Latin American Literature Commons^™

La Obra Poetica De Jose De Jesus Dominguez Estudio Preliminar, Texto Y Notas, Eric Samuel Quinones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The end of the nineteenth century witnessed an esthetic renewal in Latin American literature. The movement later dubbed modernismo would usher in a profound shift in the ars poetica of Spanish prose and poetry. Yet this revolution did not spread like fire; it coexisted with, and unevenly replaced, earlier artistic notions. José de Jesús Domínguez, a poet and medical doctor who spent most of his life in the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, was one of the earliest exponents of this trend. His evolution from his beginnings as a romantic poet, his encounter with the French Parnassians, and his early …

Selva Simbólica Selva Simbiótica Apuntes Para Una Ecocritica Latinoamericana, Liza Pamela Rosas-Bustos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on Latin America's selvatic territories. It argues for prevailing ecological principles as revealed in the selected works of three twentieth-century Latin American story-writers and poets. They portray rainforests as multisensorial lands that encompass bewildering events from which a principle of local authority emerges. This analysis is based on Francisco Coloane's short stories "Tierra del Fuego" and "Cabo de Hornos," Rosario Castellanos'Balún Canán, and Luis Sepúlveda's Un viejo que leía novelas de amor. Such phenomenology is also present on the environmental poetics from Marosa di Giorgio, Cecilia Vicuña, and Leonel Lienlaf linked to emotions of fear, urgency, …

Entre Dos Islas: Dialogos Musico-Literarios Entre Manhattan Y Quisqueya. El Rol De La Musica Popular En La Literatura Dominicana Contemporanea, Sharina Maillo-Pozo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many critics agree that merengue, the cultural symbol of Dominican identity, has been linked to national identity since its beginnings when it emerged during the battles for independence from Haití­ in 1844. Hence, it is not surprising that the intertexual dialogue between Dominican literature and Dominican popular music could be traced back to the 19th century, a moment where cultural elements and practices were fundamental to the consolidation of a national identity. In the best cases, merengue was used to underline the social customs of the times in a few decimononical obras costumbristas from the 19th century. However, it was …

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 …

El Oficio De La Escritura Y La Estetica En La Obra De Roberto Bolano, Ainoa Inigo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims at attaining a general understanding of the aesthetics and philosophy on the practice of writing of Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003), the Chilean poet and writer, through interpretive devices developed by him and by extrinsic means. Bolaño claimed that his works stemmed from a pre-extant poetic universe, so that each work is interrelated thematically with the rest of the oeuvre and individually representative of the totality.

Throughout the works analyzed, our two primary questions--the aesthetical and ethical--intercept while we examine his understanding of the role of the writer and literature itself. Estrella distante (1996), Los detectives salvajes (1998) and …

The Transnational Latin American Regionalism Of Mario Vargas Llosa And Milton Hatoum, Michele C. Kettner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present dissertation analyzes the novels The Green House (1966) and The Storyteller (1987), by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, and Two Brothers (2000), by Brazilian novelist Milton Hatoum and reinterpret literary regionalism in the Amazon region. I claim that the new variety of regionalist literature represented by both authors challenges hegemonic national representations of Peru and Brazil and conceptualizes Amazonian ecology in the context of global capitalism. In the first chapter, I evaluate the critical apparatus of the older tradition of Latin American regionalism proposing the concept of the "region" as an "invention" (Albuquerque Jr.). My reading reveals how …

Lo Político Del Lenguaje Y Los Límites De La Política Lingüística Panhispánica, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

This article introduces glottopolitical studies (political approaches to language) and discusses the meaning of the political within this field. It analyzes consensus-based language policies as deployed by Spain´s language academy and instances in which antagonistic relations surrounding language manifest themselves.

Gender And Resistance: Afro-Brazilian Women's Anti-Naming As Recovery From Trauma In Conceição Evaristo' "Eu-Mulher" And Ponciá Vicencio, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Linguistic Emancipation And The Academies Of The Spanish Language In The Twentieth Century: The 1951 Turning Point, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In this article, the author focuses on the conference of academies of the Spanish language that took place in Mexico in 1951 and analyzes the discourses on language as well as the views on the linguistic institutions that emerged in the course of the conference. The reasons for the Real Academia Española´s absence are addressed and so is the initiative by Mexico´s president Miguel Alemán.

