical record does little to expand our understanding of the place that these objects actually occupied in the users’ daily lives, nor does it allow us to make greater connections between the texts, their audiences, and their broader environment. Likewise, the role of the text and its reception has a great deal to …

Performing (Female) Masculinity In The Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World: An Analysis Of The Mujer Varonil In Gender And Genre, Nathaniel L. Redekopp

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

The following dissertation on the trope of the mujer varonil^[1] employs bibliographical research in literary criticism and historiography to identify and describe socio-historic attitudes about gender. In particular, this dissertation examines gender as communicated by texts that use the mujer varonil, or “masculine woman”, characterization to either praise or vilify exceptional female subjects in ways that highlight normative limits for masculine and feminine gender expression. Four texts are examined: a male author writes each and each represents a literary genre that was significant in early modern Spain and Spanish America. These genres are the hagiography, the relación, the …

Del Entusiasmo Al Desencanto: Ironía Y Modernidad En La Obra De Tres Poetas Tzántzicos, Juan Carlos González Granja

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In this dissertation I study the poetry of the Tzántzicos, an Ecuadorian cultural movement that in the 1960s intended to subvert the social order and assert the role of literature in the destabilization of the capitalist society. I analyze the poetry of Ulises Estrella, Raúl Arias, and Humberto Vinueza as a biography of a generation of leftist intellectuals engaged with the Revolution, and as a meaningful moment in the history of Ecuadorian modernity. I identify two moments in the continuum of this poetry across the decades from the 1960s to the present: enthusiasm and disenchantment. The moment of enthusiasm registers …

La Ausencia De Lo Afro En La Identidad Nacional De México: Raza Y Los Mecanismos De La Invisibilización De Los Afrodescendientes En La Historia, La Cultura Popular, Y La Literatura Mexicana, Dora Careaga-Coleman

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Recognizing the dire need for foundational texts in the burgeoning field of Afro-Mexican Studies, this dissertation illuminates transhistorical social, political, and cultural processes that led to the marginalization (invisibilization) of the African presence in Mexico. The project begins with an examination of the complementary relationship between hierarchy, integration, and 'blanquiamento' in the construction of Mexican national identity during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and concludes with a discussion of Afromexicanos in popular culture from the golden age of Mexican cinema to the present. Chapter One demonstrates how from its implementation in the eighteenth century until its abolition by Jose Morelos …

The Word And The Flesh: The Transformation Of Female Slave Subject To Mystic Agent Through Performance In The Texts Of Úrsula De Jesus, Theresa (Chicaba) De Santo Domingo And Rosa Maria Egipcíaca, Rachel Spaulding

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Previous research about the African slave experience in the Ibero-Atlantic world has understood slave agency, or more polemically, slave autonomy, through the binary of accommodation versus resistance. However, current African Diaspora scholarship (Schwartz, Thornton, etc.) situates the slave experience within a spectrum of lived experiences. These lived experiences range from accommodation to resistance but often overlap: lived experiences expressed overtly as accommodation reveal covert resistance. My dissertation explores the words of three Afro-women: \xdarsula de Jesus (1604-1666), an Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Sister Teresa de Santo Domingo (1676-1748), also known as Sor Chicaba, who lived as a Dominican tertiary in Salamanca, Spain, …

Apocalyptic Expectations Among The Followers Of Pope Benedict Xiii (R. 1394—1423): Ms 940 Of The Trivulziana Library In Milan, Italy, Taylor Aaron

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In 1420 an anonymous follower of Pope Benedict XIII (r. 1394—1423) compiled a group of forty prophecies regarding his belief in the imminent arrival of the Antichrist entitled Las señales que serán quando el Anticristo verná a reynar. Although most scholars of apocalyptic literature during the Great Western Schism (1378—1417) conclude their studies with the Council of Constance and the election of Pope Martin V in 1417, this study demonstrates that apocalyptic thought evolved quickly among the dwindling supporters of Pope Benedict XIII. By examining the social, historical and literary context of Las señales, this dissertation sheds light on the …

Una Perspectiva Del Despojo: Cuerpo, Lengua Y Espacio Desde El Discurso Lésbico/Queer En La Literatura Fronteriza/Chicana, Cynthia Meléndrez

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Women writers on both sides of the US/Mexican border have rewritten Chicana-Fronteriza narratives by uncovering the individual memory of women and LGBTII communities along the US-Mexico Border. La tarima (2001) by Rosina Conde and Gulf Dreams (1996) by Emma Pérez reveal a consciousness of the social decay and domestic violence of urban border life. These authors deconstruct the identity of women and minorities by disassociating knowledge acquired through patriarchal structures. Moreover, Conde and Pérez break with established written patterns by mixing genres, and subverting traditional forms of language and notions of space. The dramatic and rapid changes on both sides …

Fascism, Flamenco, And Ballet Español: Nacionalflamenquismo, Theresa Goldbach

Theatre & Dance ETDs

The nationalist regime of General Francisco Franco (1936-1975) dramatically and forcefully reshaped every element of Spanish culture including dance and flamenco. Many flamencologists derisively refer to the resulting product of this system as nacionalflamenquismo or national-flamencoism. The bureaucratic mechanics that created nacionalflamenquismo evolved throughout the first three decades of the regime to fit with changing economic and political realities. As Spain re-entered the global community following its Civil War (1936-1939), flamenco and Spanish dance proved useful tools for international public relations as well as domestic propaganda. By discerning the various factors that linked the art of flamenco to the political …

Funny Girls: A Study Of The Graciosa In Four Early Modern Plays, Dolores Ruiz-Fabrega

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This study centers on the graciosa, the female stock comic figure of early modern Spanish theater. It focuses on the comical discourse of this character in order to underscore five basic reasons that prove that she is a figure of this theater that requires more scholarly focus. The graciosas that are analyzed are: Celia and Clara from Lope de Vegas La dama boba (1613), Isabel from Calderón de la Barca's La dama duende (1629), Flora from Francisco Rojas Zorrilla's Primero es la honra que el gusto (prior to 1648) and Irene from Agustín Moreto's La fuerza de la ley (1651). …

Declínio E Despertar Da Favela: Um Estudo (Auto) Etnográfico, José Luiz Santos Nogueira

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This thesis is made up primarily of auto-ethnographic studies. It is a collection of information about life in the favela (shanty town) as described by residents of the favelas with personal experience and by the author who is himself a resident of a favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With a basis in facts, this study follows the appearance, development, decay, and redemption of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil. This work is based on the perspectives of literary production, cinema, culture and social projects, and personal testimonies of real events in the daily life of …

El Conflicto Armado A Través De El Tiempo: Análisis De Transitividad En Las Representaciones Discursivas De La Violencia (1998-2008), Félix Manuel Burgos

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Esta disertación es un análisis lingüístico que explora el discurso usado por el periódico más influyente de Colombia, El Tiempo, al reportar los eventos del conflicto armado colombiano. El análisis se basa en el estudio de 396 noticias publicadas durante el periodo 1998-2008. En estas noticias se examinan las características semántico-sintácticas de construcciones verbales que dan cuenta de hechos violentos cometidos por los diferentes actores del conflicto armado. Esta caracterización tiene como propósito evidenciar que un discurso, en apariencia neutral, representa de distintas formas las violencias del conflicto armado colombiano. Con ello se demuestra que el diario El Tiempo no …