Latin American Literature Commons^™

Me Veo A Mi Mismo Leyendo : Ricardo Piglia’S Aesthetic Education In Los Diarios De Emilio Renzi, D. Bret Leraul

Faculty Journal Articles

This article examines Ricardo Piglia’s relationship to the literary field as an aesthetic education that emerges from the encounter between his field-shaping poetics and its reflection among critics, or critical mimesis. Piglia’s field poetics are exemplified by the disjunctive “I” that narrates the diaries, the misattribution of their authorship to Piglia’s longtime alter ego Emilio Renzi, and a constant representation of acts of self-observation. The architecture of the diaristic subject is wedded to its institutional inscription; that is, the form of this subject is the communion of readers and writers in the autobiographical and autofictive genres. Similarly, material inscription not …

Del Ornitorrinco A La Radio Ambulante: La Nueva Crónica Latinoamericana En La Era Neoliberal, Ulises Gonzales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the presence of neoliberal hegemonic imaginaries in narrative journalism written in Latin America between 1995 and 2021.

There are strong connections between a period of decline in the readership of some of the authors of the so-called “Latin American Boom,” the penetration of neoliberal economic policies in the region (with the privatization of State companies and the expansion of the telecommunications industry), and the renewed interest in non-fiction writing published by a number of print publications in the region during the last decade of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century, as in magazines …

Ephemeral Elsewheres: Locating Narratives Of Resignation, Resistance, And Refusal In The Poetry Of Black Cuban And Black Brazilian Women, Aidan Keys

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay dissects the language of Latin American revolution and nationalism to locate the body of the black woman and the appropriation of her image. In two seemingly incommensurable radical movements—the Cuban Revolution (1952-1959) and the Brazilian Unified Black Movement (1978-)—the contributions of Black women are unevenly recognized. Reading the poetry of cubanas Nancy Morejón and Georgina Herrera and brasileiras Sônia Fátima and Esmeralda Ribeiro, this essay claims that in both contexts, the Black woman is marginalized to a geographic “elsewhere.” Expanding on this term, coined by scholar Carol Boyce Davies, this essay further identifies temporal and ephemeral “elsewheres.” The …

“El Inglés Y El Spánich”: Translating The Heterolingualism Of La Frontera–A Critical Translation Of Luis Humberto Crosthwaite’S Estrella De La Calle Sexta, Nora E. Carr

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation offers an original translation and critical analysis of Crosthwaite’s Estrella de la calle sexta. In so doing it engages with recent work on contemporary Latin American literature, translation theory, and border theory, while also offering a version of Crosthwaite’s text—itself a seminal work in studies of the Tijuanan imaginary—that will be accessible to anglophone readers. The critical chapters, too, will allow scholars of the border to revisit the stories of Estrella through the lenses of language, translation, and heterolingualism. Chapter One offers a reevaluation of the mode of translation theory that posits translation as a textual transfer from …

Las Voces Desde La Liminalidad Sino-Peruana: –Una Lectura Comparativa De Mongolia Y La Vida No Es Una Tómbola–, Jing Tan

LSU Master's Theses

Chinese immigrants first arrived in Peru in the mid-19th Century. Since then, the Sino-Peruvian community has lived through myriad vicissitudes. Today, despite its indisputable influence in Peru’s history, it is still largely invisible in society, just as the concept of an Asian Latin American identity remains elusive in the national consciousness. In the literary and academic world, the scarcity of a voice highlighting Chinese legacies in Peruvian literature is echoed by the dearth of such a voice in the criticism regarding works by Sino-Peruvian writers about Sino-Peruvian experiences.

This comparative analysis engages with two novels that evince deep parallelism with …

El Ascendiente Latinoamericano En La Literatura Euskaldun: “Realismo Mágico”, “Literatura Mundial” Y La Emergencia Del Campo Literario Vasco, Gustavo Jimenez Vaquero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation, “El ascendiente latinoamericano en la literatura euskaldun: ‘realismo mágico’, ‘literatura mundial’ y la emergencia del campo literario vasco” (“The Latin American Ascendency of Basque Literature: ‘magical realism,’ ‘world literature’ and the emergence of the Basque literary field”), analyzes the influence of Latin American literature in the formation of modern Basque literature vis-a-vis contemporary debates of World Literature. Contradicting the nationalist agenda governing the metanarrative elaborated by Basque literary histories, my work uncovers the Latin American ascendency of modern Basque literature in the canonical works of a group of Basque writers who played a key role in the modernization …