Trauma And The Representation Of The Unsayable In Late Twentieth-Century Fiction, Katina Rogers

Publications and Research

This dissertation explores the ways in which several fiction writers from France, the U.S., and Latin America experiment with the form of their works in writing about traumatic experience, as they navigate the tension between a propulsion toward expression and toward silence. Some of these traumas are vast, as in Edmond Jabès’ Le livre des questions (1963-1973), which addresses not only the Holocaust, but also questions of exile and identity. Others are on a smaller scale, such as Jacques Roubaud’s Quelque chose noir (1986), Julio Cortázar's Los autonautas de la cosmopista (1983), and Macedonio Fernández’s Museo de la Novela de …

La Lengua, Los Bicentenarios Y La Estrategia Del Acompañamiento, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In this article, the connection between language policy and the bicentennial celebration of Latin American´s independence from Spain is explored.

Las Representaciones Ideológicas Del Lenguaje: Discurso Glotopolítico Y Panhispanismo, José Del Valle, Elvira Arnoux

Publications and Research

Linguistic ideologies are defined and placed in the context of glottopolitical studies (or political approaches to language). Ideological representations of Spanish in the context of MERCOSUR and the panhispanic community are discussed.

Total Spanish: The Politics Of A Pan-Hispanic Grammar, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

This article presents an analysis of the 2010 grammar of Spanish jointly published by Spain´s language academy and the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language. It places this grammatical project in the context of Spain´s geopolitical interests in Latin America.

Spanish In Brazil: Language Policy, Business, And Cultural Propaganda, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the language policies designed and implemented since the early nineties by Spanish government agencies in order to promote Spanish as a valuable international language. In particular, we focus on its promotion in Brazil and on the strategies used to legitimize not only the presence of the language in various domains (e.g. the educational system) but also the active participation of Spanish institutions in its spread. Through a detailed analysis of a corpus of relevant texts, (a) we critically examine the cultural, economic, and political roots of these policies, as well …

La Invención De Los Clásicos: Nacionalismo, Filología Y Políticas Culturales En Argentina, Fernando Degiovanni

Publications and Research

Este artículo estudia el lugar que tuvo el discurso filológico en las disputas por la consagración de una versión legítima del canon argentino a comienzos del siglo XX. A través del análisis del modo en que algunos críticos utilizaron argumentos y estrategias de fijación discursiva derivados de la crítica textual para legitimar una versión anti-jacobina y anti-socialista de los orígenes de la nacionalidad en un momento crucial de la vida política del país (la sanción de la Ley Sáenz Peña y las primeras elecciones presidenciales limpias), el trabajo se propone indicar las estrechas relaciones entre legitimación crítica y legitimación política …

The Invention Of The Classics: Nationalism, Philology And Cultural Politics In Argentina, Fernando Degiovanni

Publications and Research

By the end of 1915, two inexpensive book series devoted to the diffusion of colonial and nineteenth-century texts flooded the shelves of Argentine bookstores. Their deliberately resonant and all-encompassing names - La Biblioteca Argentina (The Argentine Library) and La Cultura Argentina (Argentine Culture) - were unmistakable signs of their nationalist character and aims. Developed respectively by Ricardo Rojas and José lngenieros, two of the most important intellectuals of Centennial Argentina, the nearly simultaneous launch of both series also underscored the editors' enduring competition to promote their contrasting versions of the nation's political and cultural past. The timing of the series' …

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).

Double Margins: Yolanda Martines-San Miguel Discusses Lgbtq Hispanic Caribbean Lit, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In her talk, "Families of Desire: Migration and Sexuality in New York's Caribbean Enclaves," Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel explored the representation of same-sex affective and sexual relationships in the works of one lesbian and two gay Hispanic Caribbean authors, all of whom migrated to New York from their island of origin and who portray this Diasporic experience in their writing. Her presentation forms part of a broader, book-length project on cultural representations of migration among Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and New York, including literature, popular music, graffiti, and photography.

Inmigración, Nacionalismo Cultural, Campo Intelectual: El Proyecto Creador De Alberto Gerchunoff, Fernando Degiovanni

Publications and Research

El final de la Autobiografía (1914) de Alberto Gerchunoff (1883-1950) constituye uno de los puntos de partida más significativos a través de los cuales es posible analizar la temática de lo judío-argentino en el marco de su producción textual. El autor de Los gauchos judíos (1910) se sitúa allí frente al campo cultural de la Argentina del Centenario por medio de una serie de operaciones ideológicas que plantean una opción no sólo intelectual sino también específicamente literaria en la construcción de su proyecto creador. La afirmación: “Yo no aspiro a cantar únicamente la vida judía: soy ante todo argentino y …

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.

Andalucismo, Poligénesis Y Koineización: Dialectología E Ideología, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In this article, different theories of the development of Spanish in the Americas are analyzed and placed in precise historical contexts that show their ideological nature, that is, their involvement in discussions surrounding cultural hierarchies.