Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

The Heart Of A Zombie: Dominican Literature's Sentient Undead, Emily A. Maguire

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

A formerly human being that has been separated from its human consciousness, the has always been marked as more dead than alive. Yet in recent cultural production, another kind of zombie has emerged, what we might call the “sentient undead.” In these recent narratives, the undead protagonist is conscious of his or her inhumanity/non-humanness, along with the marginality of this position, and his or her potential “redemption” or return to humanity is often what drives the plot. Although the sentient zombie’s outsider position can function as a meditation on the social mores that make up human behavior, it also allows …

Eating The Past: Proto-Zombies In Brazilian Fiction 1900-1955, M. Elizabeth Ginway

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

Taking Oswald de Andrade’s 1928 “Manifesto antropófago” [Cannibalist Manifesto] as a point of departure, this article analyzes how zombies in Brazilian literature from 1900 to 1955 represent a kind of cultural cannibalism, consuming bodies as a way of resisting hegemonic power, oblivion and marginalization. Zombies variously represent rural inhabitants, modern consumers, prostitutes and hustlers who often become invisible, faceless, and voiceless, symbolizing the historical silencing of subalterns or “cannibals.”

Several Brazilian short stories and legends from the first half of the twentieth century serve to illustrate the cultural cannibalism of the proto-zombie: Lima Barreto’s “A Nova Califórnia” (1910), Monteiro Lobato’s …

Lords From The Desert, Caroline Mercado

Capstones

Lords from the Desert

This work explores a reality that is little talked about: how the most prestigious pre-Columbian art exhibits in the United States hide a murky origin. From looting of temples to illicit art trafficking, to smuggling and collectors’ affairs, the pieces gain value in proportion to the social prestige of their owner. Along the way, the most important is lost: research that provides context and allows us to know history. The First World wins a seductive, but simplistic story. The Third World, from which all these cultures emerge, loses patrimony and possibilities of understanding themselves. A pair …

A Sinful Reaction To Capitalist Ethics In No Quiero Quedarme Sola Y Vacía (2006), Celina Bortolotto

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “A Sinful Reaction to Capitalist Ethics in No quiero quedarme sola y vacía (2006)” Celina Bortolotto analyzes how Lozada’s characterization of the main character, La Loca, questions the ideals of free agency offered by consumerist capitalism and the urban gay male ideal under the promise of a liberating gay lifestyle in a social context defined by identity politics. The novel is a fictionalized autobiographical account of Puerto Rican author Angel Lozada’s misadventures in the early 2000s gay scene in New York. This essay plays with the punitive sense of the word “capital” in the seven capital sins …

America's New Favorite Food, Laura E. Duclos, Sshiva Tejas M

Capstones

America's New Favorite Food focuses on the culinary shift the United States is making. The days of burgers and fries are dwindling and tacos are taking over. This short documentary series follows four people who hold distinctive views on Mexican cuisine. Viewers are also able to experience Mexican food in augmented reality, where they can tinker with the models via computer or phone.

LINK TO PROJECT: DuclosTejasCapstone.weebly.com

An Exploratory Study Of Acculturation Experiences Of Graduate Student Immigrants At The University Of San Francisco, Courtney Lamar

Master's Theses

This study explores the shared challenges during the acculturation process of graduate student immigrants pursuing higher education in the United States. 13 graduate student immigrants at the University of San Francisco discuss their experiences of cultural adjustment into U.S. culture. Through qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, this study seeks to understand the acculturation experiences of graduate student immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. This analysis is based on the individual-level experience examining attitudes and acculturation strategies in the dominant society. Analysis, possibly policy implication for institutions of higher education, and possible directions for future research …

Guest Editor's Introduction, John Lowe

The Southern Quarterly

One of the consequences of situating the U. S. as part of the circumCaribbean is that it creates an opportunity to examine important subjects—such as slavery, agricultural production, trade patterns, immigration, diaspora, travel writing and tourism—through a more comprehensive lens. Numerous slave owners had plantations in both the lower South and on the islands. Maroon culture created by runaways were common across the circumCaribbean, be they in lowland swamps or mountain retreats. Runaways also found refuge with Native Americans, leading to intermarriage and cultural exchange. Transnational studies are beginning to clear away artificial barriers separating the peoples and cultures of …

Intersectional Invisibilization: Black Female Movement Leaders In Mexico And Their Private Sphere Resistance, Lindsay Fasser

