Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

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 …

“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 …

Mapping Memory: Locational Memory In The First-Person Narrative Of Three Latinx Writers, Stephanie R. Beasley

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Locational memory, which relies upon our natural inclination to store and recall images, adds spatial orientation to a narrative, and provides an accessible framework for the recreation of the past in first-person narrative. The power of locational imagery as a device of memory is both historically and scientifically supported. It is essential to the system of artificial memory that the ancient Greeks called a memory palace, described by both Mary Carruthers and Paul Ricouer. Scientifically, studies show that the strongest autobiographical memories are based on visual imagery and that recall of specific locations provides a cognitive basis for the recreation …

First-Person Politics: Strategies Of Latin/X American Women To Change The Neoliberal Requirements For Empowerment And Inclusion One Share, Like, Subscribe At A Time, Marlee Northcutt

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This project investigates the strategies of Latin/x American women who have used their voices and influence in the media to break barriers, enter spaces that have excluded them, and advocate for changes so that young girls like them do not have to face these same limitations. Chapter One investigates politicians who, from their political power positions, interweave personal stories with their accomplishments to provide role models for these careers. Chapter Two identifies actors who combine their personal stories with activist causes to alter representation in TV and film. The YouTubers in Chapter Three bolster a rhetoric of empowerment to encourage …

Propuestas De Autoría Y Datación En El Teatro De Lope De Vega A La Luz De La Inteligencia Artificial, Álvaro Cuéllar

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the numerous authorship and dating problems presented by the Spanish Golden Age theatre. Specifically, it focuses on Lope de Vega (1562-1635), a notable and highly successful playwright of this period. Through the compilation of a wide set of texts and the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques (machine learning), a control corpus is evaluated to find the best systems and parameters. Once this evaluation has been undertaken, a large group of plays is analyzed to try to obtain results that can illuminate some real problems of authorship and dating in relation …

Estrategias Populistas: Un Acercamiento Al Discurso Político Español Desde La Lingüística De Corpus, Alicia Juncos Zori

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation explores populist discourse in the June 2016 Spanish election campaign through the construction and analysis of a corpus of political speeches. As a result of the economic, social, and institutional crisis that began in 2008, Spain underwent a governmental restructuring with two new parties PODEMOS (Unidas Podemos) and CIUDADANOS (C’s). This transformation breaks with the classic political model, which alternated power between PARTIDO POPULAR (Popular Party) and PSOE (The Spanish Socialist Party). In my research, I analyze discursive strategies employed by the leading Spanish political parties to discover how PODEMOS differs linguistically and discursively from other groups. …

Vidas Precarias: Crisis Económica De 2008 En El Cine Y La Literatura Españolas, Abraham Prades-Mengibar

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The collapse of the real estate bubble in 2008 brought an economic crisis that began to spread throughout the world, and Spain was one of the countries most negatively impacted. During the Great Recession, the governments of PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) and PP (Partido Popular) didn’t present viable solutions to end the crisis. Instead, they enforced drastic economic cutbacks. Meanwhile, the governments subsidized the banks to rescue them; in theory, to save the Spanish economy. However, the Spanish population continued to suffer the effects of economic crisis. Writers and filmmakers used their work to call attention to the negative …

Complex Ecologies And Unruly Bodies In Rosa Montero’S Speculative Fiction, Kiersty Lemon-Rogers

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Rosa Montero’s work stands out for its compassionate and rich view of humanity. My study is a comparative analysis of Montero’s six Speculative Fiction (SF) novels and four volumes of her collected columns, selected for the proximity of their publication to the SF novels. Montero expresses her ethos directly through her weekly columns in El País and through her novels, which have the potential to attract a different readership than her journalism. Her SF novels, in particular, allow Montero to address contemporary problems in settings that allow readers to suspend their disbelief and connect with her narrative, rather than rejecting …

El Bildungsroman Femenino Mexicano: Nuevas Perspectivas De La Novela De Formación Femenina Fronteriza, Yorki Junior Encalada Egúsquiza

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The late 20^th and early 21^st centuries have not only favored a steady growth in Chicana literary production but have also revealed an alternative identity of the Mexican American border woman, the meXicana. Rosa Linda Fregoso, in MeXicana Encounters (2003), coins and defines this term as “the interface between Mexicana and Chicana,” and employs it to examine the experiences and representations of Mexicanas and Chicanas without eliminating the differences between them. This study borrows this term but uses it specifically to describe North American women of Mexican origin whose identities and border-crossing experiences make it difficult to solely …

Terminal Youth: The Failure Narrative Of The Dysfunctional Family As The Non-Viability Of Capitalist Economic Liberalism In Contemporary Latin American Film, Sharrah Lane

