Latin American Literature Commons^™

"El Corregidor" At The Crossroads: Desire, Law, And Coloniality In Martel's Zama, Leisa Kauffmann

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In "'El Corregidor at the Crossroads: Desire, Law and Coloniality in Martel's Zama" Leisa Kauffmann discusses Lucrecia Martel's filmic adaptation of Antonio DiBenedetto's 1952 novel, Zama. Highlighting the director's emphasis on the psychoanalytic (as opposed to the existentialist) dimensions of the novel, the essay follows the titular characater's unravelling and shows how Martel's film allegorizes colonial(ist) subjectivity. In Kauffmann's essay, various psychoanalytic theories (such as the work of Bhabha, Fanon, and Žižek), and critiques centering the notion of race in the Lacanian tradition are applied. In addition, differences between the novel and film, particularly regarding Zama's mutilation and …

The Call Of Cucurrucucú, Rachel Olivia Blair

Dissertations and Theses

This is a site of geologic excavation; where charged voices like porous monoliths and forked-tongue shapeshifters call out in fragmented polyphony. What lies broken or misshapen, what can be pieced back together.

What is purity when the body that is being inherited is drowning in murky waters.

Voices In The Borderlands: Reimagining Identity, Cultural Belonging, And Dystopian Spaces In Anzaldúa’S Borderlands And Viramontes’S “The Cariboo Café”, Oralia G. Ramos

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) and Helena María Viramontes’ short story “The Cariboo Café” (1985) portray marginalized individuals navigating liminal spaces of identity, oppression, and survival. Borderlands/La Frontera and “The Cariboo Café” show how systematic violence and displacement shatter the self, pushing characters to navigate trauma in a dystopian space. Sonya, Macky, the café owner, and the grieving mother represent Anzaldúa’s concepts of borderland subjectivity, betrayal, and spectral haunting.

Sonya and Macky, two undocumented children, represent Anzaldúa’s borderlands subjects and reside in a state of nepantla, an in-between space of cultural dislocation. The café owner …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

"Quiero Ser Hombre": Grito De Libertad Y Afirmación Feminista En La Obra De Carmen De Burgos Y Julia De Burgos, Lizely M. Lopez Cordero

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

A las escritoras Carmen de Burgos (España) y Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico) las separa un mar, las clases sociales y el tiempo. Aunque ambas escritoras comparten un apellido que está lejos de parentesco alguno, el denominador común que las une es la transgresión. Una transgresión definida por su desafío a las normas sociales impuestas a la mujer y por penetrar esos espacios que les eran vedados, mediante su producción literaria y el activismo social y político. Las muestras claras de estos actos de transgresión y subversión quedan reflejadas en la última obra de Carmen de Burgos, Quiero vivir mi …

Poesía Mapuche Y Vasca Como Herramienta De Resistencia Cotidiana, Paula Ruiz Santamaría

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation examines the work of contemporary Mapuche poets Adriana Pinda, Maribel Mora Curriao and Roxana Miranda Rupailaf, alongside Basque poets Leire Bilbao and Miren Agur Meabe, who write partially or entirely in their native languages— Mapudungun and Basque— as a form of resistance against the historical and ongoing imposition of Spanish. Through their poetry, these poets defend their identities and cultural heritage, invoking their matrilineal lineage to remember and heal. They also subvert traditional Catholic prayers by modifying them into invocations to Goddesses, casting spells of liberation of the female body, denouncing patriarchal violence and recreating alternative worlds. Their …

The Rescue Of Wahutedew’Á And The Epistemological Reforestation: An Analysis Of Time In A Terra Dos Mil Povos, By Kaká Werá Jecupé, Ivo Cruz

The Coastal Review

It is estimated that in 1500, the year the Portuguese arrived in America, there was a population of 2,431,000 inhabitants, according to historian John Hemming (1978), who occupied the lands that we now know as Brazil. These peoples had their own culture whose cosmology was destroyed and erased over time by a violent process of colonization. Even though entire groups were decimated, much of their influence is still alive in Brazilian culture. This influence can be found in vocabulary, cuisine, and even religious practices. With the aim of rescuing ancestral narratives and knowledge of various native peoples, Kaká Werá Jecupé …