Undergraduate Honors Theses

International attention drew to Afro-Mexican individuals in 2015, when the Mexican inter-census survey first allowed Black Mexican people to self-identify as Afro-Mexican. The Black movement in Mexico revolving around recognition rather than liberation had been stirring in Coastal regions for decades prior, fueled by the work of incredible activists across the gender spectrum. However, the representation of such activists in public discourse is largely male. In analyzing this particular movement, the importance of intersectional theory becomes apparent, in unpacking both gendered and racialized forms of hierarchy and invisibility. By exploring the intersections between social movement and social suffering, as well …

Traducir En Pro De La Educación Del Pueblo: La Labor Traductora De La Sociedad De Amigos De La Educación Popular, Gabriel Gonzalez Nunez

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

Este trabajo pone en relieve una labor desempeñada por la Sociedad de Amigos de la Educación Popular (SAEP) que, si bien no es desconocida, tampoco ha recibido suficiente atención por parte de historiadores y académicos. Se trata de los esfuerzos traductores desplegados por los integrantes de la SAEP en su celo por introducir en el Estado Oriental del Uruguay nuevas e innovadoras ideas en cuanto a la educación y su función social. El trabajo contextualiza esta labor dentro del papel histórico de la traducción en el continente americano, para luego dar paso la descripción de los esfuerzos traductores llevados a …

Producing, Collecting, And Exhibiting Bizango Sculptures From Haiti: Transatlantic Vodou On The International Art Scene, Catherine Benoît, André Delpuech

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Caste War Narratives Of Yucatán And Chiapas, 1841-1958, Sarah M. West

Faculty Research and Creative Activities Symposium

No abstract provided.

Textures Of Transition: Understanding Memorial Spaces In Medellin, Colombia, Hayley Pedrick

Shared Knowledge Conference

The past decade has welcomed a surge in the creation of memory and human rights museums with existing scholarship linking concepts of transitional justice and the rush to memorialize. The role of symbolic reparation in transitional justice through memorials in Latin America, in particular, is increasingly prominent at both local and international scales, ranging from recommendations outlined by the Inter-American court system to the state-funded construction of memory sites in rural communities. Colombia, home to the longest ongoing civil conflict in the Americas and currently in transition towards peace, presents unique approaches to symbolic reparation. Apart from land restitution and …

Colonial Maps And A Cartographic Reckoning In Post-Revolutionary Mexico City, Delia A. Cosentino

Artl@s Bulletin

By the 20^th century, 16th-century maps of Mexico City were not new, but their value was renewed by an urban elite grappling with the nation's historical geography. The capital saw fresh developments, including modern architecture and industry, while early excavations offered glimpses of Aztec Tenochtitlan buried beneath. This stratigraphic tension necessitated a reckoning; of concern here is the way that visual and intellectual cultures engaged in a particular cartographic reckoning. Colonial maps filled a void as artists, architects, art historians, and others worked to reconcile Mexico City’s modern identity with its ancient foundations.

Gaspar Octavio Hernández, Un Poeta Modernista, Karina Ayodele Clarke Murrain

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Panama is known empirically for its geography, climate and natural environment, so it is not surprising that the Afro-Panamanian writer and journalist, Gaspar Octavio Hernández (1893-1918) uses climate and natural conditions as inspirations for his writing. As a modernista, it is entirely plausible that Hernández was attracted to and compelled by both the process and the production of writing poetry. As we approach his work critically, it is evident that Hernández explores nature in his work and his acknowledgment thereof is the principal motivation of his poetry. From this point, Hernández establishes not only a framework for exploring themes …

Hombres En Movimiento: Masculinidades Españolas En Los Exilios Y Emigraciones, 1939–1999, Iker González-Allende

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Hombres en movimiento: Masculinidades españolas en los exilios y emigraciones, 1939–1999, de Iker González-Allende, es el primer estudio detallado de cómo el exilio y la emigración influyen en la masculinidad de los hombres españoles, tanto heterosexuales como homosexuales, que se ven obligados a abandonar su país. En el libro, González-Allende analiza la literatura producida por escritores españoles que desde 1939 hasta finales del siglo XX han experimentado el exilio o la emigración, cubriendo tres momentos históricos: el largo exilio republicano como consecuencia de la Guerra Civil Española (1936–1939), la emigración a Europa durante la década de 1960 debido a …

Engaging The Archive And Its Absences: Futures Of Digital Scholarship And Teaching, Kelley Kreitz

