Latin American Literature Commons^™

The Net Of Nostalgia: Class, Culture, And Political Alienation And Nostalgia In Contemporary Latino And South Asian American Literature, Farzana Akhter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Generally thought of as a yearning for recent past, or homesickness, nostalgia is seen as a sentiment that impairs living in the present. And in case of immigrants, nostalgia is thought of as a debilitating form of escapism and an inability to adapt to change and mobility. In this dissertation, contesting against the prevalent concept, I argue that immigrant nostalgia is neither a colored memory (Dyson 117) nor a romance with one’s own fantasy (Boym xiii); rather, immigrant nostalgia has a socio-economic and political underpinning. By exploring the various nuances of immigrant experience delineated in the literary works of South …

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 …

Heroísmo Y Conciencia Racial En La Obra De La Poeta Afro-Cubana Cristina Ayala, Maria A. Aguilar

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the poetry of Cuban writer Cristina Ayala emphasizing the political value of her use of a rhetoric of heroism, a discursive device that masks her demands for recognition of women’s rights and those of Afro-Cubans. The analysis of her poetry suggests that the symbolic manipulation of the “hero” and the representation of “colored” women as intellectuals and “heroes” expressed her desire to intervene in the public arena. By positioning herself within a political discourse that reconstructed slavery’s past, she narrated the revolutionary vicissitudes and created a utopian vision of the future for the Afro-Cuban community. Ayala expresses …

(Sub)Versions Of Banditry: Ferréz’S Re-Appropriation And Redefinition Of The Marginal Identity, Marissel Hernández-Romero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines how Ferréz’s work is related to the 19^th and early 20^th century banditry narrative. The current study examines the evolution of the work of Ferréz and discusses his relevance in Brazilian and Latin America literature. However, this dissertation examines in what extent Ferréz’s work transgresses the genre in that he breaks its rules and departs from its traditions. Rather than being the voice of the elite put into the mouth of a lower-class bandit character, Ferréz’s bandits speak with the voice of the oppressed and subversively criticize the elite. His work is not viewed through …

Global Ecologies And The Environmental Humanities: Postcolonial Approaches Edited By Elizabeth Deloughrey, Jill Didur, And Anthony Carrigan, Joshua Bartlett

The Goose

Review of Elizabeth Deloughrey, Jill Didur, and Anthony Carrigan's Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities: Postcolonial Approaches.

Fragmentation And Multiplicity In Cuban-American Identity: In Cuba I Was A German Shepherd By Ana Menéndez And Memory Mambo By Achy Obejas, Daimys E. Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Maria Lugones offers a new way of perceiving the world, which makes visible that fragmentation is not a valuable and transgressive understanding of identity, as Western philosophy and some political theory suggests. What Lugones believes in, as a strategy of resistance to the dominant gaze, is multiplicity – mestizaje. Using Lugones’s framework, this thesis will look at the different aspects of Cuban-American characters in In Cuba I was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez and Memory Mambo by Achy Obejas. Each novel offers insight into how characters develop and understand themselves (and others) when they use language that shows that …

Malestar En El Eje Horizontal: Iconografía De Ruptura En Neuva Corónica Y Buen Gobierno (1615), De Felipe Guaman Poma De Ayala, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Durante la última década, los estudios coloniales producidos en el contexto de la academia norteamericana han abogado por llevar adelante una agenda descolonizadora. Este cambio de perspectiva ha propiciado la incorporación de textos marginales al canon literario colonial, así como la revisión de los presupuestos ideológicos y culturales que subyacen en los análisis críticos. Este nuevo rumbo tiene coma propósito abordar la experiencia de la conquista y la colonia considerando sus secuelas en las políticas culturales y territoriales que los Estados-Nación posteriores aplicaron sobre las comunidades indígenas. El texto de Guaman Poma ingresa al campo de los estudios coloniales en …

Una Niña Decente… ¿E Inocente?: La Intersección De Clase Y Raza En Ana Isabel, Una Niña Decente De Antonia Palacios, Nathan J. Schmid