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This project examines the desire for national and international belonging and citizenship in the figure of the child intersectionally marked by race, class, and gender in contemporary Latin American film, a desire that is ultimately met only with precarity and violence. Chapter One analyzes the figure of the orphaned street child in terms of the desire for connection with a mother figure as a stand-in for the lack of affective community in Pixote: a lei do mais fraco (Brazil, 1981), La vendedora de rosas (Colombia, 1998), and Huelepega: ley de la calle (Venezuela, 1999) in which the protagonists either die, …

Poéticas Minimalistas De La Ciudad Contemporánea: Iribarren, Mínguez Y Del Val, David Delgado López

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Throughout the Spanish poetic production of the 20^th century, cities have developed a relevant role as a recurring space at the same time as society urbanized and an exodus took place from agricultural areas to the work centers offered by the cities. Since the second half of the 19^th century the city has been the meeting place for people from different backgrounds where the poet found, from his exclusive point of view, a new universe to develop in his work. However, the evolution of capitalist society sponsored the poet's transition from an artist to a worker in the …

El Enclave Bananero En Las Novelas Centroamericanas De Miguel Angel Asturias, Ramon Amaya Amador Y Carlos Luis Fallas, Johana Pérez Weisenberger

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The Central American literary community and historiographical critics maintain a constant dialogue in regards to banana literature. Authors such as Asturias, Fallas, and Amador capture the pervasive nature of the banana enclave in their works. My research reveals the ways in which capitalist power controls and redefines spaces in the banner enclave. By taking a closer look these novels reveal the monopolistic power of the United Fruit Company exploits and destroys the natural space, this manuscript becomes a geographical map of the fictionalized banana enclaves, exposing the capitalist oppressing forces, which dominate nature and control the company workers.

Chapter one …

Las Islas En La Literatura Castellana De La Baja Edad Media, Martha Elena Granados Sáenz

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation explores references to islands in 13^th and 14^th century Iberian literature in a corpus of encyclopedias, travel books and chivalry novels from 1223 through 1396. I explore how island geography became part of the Medieval imago mundi. Many Medieval readers were interested in these faraway lands where, they believed, monstrous races flourished, sea monsters lurked, and Paradise awaited to be rediscovered. The physical and human geography featured in these narratives, gave birth to an imaginary, utopian, exotic, extravagant, and mysterious concept of “islandness” located in idyllic places to be interpreted as cognitive maps of the …

Encuentro Con La Precariedad: La Reaparición Del Gitano En El Cine Documental Español De La Crisis De 2008, María Julia De León Hernández

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

In 2008, Spain’s financial crisis had a great impact on the primary sector on which the nation’s ‘economic miracle’ was founded: housing.Land speculation, the increase in housing construction, and easy loans had become one of the hallmarks of twenty-first-century Spanish identity. The crisis del ladrillo (“brick crisis”) plunged the national economy into chaos and condemned many Spanish citizens to job insecurity, loss of earning power, threat of eviction, and put them at high risk of social marginalization. This dissertation studies the unusual proliferation of documentary films during the years surrounding this economic downturn about the ghettoization of the Spanish Gypsy …

Itexts: Techxtual Poetics, Authorship And Re-Wreaders In 21St-Century Spanish Literature, Joshua M. Hoekstra

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

In 2007, Nuria Azancot published an article in the magazine El Cultural in which she identified a burgeoning group of Spanish writers that she referred to as the “Nocilla Generation.” The catalyst behind the article was a literary reunion that took place weeks before in Seville and brought together authors from all parts of Spain to talk about the status and future of writing. She described them as “transgressors” and “bloggers” who hybridized literary genres and held a revolutionary approach to the literary that was clearly marked by the Internet. Numerous articles and dissertations have since highlighted the impact that …

La Ciudad De Las Letradas: Reescribiendo Santo Domingo En La Narrativa Femenina Urbana Dominicana Del Nuevo Milenio, Lucía M. Montás

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

In the last few decades, Dominican female writers have contributed significantly to the literary representation of the city of Santo Domingo and urban life. This dissertation studies how these female writers produce a cultural paradigm for criticizing the urban crisis in the Dominican Republic that at times is at odds with much narrative written by men and with key concepts in Urban Theory that are taken for granted. The authors I study, Ángela Hernández, Emilia Pereyra, Emelda Ramos, Aurora Arias and Rita Indiana Hernández, understand the city and redefine the urban model by expressing their dissatisfaction in the civilizing and …

La Representación De Los Ecuatorianos En España: El Discurso Como Expresión De Poder, Racismo E Ideologías, Francesco Masala