Bucknell University Digital Scholarship Conference

Kelley specializes in nineteenth-century U.S. and Latin American literary studies, Latinx studies, digital humanities, and comparative media studies as an Assistant Professor of English at Pace University. In her research and teaching, she explores the role of media change past and present in enabling and inspiring shifts in the way we tell stories about current affairs. Kelley is also the co-founder and co-director of Babble Lab, a digital humanities center at Pace that seeks to reimagine how we teach the humanities through the use of data, design, and code and through the study of the new media of the …

Reggaeton And Female Narratives, Melanie P. Pangol

Student Publications

Reggaeton has become a cultural factor all throughout Latin America and among the Latino population in the United States. Reggaeton is now a Latino music phenomenon that has become part of the mainstream not only in Latin American countries but also in the United States; many American artists such as Drake, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, and Will Smith are collaborating with reggaeton artists such as J-Balvin, Bad Bunny, Ozuna, and others. Therefore, although most reggaeton artists come from Puerto Rico, reggaeton has established a visible presence in the Latino community in the United States where it has become prominent in …

“You Could See Rage”: Visual Testimony In Post-Genocide Guatemala, Lacey M. Schauwecker

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Since the Guatemalan genocide against Maya populations (1981-1983), domestic and international human rights groups have organized truth commissions, forensic exhumations, and legal cases. These efforts to secure justice have achieved minimal success, prompting a reconsideration of the relationship among narrative testimony, visual testimony, and institutional standards of truth. Engaging the ideas of visual studies scholar, Nicholas Mirzoeff, I argue for the political importance of testimony that is critical of such standards, including those enforced by human rights’ legal paradigm. Following Mirzoeff’s understandings of “visuality” and “countervisuality,” I analyze “visual testimony” as that which acknowledges the dynamic interplay between word and …

El Género Y La Sexualidad Como Herramientas Coloniales: Lo Que Significa Ser Epupillan (Dos-Espíritu) En Contextos Mapuche / Gender And Sexuality As Colonial Tools: What It Means To Be Epupillan (Two-Spirit) In Mapuche Contexts, Sophia Knowlton-Latkin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Demuestro cómo la imposición de las normas europeas de género y sexualidad a los pueblos indígenas no es sólo un resultado de la colonización, sino más bien cómo se ha utilizado como herramienta de colonización, con atención específica de cómo se relaciona con ser un mapuche epupillan (dos-espíritu) viviendo en Chile. Sostengo que estas categorías de organización social mediante normas coaccionadas y impuestas de género y sexualidad han funcionado históricamente y actualmente para colonizar a los pueblos indígenas e incorporarlos al modelo capitalista del trabajo en Chile. Para lograr esto, no doy por hecho estas categorías de identidad, de género …

Antropofagia, Calibanism, And The Post-Romero Zombie: Cannibal Resistance In Latin America And The Caribbean, David S. Dalton

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

This study uses zombie theory to flesh out common themes between Oswald de Andrade’s The Cannibalist Manifesto and Roberto Fernández Retamar’s Calibán. While both of these canonical Latin Americanist thinkers theorized literary and cultural cannibalism as a resistant act that could challenge the hegemony of Western cosmologies and aesthetics, very little scholarship has thought to reconcile—or even juxtapose—these men’s thought. The article asserts a shared camaraderie between Latin American people of color and the zombie’s of the region’s cultural production by emphasizing both entities’ association (fair or not) with cannibalism in the Western imaginary. When viewed through this framework, …

Environment, Urbanization, And Public Health: The Bubonic Plague Epidemic Of 1912 In San Juan, Puerto Rico, Ann Zulawski

Latin American and Latino/a Studies: Faculty Publications

In this article I focus on the nexus of urbanization, the environment and public health that was exposed by the 1912 bubonic plague epidemic in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I utilize the concept of “urban health penalty,” developed by demographic historians of the industrial revolution in Europe, to account for the declining health of the working class in cities. While in Europe poor health among the urban poor was associated with industrialization, I argue that in San Juan chaotic, unplanned urbanization reflected the effects of colonialism. I further examine how the epidemic exacerbated the class and racial divisions that contributed …

Ansiedades Épico-Criollas Y El Mecenazgo De Indias En El Arauco Domado De Pedro De Oña, Andrea L. Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Among the characteristics of epic poetry are the topic of war, love encounters, heroism of exemplary individuals, and the narration of events contemporary to the audience to reinforce a collective historical identity. Arauco domado by Pedro de Oña, born in Angol (modern Chile), reiterates these traditional expectations with its protagonist, characters, setting, and latter theatrical representations within the viceregal context. The poem was made possible by the sponsorship of García Hurtado de Mendoza y Manrique, IV Marquis of Cañete and Viceroy of Peru. If the title of “espíritu cesarino novelo” [Caesar’s new spirit] (V.76.3) corresponds to the patron, Pedro de …