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

This paper explores the social changes, divisions, and hierarchies that are present in Antonia Palacios’ novel Ana Isabel, una niña decente (1949). Employing Marxist Literary Theory as a basis for investigation and analysis, the paper illustrates the complexities of class and race, ultimately demonstrating how these two concepts are both intimately related and interdependent. As a result of the transition from feudalism to capitalism within Venezuelan society, longstanding traditions of social status and power are threatened, leading some to attempt to manipulate social structures concerning class and race in order to preserve family prestige. The parents of the novel’s main …

A Monastery For The Revolution: Ernesto Cardenal, Thomas Merton, And The Paradox Of Violence In Nicaragua, 1957-1979, Brendan Jordan

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In 1957, a young Nicaraguan poet named Ernesto Cardenal, recently graduated from Columbia University, entered the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani, located outside Louisville, Kentucky. There he met a prominent Catholic thinker and pacifist, Thomas Merton, who soon mentored young Cardenal. Though Cardenal departed Gethsemani in 1959, Merton continued to counsel him in spirituality, poetry, and social activism until Merton’s death in 1968. While Cardenal during these earlier years was a committed pacifist, his experiences after returning to Nicaragua in 1965 radically altered his view of social action. Cardenal established a semi-monastic community in the Solentiname islands in southern Nicaragua, and …

Un Cuento Satírico En Medio Del Debate Sobre El Darwinismo En México, Miguel A. Fernández Delgado Mafd

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

Charles Darwin's theory of biological evolution of species was accepted or rejected by Mexican scientists, including Gabino Barreda, representative of Comte's philosophy. It was also included by Justo Sierra in a history book for the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, a decision which raised a lot of criticism from conservative groups. It is also discussed the implications of social Darwinism in the early Twentieth Century Mexico. The document we offer is a satire published in those years, which resembles the tone of Swift's Gulliver Travels.

Guatemalan Spanish As Act Of Identity: An Analysis Of Language And Minor Literature Within Modern Maya Literary Production, Kenneth Yanes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My study approaches the use of Guatemalan Spanish in modern Maya literary works through a theoretical framework drawn on theories of "purity" and mestizaje, the concept of minor literature, and "image" and ideology of language. I problematize the "major"/"minor" dichotomy of language based on a Eurocentric view of the dominance of national languages as the extremely diverse linguistic ecology of Latin American lends itself to the deterritorialization of hegemonic discourse, but without sustaining a neat categorization of language. Guatemalan Spanish is a heavily Maya-inflected interlanguage share by all Guatemalans. Mayan writers chose purposefully to counter the ladino ethnocentrism of the …

The Patriarchy’S Role In Gender Inequality In The Caribbean, Erin C. O'Connor

Student Publications

While gender equality in the Caribbean is improving, with women’s growing social, economic, and political participation, literacy rates comparable to those in Europe, and greater female participation in higher education, deeply rooted inequalities are still present and are demonstrated in the types of jobs women are in and the limited number of women in decision-making positions. Sexism, racism, and classism are systemic inequalities being perpetuated in schools, through the types of education offered for individuals and the content in textbooks. Ironically, the patriarchy is coexisting within a system of matrifocal and matrilocal families, with a long tradition of female economic …

El Ex-Hombre: Masculinidad Y Exilio En La Poesía De Juan José Domenchina, Iker González-Allende

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

This article analyzes the representation of masculinity in Juan José Domenchina’s poetry of exile. The article argues that, during his last 20 years of life in exile (1939–1959), Domenchina shows in his poetry a contradictory masculinity. On the one hand, he reaffirms normative masculinity by rejecting pompous demonstrations of suffering, describing himself as stoic, tough, strong-willed and independent, and praising nostalgically Castilian men’s hypermasculine behavior. On the other hand, Domenchina’s poetry also testifies to his feelings of emasculation, since he calls himself an “ex-man”, shows his masculine fragmentation with the figures of the doppelganger or shadow, identifies himself with a …

Latin-America, Mauricio E. Novoa

Student Publications

A poem describing the Prince George's County and Montgomery County Latin American communities in Maryland.