Pensar El Límite: El Símbolo Indígena En Los Proyectos Políticos Cubanos De Principios Del Siglo Xix, Jorge L. Camacho

The Coastal Review

This article investigates the way in which Cuban literature reflected on indigenous people during the early half of the nineteenth century and uses the symbol of the Amerindians to demonstrate a moral disjuncture between them and the colonizer. In this article, I call attention to the way Cuban independentists and Spanish nationalists used this figure to support their views and thus created a split in the Cuban creole imagination. I start by pointing out that these appropriations started at the end of the 18th century when historian José Martín Félix de Arrate, and poets such as Miguel González and Manuel …

La “Border Culture” Del Personaje Mexicoamericano En El Sureste De Estados Unidos En Los Cuentos De Lorraine López Y Mijito Doesn’T Live Here Anymore De Jaime Martínez, Jaime Chavez

The Coastal Review

This paper explores the concepts of "Border Culture" and "Borderlands" by Gloria Anzaldúa in Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories, Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, by Lorraine López and the novel Mijito Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Jaime Martínez. The paper argues that the Mexican American character in the southeast of the United States lives in the "Borderlands" and practices a "Border Culture" because they don't follow the traditional stereotypical role of the Mexican American character within the literary canon of both the dominant culture and Chicana/o literature.

Ciudad, Movimiento Y Transformación: "23 Segundos" En Dos Tiempos, Mariana Pensa

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

En este trabajo se realiza una lectura del film uruguayo 23 Segundos (2014, dirigido por Dimitry Rudakov). Un punto de entrada al mismo nos remite a los conceptos de acción/inacción, desde donde la intriga toma cuerpo y comienza a formarse. A partir de esto, se focaliza en el personaje principal de Emiliano, y en su recorrido por Montevideo, recorrido que se transforma a lo largo de la película en una forma de adquisición de conocimiento sobre sí mismo y los demás. Esto lo lleva ultimamente a un cambio de vida, a la superación de la alienación y la rutina. Es …

2021 Seccll Conference Program, Seccll Conference

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

Conference program for the 2021 SECCLL.

Desde El Fuego Que En Mí Arde: Performance, Literatura Y Cine Afro-Latinoamericano Producidos Por Mujeres Afrodescendientes En Perú, Cuba Y Brasil (1960–2000), Elena Ekatherina Chavez Goycochea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines different films, literary, and performance art pieces created by contemporary afro-descendant women from Peru, Cuba, and Brazil after the sixties with emphasis on the most relevant works of Conceição Evaristo, Sara Gómez, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Lucía Charún-Illescas. I focus my research on the crucial role these artists played in the cultural identity formation of Latin America when inserting ‘race’ as a category of socio-political analysis and cultural production. How did their films, performances, and texts challenge national narratives and imaginaries after 1960? Although in the sixties, women improved their civil rights in different countries, the ‘mujer …

Comparing African Cultural Retention And Its Effect On Racial Attitudes In The Music And National Identities Of Cuba And The United States, Lucie Turkel

Honors Scholar Theses

This project investigates to what extent the African roots of popular music in Cuba and the United States are acknowledged and examines if this level of cultural acknowledgement has any influence on the postcolonial social, cultural, and economic treatment of African Americans and Afro-Cubans. Does a greater and/or more widespread acceptance of African cultural retention and overall African heritage in a country’s national identity help alleviate racism in that country? Using primary sources from Cuban and American music and cultural periodicals, economic statistics, and political and cultural histories, I have determined that Cuba has a higher level of African cultural …

A World Of Infinite Possibilities: Recoding Popular Culture In Modern U.S. Ethnic Fiction, Todd Martinez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project examines how the U.S. ethnic authors Ralph Ellison, Maxine Hong Kingston and Junot Díaz reflect the dynamic, reciprocal process of transculturation by decoding popular cultural forms. Using strategies made available by cultural studies, hemispheric theory and neoMarxism, critical attention will be directed to each author’s major literary work: Ellison’s Invisible Man, Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey, and Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This dissertation further analyzes a hitherto overlooked area of U.S. multiethnic literary studies: the ethnic subject’s relationship to encoded popular culture forms and how they impact dentity formation. Recent scholarship has focused on the ethnic …