El Narcotráfico Como Realidad Y Representación En La Narrativa De Germán Castro Caycedo, Edgar Augusto Verastegui

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The work of the Colombian author Germán Castro Caycedo (Bogotá, 1944) has produced some of Colombia's most widely read non-fiction works during the last five decades. Among other intellectuals, his work represents a post-1970s Colombian society conditioned by the complex issue of drugs and drug trafficking, which were the by-products of a socio-historical process since the beginning of the 20th century. The present investigation examines journalistic articles, essays and non-fiction narrative by Castro Caycedo to study how they articulate a privileged knowledge about the perception and signification of the phenomenon of drug trafficking. From a merely anecdotal and marginal activity, …

El Negro Y El Haitiano En La Literatura Dominicana De La Diáspora, Juan Nicolás Tineo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes the diverse representations of blackness and Haitian culture in the literary works of the Dominican diaspora. First, the texts of the Dominican diaspora that highlight Africa are analyzed in order to determine to what extent these works represent real historical and social phenomena accurately, and in what ways these texts question or present other realities that have not been studied by the critics. It may be said that the writers of the diaspora allude to their African heritage because it was in the United States that they discovered their true racial identities. It is because of this …

August 30, 2018: Breaking Down Borders Through International Collaboration: Cuban Repositories And Us Institutions, Latin American And Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives (Laccha) And The Society Of American Archivists (Saa)

Desmantelando Fronteras/Breaking Down Borders Webinar Announcements

Librarians and digital project coordinators from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Florida discuss their respective projects related to digitization capacity-building with Cuban cultural heritage institutions.

Jennifer Osorio

Interim Head, International Studies, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)

Margarita Vargas-Betancourt

Latin American and Caribbean Special Collections Librarian, University of Florida

Jessica English

Cuban Heritage Coordinator, University of Florida

Research Paper Assignment For Modern Art In Latin America, Anna Indych-Lopez

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Graphic Representations Of Grammatical Gender In Spanish Language Anarchist Publications, Mariel Mercedes Acosta Matos

Publications and Research

This paper offers a descriptive analysis of the suffixes -@, -x, -e and other orthographic innovations as transgressions to the genderedness of Spanish language. First I discuss the grammatical rules of expressing gender in Spanish and a summary of the ongoing debates concerning linguistic sexism and androcentrism in Spanish language. Then I present some examples of the gender neutral suffixes drawn from articles found in 3 “Do It Yourself” journals published online by three anarchist collectives in Latin America.

Enseñar Superpoderes: La Importancia De Una Educación Bilingüe, Camryn Potter

Best Integrated Writing

This argumentative essay deals with a well-known topic in the field of linguistics, methodology and education. The topic, however, has not been exhausted, so Camryn Potter’s reflections insert her in a generation of new advocates of second language teaching. In detailed progression and with a clear style, Potter conveys her vision: it is true that when learning a second language, a person acquires skills beneficial for the brain and the holistic human condition. Although passionate about the topic, Potter does not jump to conclusions. On the contrary, she explores different pros and cons. An educator at heart, she invites the …

Will To Remember: Counter-Archives In The Work Of Alvarez, Danticat, And Díaz, Megan Elizabeth Feifer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation argues the essays, fiction, non-fiction, and non-profit work of authors Julia Alvarez, Edwidge Danticat, and Junot Díaz produce counter-narratives that when assembled, create a counter-archive of the Rafael Leonidas Trujillo dictatorship and its lasting effects. To support this claim, I analyze the various genres and medias they employ throughout the late 20^thand early 21^st centuries as redressing not only the “official” state history of the dictatorship, but also the overarching construction of history with a capital “H”. Through a close reading of form and the thematic concerns present in their work, I demonstrate how they …

Cuban Vintage Car Culture, Zachary H. White

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

The purpose of this research was to investigate the culture surrounding the vintage American cars found in Cuba. Through preliminary research, the researcher determined Cubans are continuing to use these cars as a means of transportation as well as a source of income. They have kept the cars maintained by recycling parts from other cars, tractors, and boats, as well as buying new parts from the black market. Once they have been repaired, many owners around major cities use them as taxis. This is so that the owners can afford to maintain them as well as provide additional income for …