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation focuses on the representation of Ecuadorians in Spain between 2000 and 2015 in literature, film and the press. After enduring a decade of economic, climatic, and political problems, more than 175,000 Ecuadorians emigrated to Spain in 2001 alone (Herrera 2005). This process marked the beginning of a major migratory movement which has caused Spain to become a premier destination. The response to such migration has been disparate, yet both Ecuadorian and Spanish artists as well as the Spanish press have shown the different perspectives related to a discriminatory ideology. This dissertation focuses on three cultural products and three …

Letras De Uma Resistência: Fantasmas Transgeneracionais E Ditadura. Brasil, Argentina E Cuba 1964-2002, Fabrício Silva

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

During the period of military government in Argentina, Brazil (1964 –1982) and the present day communist Cuban regime, a machinery of cultural repression was established in these countries, these states had a systematic plan of cultural repression of any kind of opposition, dictatorships had an organized and sophisticated operating control over the press and all publications. The dissident writers examined in this dissertation developed strategies of resistance that depended largely on allegory to carry their messages against their respective oppressive regimes. By means of a detailed rhetorical analysis, our study examines the lookings of allegory and cultural resistance under the …

A Case For Empathy: Immigration In Spanish Contemporary Media, Music, Film, And Novels, Constantin C. Icleanu

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation analyzes the representations of immigrants from North Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe in Spain. As engaged scholarship, it seeks to better the portrayal of immigrants in the mass media through the study of literature, film, and music about immigration spanning from the year 2000 to 2016. Because misconceptions continue to propagate in the media, this dissertation works to counteract anti-immigrant, xenophobic representations as well as balance out overly positive and orientalized portrayal of immigrants with a call to recognize immigrants as human beings who deserve the same respect, dignity, and rights as any other citizen.

Chapter 1 …

Modernidades Contra-Natura: Crítica Ilustrada, Prensa Periódica Y Cultura Manuscrita En El Siglo Xviii Americano, Kevin R. Sedeño-Guillén

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation studies the emergence of literary history and criticism in the Americas during the eighteenth century. It focuses upon the study of 1.) Natural history as a matrix of literary history and criticism; 2.) The geopolitical functions of literary history and criticism in the periodical press; and 3.) The recovery of manuscripts as a residual product of modernity. Texts associated with a hegemonic Enlightenment, such as “Disertación sobre el derecho público universal” by Francisco Javier de Uriortúa, are analyzed. Next, we study modern historical-critical thought as emphasized in the periodical press of Bogotá and Quito. Finally, the circulation of …

¿Pero Tú Qué Te Has Creído, Que La Guerra Es Una Broma? La Seriedad Del Humor En Diferentes Representaciones Culturales De La Guerra Civil Española, Maria Jesus Lopez Soriano

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation analyzes selected pieces of work related to the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) produced during the twenty-first-century as cultural artifacts to be considered in their historical and socio-political context. Specifically, my dissertation focuses on the relationship between the way the conflict is depicted and the message it conveys. Parting from the premise that there has been an overproduction of lieu de mémoire that has transformed the Spanish war into a cultural trend, the civil war-esque, I study a number of humor works. Precisely, these humorous works deconstruct such trend by considering its most common characteristics: the use of metafiction …

Blancura Situacional E Imperio Español En Su Historia, Cine Y Literatura (S.Xix-Xx), Jose Maria Perez Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation studies identity formation and race informed by the discipline Whiteness Studies. As such this dissertation conceptualizes Spanish Whiteness historically and analyzes its representation in Spanish narrative in prose and film. This research responds to two questions: 1) How has Spanish culture historically instrumentalized Blackness thus contributing to the creation of the Western’s conceptualization of Whiteness? 2) What does Spanish representation of Empire say about its Whiteness? In an effort to answer these questions, this study is divided into two parts that correspond to the conceptualization and representation of what are termed ‘Situational Whiteness’ and ‘Imperial Spanish Orientalism.’ I …

Indigenista Heroes And Femmes Fatales: Myth-Making In Latin American Literature And Film, Megan O'Neil

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation explores myth-making in Latin America by focusing specifically upon four Amerindian and mestizo figures: Doña Bárbara, mestiza protagonist of Rómulo Gallegos’ 1929 novel; Anacaona and Hatuey, Taíno caciques who first appeared in Bartolomé de las Casas’ Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (1552); and Andrés Chiliquinga, indigenous protagonist of Jorge Icaza’s Huasipungo (1934). The present analysis examines the evolution of these myths from their original appearance to literary and film versions throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries in the Caribbean and Andean regions. The project focuses upon the ways in which artists have interpreted these …

Eating Spain: National Cuisine Since 1900, Matthew J. Wild

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Analyzing cookbooks, gastronomic guides, literature and film, this dissertationoutlines the creation of a Spanish national cuisine. Studying the works of Carmen de Burgos, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Dionisio Pérez, Ana María Herrera, Juan Mari Arzak and Ferrán Adrià among others, the project examines the evolution of this nationalist discourse by identifying common and recurring themes in an effort to extrapolate and describe the historical and cultural evolution of food from 1900 to the present day.