Light And Darkness For Aesthetic Pleasure: An Exploration Of J.M.G. Le Clézio’S Early Writings And Jun’Ichiro Tanizaki’S In Praise Of Shadows, Kenichiro Otani

The Coastal Review

Building upon comparative principles, this semantic reading of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s essay In Praise of Shadows and J.M.G. Le Clézio’s early writings illustrates how both the Franco-Mauritian author and the Japanese writer problematize modern Western perception laden with concepts stifling flexible imagination through the mysterious worldview of light/darkness. They also simultaneously express the hope that another way of life leading to liberation is possible. Delving into the spiritual confinement of the subject, they demonstrate how keeping rich creativity within one’s heart can be an escape from a stagnant society. Albeit in very different mediums, Tanizaki and Le Clézio assert that the …

Remedios Varo: Peregrinaciones, Julia Condes

Honors Undergraduate Theses

At the time of her death, the artist Remedios Varo (1908–1963) left behind over 500 works of art, the majority of which were created in her adopted country of Mexico. Known for her meticulously crafted fantastical paintings, Varo underwent exile and displacement due to first the Spanish Civil War, and later World War II, which led her to relocate to Mexico, where she would create prolifically for the remainder of her life. This paper will examine the effect of those experiences on the artist and the work she produced, attesting to Varo’s ability to translate complex emotions regarding the human …

Portraits Of Agency And Power: Exploring Andean Women In Guamán Poma's Chronicle, Ruby Sygar

University Honors Theses

This study explores the depictions of women in Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala’s chronicle titled, El primer nueva crónica y buen gobierno. By concentrating on six distinct portraits within this manuscript, the findings intend to reveal the themes, differences, and symbolic meanings that characterize and differentiate these representations. The analysis delves into how these portrayals provide insights into the roles, status, and societal perceptions of women in Inca society during the colonial period. The situation of these depictions within the general context of gender and colonialism in Andean society aims to showcase how nobleman Guamán Poma’s work critiques and …

Trabajo De Auto Y Trans-Ficción En La Narrativa Chilena Reciente: Abordajes Y Tramitaciones Del Yo(T) En Iván Monalisa Ojeda Y Ariel Florencia Richards, Fernando A. Blanco

Other Faculty Research and Publications

This article explores two literary texts written by two Chilean trans or non-binary individuals in which the processes of constructing and subjectivizing the Self are framed by their material and symbolic conditions of existence, differentiated by class, the type of work (labor) performed, and the political and aesthetic expectations of their own writing project. In the case of Monalisa Ojeda, the autofiction narrative (journal) responds to the reality of travesti/trans migrant, sex-working communities in 1990s NYC, while in the case of Ariel Florencia Richards, the novel explores the complex relationships between an upper middle class mother and her trans daughter …

El Pasado Está Enfrente: Descifrando La Importancia De Las Perspectivas Femeninas A Través De Tiempo En “Mujer Negra” Y Nostalgia De La Luz, Catherine Van Wey

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Las perspectivas de las mujeres han sido frecuentemente ignoradas o censuradas a lo largo de la historia, aunque las mujeres son la base de la sociedad. Eso no quiere decir que las perspectivas femeninas no existan o no puedan encontrarse en el pasado. Según la teoría del punto de vista feminista (Feminist Standpoint Theory), lo cual es detallado en muchos de los argumentos escritos por teoristas Rita Segato y Maria Lugones, las experiencias y conocimientos de las mujeres son esenciales para entender la sociedad. Esta teoría sostiene que las mujeres, debido a su posición marginada en la sociedad, tienen ideas …

2024 Conference Program, Georgia Southern University

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

2024 Conference Program

Learning Chinese Vocabulary: Understanding Students' Perspectives, Austin Gasiecki, Zuotang Zhang

The Coastal Review

This study used a survey to investigate self-study and university-enrolled Chinese learners’ habits in studying Chinese vocabulary in order to determine what study methods influence a.) learners’ confidence in learning Chinese vocabulary and b.) what aspects of Chinese vocabulary they consider easy or difficult. We were particularly interested in seeing what the data had to say about students’ attitudes towards characters and the written language, given that the field of Chinese language pedagogy is known for a stronger focus on the written language as opposed to the spoken language. We found that aspects of Chinese vocabulary associated with the spoken …

Between Pain And Glory: Memory Disputes Of The Brazilian Dictatorship In Retrato Calado And O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, Angela R. Mooney

The Coastal Review

This article analyzes Luiz Roberto Salinas Fortes’ Retrato calado (Silent Portrait) published in 1988, considering the theoretical discussions on testimonio's epistemology—addressing the challenge of narrating trauma and the risk of stylization. It compares Fortes' memoir with Fernando Gabeira's O que é isso, companheiro? (What's This, Comrade?) from 1979, examining diverse approaches to capturing historical trauma through literature and its impact on collective memory about Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-1985).