Framing The Border: Liminality In The Network Narratives Of Alejandro González Iñárritu, Muhammad Muzammal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores liminality conveyed as displacement before death in the network narrative films of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Due to their depiction of existential crises and possibly fatal scenarios of several characters in different countries and regions, these network narrative films are colloquially referred to as the “Death Trilogy.” Therefore, rearranging the many strands of death-related abstractions and notions in these films around liminality becomes a jumping-off point to explore deeper layers of these works. Through interdisciplinary yet markedly film studies excavations, this thesis projects the liminal spaces of Iñárritu’s films onto border spaces. With borders considered as sites of …

Using A Smart Phone To Learn Spanish: Does It Work And Will Students Use It?, Andrew J. Demil, Alysha Assaf, Ryan Cragun

The Coastal Review

Over time, mobile devices have penetrated the classroom, requiring new and beneficial ways to implement classroom instruction. Research suggests that Short Message Service (SMS) based instruction is an effective tool for acquiring second language (L2) vocabulary and idiom knowledge (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu,). Additionally, studies have found that students believe that mobile learning (m-learning) is beneficial to acquiring a second language (Cavus & Ibrahim; Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu, 2008). This study examined whether m-learning can lead to Spanish vocabulary familiarity and if sentence comprehension outperforms reading definitions. Participants were 29 native English speakers studying Spanish as a second …

The Validity Of Online Learning And Teaching Of A Spanish Using An Online Delivery Mode, Rosalind Arthur

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

Incorporating Online learning as an optional delivery mode of instruction in tertiary institutions with traditional campuses has been the trend in recent years. The question is whether it should be offered universally or with some discrimination. The presenter teaches Spanish at an HBCU which has been offering some general education courses online during the summer.

Needless to say, while online programs are lucrative, it behooves the instructors and institutions to ascertain the viability of the product in terms of the learning needs of the target population. Must enrollment into these courses be open to all or be vetted in order …

El Asadito Y El Cumple: Personajes Y Espacio Como Formas De Significado, Mariana Pensa

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

El asadito y El cumple: personajes y espacio como formas de significado

En este ensayo se realiza una aproximación a los filmes El asadito (2000) y El cumple (2002) ambos dirigidos por el cineasta argentino Gustavo Postiglioni. Nos detendremos especialmente en la función connotadora del espacio y los personajes en los dos filmes, que remite tanto a una atmósfera espacial sofocante como a personajes alienados, anclados en una innacción existencial.

Observaremos cómo se va construyendo la tensión, expresando así la radiografía de un grupo de personajes que tienen una memoria común, y que se constituyen en síntomas y a la …

Conference Program 2020, Seccll Conference

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

SECCLL Conference Program for 2020

Un Acercamiento Al Fantástico Femenino Hispanoamericano, Campo Ricardo Burgos López

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

El texto es una reseña de la obra Fantastic Short Stories by Women Authors from Spain and Latin America (2019), una antología crítica de cuentos fantásticos escritos por mujeres de España y Latinoamérica editada por Patricia García y Teresa López-Pellisa.

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 …

The Haunting Parallel Amid Governmental Responses: Tlatelolco Massacre & The Covid-19 Pandemic, Chelsea Wepy

Publications and Research

The overall purpose of this analysis was to exemplify the parallels between the governmental responses to the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968 and the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020. “Memorial de Tlatelolco” is a poem that was written by Mexican poet and activist, Rosario Castellanos in 1968 following the Tlatelolco Massacre. The findings of this research note the familiarity instilled in those suffering through the COVID-19 Pandemic by Castellanos' poem.

Lost In Violence : Forging Memories From Legacies Of Neglect In Spanish And Peruvian Contemporary Novels, Jonathan James Oliveri

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation constitutes an examination and approximation of neglected violent pasts through an analysis of a selection of contemporary Spanish and Peruvian novels. The Spanish novels in question are as follows: Las leyes de la frontera (2012) written by Javier Cercas; Talco y bronce (2017) authored by Montero Glez; Yonqui (2014) and Cuando gritan los muertos (2018) written by Paco Gómez Escribano; and lastly Lumpen (2015) co-authored by Gómez Escribano and Luis Gutiérrez Maluenda. Additionally, the Peruvian novels which play a fundamental role in the present study are: Lituma en los Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa (1993); El cazador ausente …

A Story To Tell… How To Integrate The Three Modes Of Communication Through A Story Time Program In French, Frederique Grim