Within the framework of Food and Cultural Studies, this project treats cookbooks, culinary manifestos and guidebooks as texts. Influenced by a variety of culinary and gastronomic …

La Trinidad Vallejiana: Política, Religión Y Lenguaje En Fernando Vallejo, 1994-2010, Oswaldo Ortegon

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation engages a reading of three important themes in the narrative of Fernando Vallejo (1942- ) between 1994 and 2010: religion, politics and language. The dissertation concentrates on five novels: La virgen de los sicarios (1994), El desbarrancadero (2001), La Rambla paralela (2002), Mi hermano el alcalde (2004) y El don de la vida (2010). All three of the themes we explore are thematic trademarks of the former Spanish Empire that soured Vallejo’s arcadian dream of Santa Anita, a Paradise Lost or ideal nation that triggers the grammarian narrator´s desire of Vallejo’s works. Vallejo´s elusive satisfaction of that desire …

Ekphrasis And Avant-Garde Prose Of 1920s Spain, Brian M. Cole

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation analyzes the prose works of the “Nova Novorum,” a fiction series created and published by José Ortega y Gasset between 1926 and 1929. This collection included six works by four authors, five of which will be discussed in this dissertation. Pedro Salinas’ Víspera del gozo (1926) inaugurated the series. Benjamín Jarnés published two works: El profesor inútil (1926) and Paula y Paulita (1929). Antonio Espina is also responsible for two works: Pájaro pinto (1927) and Luna de copas (1929).

The dissertation is divided into five sections. The first chapter introduces the topic of avant-garde prose during the 1920s …

Largo Viaje En Breve. La Minificción De Max Aub, María Luisa Elío Y José De La Colina En El Exilio, Gonzalo Hernández-Baptista

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

A pesar del interés que suscita, la minificción del exilio republicano español en México ha sido mayormente ignorada por la crítica y, cuando se ha reparado en ella, su acercamiento descontextualizado ha provocado inexactitudes que se reflejan en el canon minificcional propuesto para la Península. Por ello, examino algunas vías de contacto entre el exterior y el interior de España y propongo una primera aproximación a un corpus de autores en exilio, entre los que destacan Max Aub, María Luisa Elío y José de la Colina.

Además, el estudio de estos tres autores revela una minificción que no está ubicada …

El Despertar De Las Voces Dormidas: La Memoria En Cuatro Novelas Sobre Mujeres En La Guerra Civil Española Y La Posguerra, Ana Pociello Sampériz

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

During the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, the fear of being denounced and subsequently punished contributed to the social silence that became the norm during Franco´s dictatorship. This was then reinforced during democracy through an implicit pact of oblivion. After the death of Franco, as an attempt to avoid reopening wounds, successive democratic governments decided not to agitate the ghost of the civil war, due to its traumatic nature. The consequence of such a pact of oblivion is the lack of information about the past, continually suffered by subsequent generations. Furthermore, Francoism legally imposed the subordination of women to …

For The Love Of Robots: Posthumanism In Latin American Science Fiction Between 1960-1999, Grace A. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Posthumanism—understood as a symbiotic relationship between humans and technology—is quickly and surely becoming an inextricable part of daily life. In an era where technology can be worn as an extension of—and an enhancement to—our bodies, traditional science fiction tropes such as robots and cyborgs resurface and reformulate questions on critical aspects of human experience: who are we and what do our (imagined) technologies say about our world? Such questions are far more complex than they appear. Their answers should not come from one source alone, as humanness is experienced differently across time and cultural systems. In this sense, it is …

Crítica Contextural: El Corazón Del Instante De Alberto Blanco: Ensayo De Un Método, Carlos Zamora-Zapata

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The most common approaches to arranged Poetic Collection are the chronological and the bibliographical orders, that is, the ones that privileges a book that normally would be called an anthology: the arrangements of poems following the order of the compositions of the poems (chronological), or the order of previous publications (bibliographical). "El corazón del instante" (The Heart of the Instant, 1998) by the Mexican poet Alberto Blanco (Mexico City, 1951) is a collection of twelve books of poems in one volume. The books in the collection --or the “chapters”, as Alberto Blanco call them in his “Introductory Note” of the …