Horror Stories: Oblivious Women In Luis Puenzo’S La Historia Oficial (1985) And Santiago Mitre’S Argentina 1985 (2022), Stephanie R. Orozco

The Coastal Review

Adriana Cavarero's conceptualization of Medusa serves as a potent metaphor for the subtle redirection of violence of oblivious women who ignored the brutalization of pregnant victims during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-83). In Luis Puenzo’s La historia oficial (1985) and Santiago Mitre’s Argentina 1985 (2022), skillfully unveil the ghastly practice of torturing pregnant women, unraveling the vulnerability of both mothers and their infants, evoking a sense of disgust and repugnance that is eventually shared by oblivious women. Beyond mere storytelling, these films challenge prevailing power dynamics and discourses, shedding light on the complicit ignorance of elite women during an era marked …

Global Communities: The Potential Of Street Art And The Public Space, Elena Picech

The Coastal Review

This paper highlights the significance of physical proximity and the potentiality of socio-spatial situations as tools to enrich study abroad programs. Particular attention is given to street art and the public space. While, studying on-site can be somewhat uncomfortable, it can potentially prompt unique reflections, enhance student’s learning and encourage introspection. Being on-site provides the opportunity to come into contact and to connect with the physical objects and their environment. It enables a multisensory and immersive embodied experience. Leveraging art for communicative educational activities can facilitate a participatory experience, promote critical thinking and enhance cultural understanding.

The Femme-Fatale “Bear’Ing Her Teeth: The Relation Between Women And Animals In Prosper Mérimée’S Lokis, William B. Holley

The Coastal Review

Abstract: Many French fantastic texts from the nineteenth century employ the use of a femme-fatale to highlight and underscore the dangers inherit with the female figure. This can be seen in vampires, ghosts, fairies, and other supernatural phenomena wherein a female character takes on incredible attributes. Propser Mérimée’s Lokis offers readers a tale wherein those same female figures are given traits that resemble the traditional femme-fatale, but in doing so they highlight the deadly nature of the titular half-man/half-bear creature. This paper offers a reading of Lokis which brings together an understanding of the social and political climate in which …

Decolonizing French: Afrophonics In Ken Bugul’S Aller Et Retour (2013), Hapsatou Wane

The Coastal Review

This article explores the innovative language strategies employed by Senegalese writer Ken Bugul in her novel Aller et retour to construct a dynamic and interconnected linguistic landscape that challenges fixed language boundaries. Ken Bugul's "langue fabriquée" combines elements of French, Wolof, and English, reflecting a transglocal dimension that embodies the essence of afrophonics—a poetics of resistance that empowers local cultures in a globalized context. Through a detailed analysis of Ken Bugul's linguistic choices, including the use of quotation marks, footnotes, and arbitrary transcription, the study reveals how she creates a language that defies categorization and decolonizes French without resorting to …

Cuento De Todas Las Cosas, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Publications and Research

"Este cuento breve tal vez cae en el antiguo género de lo real maravilloso o, lo que se conoce en inglés como especulativo. Explora los efectos de la homofobia, el exilio, la enajenación, a través de personajes en un parque encantado, que puede ser el Parque Central en la ciudad de Nueva York." from the editor, Bilingual Review

This short story was translated into English and published in Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Vol. 57, No. 2, Dec. 2024, issue 109

Ships In Houston, Nadia Villafuerte, Julie Ann Ward

Undiscovered Americas

Ships in Houston by Nadia Villafuerte, translated by Julie Ann Ward, is a harrowing and heartrending collection of fifteen stories that bring to life characters who, though they exist independently from one another, inhabit the same world: Mexico’s southern border. Using acute attention to language, such as various dialects and slang, to create a nuanced and varied mood and setting, Villafuerte’s stories track exotic dancers, sex workers, truck drivers, drug dealers, immigration officials, and even a mayor’s daughter to create compelling fictions rooted in the harsh realities of borderlands that many choose to overlook. While the US’s southern border with …

