Latin American Literature Commons^™

Antonio Preciado And The Afro Presence In Ecuadorian Literature, Rebecca Gail Howes

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the literary trajectory of Antonio Preciado Bedoya (1941), a major Afroecuadorian writer, poet and diplomat whose work spans more than 50 years. Although relatively unknown outside of Ecuador, this dissertation will address that lack of recognition by studying his work in the more general context of the African Diaspora. It will reflect upon Preciado’s re-definition of Ecuadorian identity in the new millennium. Preciado is a poet who portrays the Afro presence as central to the national experience of ethnic diversity and the construction of a pluricultural Ecuador. He emphasizes that Afroecuadorians be recognized as an integral component …

La Construcción Literaria De La Identidad De Puerto Rico: El País De Cuatro Voces, Lisa Ybonne Figueroa Parker

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies how language in Puerto Rican literature has been instrumental in reconstructing national identity in the context of the Island’s colonial histories. Bearing in mind that colonialism not only produced economic and political domination, but also epistemic control over cultural values and practices in general, Puerto Rican writers have used language to resignify a national imaginary that continues to be elusive and contradictory. To demonstrate how language in literature has become a site of struggle for decolonization, this study analyzes four representative voices from the nineteenth and twentieth century which construct distinct, yet complementary, identities.

Chapter one focuses …