The Coastal Review

Bilingual story time programs found in local community libraries not only benefit children, they can also serve a need for L2 college students: the development of their communicative skills in an authentic environment. In addition to linguistic benefits, experiential learning has proven to prepare students for real-world skills, such as networking, mock professional experience and a sense of community engagement. This paper recounts how a world language story time program supports L2 learners’ three modes of communication, as articulated by ACTFL, and necessary for language development. Based on students’ perceptions, this study highlights their increase in motivation and confidence in …

Short Stories Of Latin America From Antilles To Southern Cone, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Open Educational Resources

The study of the short story genre in Latin American literature. Literary currents in 20th century, from the Vanguards to The Boom, fiction of post dictatorships, exile, and entry into the 21st century.

Female Experience Of Trauma And Mourning In Two Postconflict Novels Of El Salvador And Peru: Roza, Tumba, Quema By Claudia Hernández, And La Sangre De La Aurora By Claudia Salazar, Raquel Castro Salas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on how literature approaches the Salvadoran and Peruvian armed conflicts and contributes with perspectives of the female experience while offering illustrations of mourning processes. It is based on a close analysis of two postconflict novels that emerged after the publication of the corresponding truth commissions final reports. These novels are Roza, tumba, quema (2017) by Claudia Hernández from El Salvador, and La sangre de la aurora (2013) by Claudia Salazar from Peru. The contributions studied in this analysis focus on two areas: (1) a problematization of the female experience of the armed conflicts, and (2) a focus …

Transfigurations Of The News: True Fictions, Strange Thresholds, Jeffrey Peer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation compares twentieth-century literary journalism from the U.S. and Mexico, with a focus on the nonfiction novel and the Mexican chronicle. The dissertation considers the two genres both historically and theoretically, in order to distinguish the borders between literature and unscrupulous journalism. North American journalism is at the heart of a crisis over the epistemological status of facts and their place in our political discourse. Some have argued that works of literary nonfiction can damage social norms like journalistic objectivity. Others argue that forms like the chronicle and the nonfiction novel can describe experience better than news reports. This …

A Pilgrim’S Progress For The Digital, Post-Human(Ist) Age?: Social And Religious Allegory In Russell Banks’S Lost Memory Of Skin, David J. Buehrer Dr.

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

In Lost Memory of Skin (2011), his twelfth novel, Russell Banks continues his exploration of the dark underbelly of American society—in this instance, the moral wilderness of a group of convicted sex offenders exiled to living beneath a concrete causeway in the south Florida city of Calusa, a fictionalized Miami. Banks, who has long been “our premier chronicler of the doomed and forgotten American male” (Schulman 8), focuses in Lost on a twenty-two-year-old parolee referred to throughout only as “The Kid.” While guilty and duly convicted of propositioning an underage girl online for sex, The Kid is still presented in …

Realismo Y Exasperación: Un Estudio De Los Personajes Femeninos En La Pata De La Sota Y La Nona De Roberto Cossa, Mariana Pensa

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

En esta presentación analizamos las obras teatrales La pata de la sota (1967) y La Nona (1977), del dramaturgo argentino Roberto Cossa. Estos textos se constituyen en textos-faro del subsistema teatral del realismo reflexivo. El primero, uno que define la ortodoxia del universo realista, mientras que el segundo la supera, incorporando un universo muy cercano al absurdo y el sin sentido. Trabajando, entonces, desde las coordenadas del realismo y su evolución, nos focalizamos aquí en la relación madre-hija, para señalar cuáles y cómo son los cambios en la construcción de los personajes femeninos en el pasaje de una fase a …

Seccll Conference Program 2019, Seccll Conference

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

Conference Program 2019

The Child Ethnographer In The Field: Examples From English, Spanish, And French Caribbean Literature, Emily Ann O'Dell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation I consider the child to be an ethnographer in works of fiction and autofiction from the Caribbean islands. Through their liminality as culturally and developmentally betwixt or between, their cultural malleability, their linguistic fluidity, and their curiosity, the child becomes a "native" ethnographer who is capable of translating the culture (both linguistically and culturally) for the reader in order to establish understandings of Caribbean cultures. This is accomplished through the creation of hybridized or creolized texts that have many of the same characteristics as postmodern ethnographies.

In the English Caribbean Xuela provides an ethnographic perspective of Dominican …