Resistance Narratives: Storytelling Of Transnational Insurgencies In 1960-70s Us And Mexico, Tania Libertad Balderas

English Language and Literature ETDs

Resistance Narratives: Storytelling of Transnational Insurgencies in 1960-70s US and Mexico emphasizes how the narratives from the Mexican Insurgency, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the leftist faction of the Chicana/o Movement in the 1960s and 1970s articulate intersecting notions of resistance, liberation, and transnational solidarity. The comparative analysis of the testimonial novel Las mujeres del alba (2019) by Chihuahuan novelist Carlos Montemayor, the autobiographies Lakota Woman (1991) and Ohitika Woman (1993) by Sičháŋǧu Lakȟóta writer and AIM militant Mary Brave Bird (formerly Crow Dog), and the memoirs and plays by the San Diego-based group Teatro de las Chicanas, collected …

Archivo Y Memoria: Una Mirada A Tres Historias De Mujeres Esclavizadas En El Virreinato De La Nueva Granada De Finales Del Siglo Xviii, Luisa Carolina Julio Gomez

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

Colonial documents preserve information that allows us to know the local Andean history of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. These manuscripts reveal forms of violence that shaped the subjectivities of the time and the resistance of oppressed women. This dissertation examines the effects of slavery and the response of three enslaved women to that colonial violence. This analysis seeks to better understand and make visible how the intersection between racism and patriarchy impacted the lives of three racialized women in the colonial context.

This dissertation focuses on the experiences, struggles, and resistance of three women present in the manuscripts consigned …

Argentine Women’S Narratives Of Leadership, Ileana Andrea Mocciola

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated and examined the narratives of Argentine women leaders while obtaining and exercising leadership positions. This research was based on narrative theory and the feminist standpoint theory. Argentine female participants (N = 10) were subject to interviews that overall lasted 600 minutes and were conducted through the Zoom platform. Fifty-five pages of single-spaced transcripts were analyzed and studied. The results of this study revealed that Argentine women face major challenges when it comes to tokenism, exclusion, mentorship, and stereotypes that prevent and limit them from reaching and succeeding in leadership positions.

Narrar El Final De Los Tiempos: Misantropía Y Liberación En Dos “Cuentos Atómicos” Del Salvadoreño Álvaro Menen Desleal (1960s), David Díaz Arias

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

El presente artículo analiza una parte de la obra de ciencia ficción del salvadoreño Álvaro Menen Desleal. Para eso, se concentra en uno de los temas que, aunque no dominante, sí es abordado de forma crítica y sagaz por parte de ese autor: el exterminio de la humanidad a partir de una hecatombe nuclear. Así, se estudian dos cuentos publicados por Menen Desleal en 1969 y que forman parte de su premiado texto Una cuerda de nylon y oro y otros cuentos maravillosos. Los cuentos son el que le da nombre a esa antología de relatos y “Hacer el …

De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe

The Coastal Review

In La Sorcière, Jules Michelet uses the strength and the myth of the Medea character, which had already fascinated Corneille. In the second part of his work, Michelet creates nominative witches after authentic texts. In the first part, he creates an allegoric witch on the Medea model: the Woman, a victim of arbitrariness, injustice and repression, rises up against her oppressors, figuring the march of Humanity towards Enlightenment and Liberty. The analogies between the Witch and Medea are therefore numerous and necessary, since they help to render the defense of the oppressed against the oppressor. Would the somber Medea, …

Masculinidades Insubordinadas Y Subversivas. La Construcción De La Figura Del Gaucho Rebelde En La Literatura Rioplatense A Través De La Representación De Tres De Sus Tipos Humanos Más Característicos: El Cantor, El Matrero Y El Caudillo, Miguel Angel Martos Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This research work explores the construction of the masculinity of the rebellious gaucho in several literary works written by authors from the River Plate, and how it serves as a vehicle for the transmission of ideas –often of political content– of their creators. The basic concept underlying this study is that some writers of works set in the rural world show a serious social commitment, and often combine their literary activity with politics. For this reason, they choose as a key figure in their writings a gaucho who rebels against authority and, emphasizing in him the traits traditionally considered as …