El Esclavo Y El Letrado: Máscaras De La Auto-Representación En La Temprana Narrativa Antiesclavista Cubana, Maria A. Aguilar-Dornelles

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

Los tres textos aquí discutidos, Autobiografía de un esclavo,Francisco y Sab,narran la experiencia de la esclavitud desde la perspectiva del esclavo.Sinembargo, laperspectiva del narrador de Autobiografía de un esclavopermite establecer una distancia ideológica con la imagen del esclavo creada por Suárez y Romero y Gómez de Avellaneda. A pesar de que Autobiografíafue editada y alterada para adecuarla a la norma lingüística de la ciudad letrada, es posible identificar estrategias de negociación y desafío a la autoridad de los intelectuales que intentaron controlar sus condiciones de emisión y difusión.A este respecto, elnarradorno enfatiza lavictimizacióndel esclavo, como síhacen Suárez y Romero y …

The Poetry Of El Clamor Público, Nicholas E. Canaday

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Taak In Sutik (I Want To Return), Jose Lopez Bribiesca

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this film is to have four descendants of the Maya tell their stories and through them, explain four difficult concepts facing the 21st century contemporary Maya:

* How do Mayan languages influence a worldview different than the westernized, globalized worldview?

* How do the media, especially through movies, portray the Maya and other indigenous groups unfairly?

* How have the descendants of the Maya coped with adapting to modernity while keeping their traditions intact?

* How will the four protagonists ensure the protection of their language and their culture when they return home?

José Isaacson Y La PoéTica Del Encuentro, Marina Martin

Hispanic Studies Faculty Books

José Isaacson (Buenos Aires, 1922) pertenece a un grupo estelar de poetas argentinos –Borges, Olga Orozco, Roberto Juarroz y Alejandra Pizarnik, entre otros– que, en conjunto, marcan un hito en la literatura hispana del siglo XX. Dada la riqueza temática, el giro hacia la metafísica que se evidencia invariablemente en sus escritos y la profundidad de su visión humanística, cabe suponer en la obra de Isaacson un alcance internacional. El texto dialoga con voces filosóficas que perfilan un encuentro asentado en el misterio del tiempo. Aristóteles, Spinoza, Kafka, Kant, Buber y Wittgenstein, entre otros, sin descontar la riqueza que proviene …

Beyond The Nation: Issues Of Identity In The Contemporary Narrative Of Cuban Women Writing (In) The Diaspora, Yvette Fuentes

CAHSS Faculty Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation traces the narrative of contemporary Cuban women writers from their early work published in Cuba through their Diaspora narratives. It explores the discursive and narrative techniques that contemporary Cuban women deploy in their narratives to challenge Cuba's dominant cultural constructions of national and gendered identity. I posit that contemporary Cuban women's narratives produced on and off the island display aislamiento (isolation) that serves as a means of "talking back" to Cuba's patriarchal discourses. The introduction presents an overview of recent debates on nation, gender and identity within the context of contemporary Cuban literary history and feminist theory. Chapter …

The Sexual Democracy Of Miscegenation: Jossianna Arroyo Examines The Homoerotic Narratives Of The Father Of Racial Democracy, Marcelo Montes Penha

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Investigations of the sexual Other generally attempt to explain sexual practices by characterizing their practitioners as "homosexual" or "gay." Jossianna Arroyo, Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Michigan, went beyond this approach during her March 28 colloquium presentation, "Brazilian Homoerotics: Cultural Subjectivity and Representation in Gilberto Freyre." Arroyo explores not just sexual practices but also the construction of the Brazilian nation through a reading of Gilberto Freyre's two novels, Dona Sinha e o Filho Padre (1964) and O Outro Amor de Dr. Paulo (1977).

Crossing Borders '99: Autobiography And Testimonials By Lesbian And Gay Latino/As And Latin Americans, Oscar Montero

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

On March 13-19, 1999, the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies will revisit an important theme that emerged at the ground-breaking Crossing Borders conference. Crossing Borders '99: Latino/a and Latin American Lesbian and Gay Testimony, Autobiography, and Self-Figuration will focus on autobiographical writing, testimony, and self-figuration by Latin American and Latino/a lesbians and gay men, inviting artists and scholars from different geographical areas and diverse academic fields to share and discuss their works and lived experiences.