Spanish Literature Commons^™

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: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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 …

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: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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 …

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: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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).

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

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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 …

La Radical Imperfección Del Mundo: El Crimen Perfecto De Jean Baudrillard Y El Crimen Ferpecto De Alex De La Iglesia, Maria A. Gomez

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Le parfait crime (1995) by Jean Baudrillard and Crimen ferpecto (2004) by the Basque director Alex de la Iglesia are two works that not only have in common almost identical titles. They both reflect on how in consumer societies, an imperfect real world is substituted for an illusory hyperreality in which the distinction between subject and object has disappeared. While Baudrillard explains how the denial of a transcendent reality in contemporary society is “a perfect crime” that destroys the real, Alex de la Iglesia uses black humor and a mix of genres (mainly grotesque comedy and thriller) to show the …

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

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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, …

“Thinking Across Bodies”: Percepción Woolfiana Y Giro Material En La Cuentística De Rodoreda, Roig, Alós Y Riera, Ana Álvarez Guillén

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Conventional understandings of perception have long undergirded traditional readings of Modernist texts in adopting a predominantly subject-centered perspective that separates subject from object in a vertical and hierarchical relationship. I argue that a consideration of Virginia Woolf’s short stories in dialogue with four generations of twentieth-century Catalan women writers who followed her work closely suggests an entirely different epistemological framework of perception in which subject and object are fluidly and horizontally organized. Mercè Rodoreda, Concha Alós, Montserrat Roig and Carme Riera establish a horizontal fictional dialogue that constitutes a return to matter that decenters the subject, resulting in an alternative …

Metaphors Of Spanish Culture In Flamenco, Gender Roles And Gender Issues: Modern Metaphors To Understand Some Traditional Female Flamenco Movements And Steps, Chita Espino-Bravo Ph.D.

Modern Languages Faculty Publications

The art of Flamenco dance teaches Spanish culture through the dance steps and the metaphors they communicate. Some metaphors from the past are hard to understand, especially when referring to women’s role and social status, as women of the 21st century in Spain have democratic rights women from past centuries did not have. Expressing some of those metaphors through the movements of flamenco is very hard, unless you understand the patriarchal society of then. I will analyze some metaphors flamenco teachers use to explain concepts and gender roles from the past that are hard to understand by younger generations who …

Spa321. Búsquedas De La Igualdad: Feminismo Y Abolicionismo En Los Siglos Xviii Y Xix (Sílabo Y Materiales De Lectura), Juan Jesús Payán

Open Educational Resources

SPA321 - 3 hours, 3 credits. Readings from representative works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

El curso está dedicado al examen de la situación de la mujer en la sociedad patriarcal y el compromiso abolicionista durante los siglos XVIII y XIX. Tras una contextualización sumaria sobre los problemas que subyacen a la naturalización acrítica del canon y la periodización hegemónica, debatiremos sobre los estigmas que pesaron sobre las mujeres que querían dedicarse a la literatura; discutiremos el perdurable impacto que tuvo el modelo de domesticidad del “ángel del hogar” y finalmente analizaremos la contradictoria posición ideológica encarnada en el …

Historical Memory And Feminist Consciousness In Almudena Grandes’ Episodios De Una Guerra Interminable, Alba Fernández-Fernández

Dissertations

General Francisco Franco’s brutal dictatorship (1939-1975) was one of the darkest periods in Spain’s recent history. During this dictatorial regime, political detractors were mercilessly persecuted, tortured and massacred. In 1975, Franco died leaving the legacy of nearly four decades of repression and over 150,000 victims on his back. Spain then cautiously headed into a process of democratization, with fear and horror still etched on the country’s memory. While politicians promised a smooth transition to democracy, their insistence to look ahead meant Spaniards were asked to neglect the country’s painful past. No legal action was taken against those responsible for mass …

Los Defectos De La Perfección: Un Análisis De Los Temas Recurrentes De Secretos, Traumas Intergeneracionales E Identidades Biculturales En Yo No Soy Tu Perfecta Hija Mexicana, Tiffany Vembenil

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the social critiques by author Erika L. Sánchez in her debut novel Yo no soy tu perfecta hija mexicana (2017). This is a fictional coming-of-age story of teen Julia Reyes, who is grieving the death of her “perfect” older sister. Sánchez explores intersectional feminism, describing Julia’s struggles with gender roles, power dynamics, race, and socioeconomic status.

Sánchez employs imagery and irony to critique how the judging, silence, and secrecy that younger generations learn from their community permit predatory behavior, sexual assault, and victim-blaming. However, she also shows how keeping secrets can be a necessary evil to protect …

Voicing Narrative Through Transatlanticism And Transformation In Historia De La Monja Alférez By Catalina De Erauso, Morgan Schneider

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes various aspects of Catalina de Erauso’s Historia de la Monja Alférez, escrita por ella misma (1829). The first chapter explores notions of interior and exterior as categories that determine not only the protagonist’s movement in space but also their expression of self-identity over the course of the text, focalized through first-person narration. Additionally, the chapter brings to light how the interior narrative parallels Erauso’s desire to share their transformation from nun in a Spanish convent to a soldier in the Americas with picaresque tendencies. Erauso leverages the power of exterior appearances through the self-fashioning of their public …

Stephen Ross, Editor. Modernism, Theory, And Responsible Reading: A Critical Conversation. Bloomsbury Academic, 2022., Anne Cunningham

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Stephen Ross, editor. Modernism, Theory, and Responsible Reading: A Critical Conversation. Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. 239 pp

Hasta Que La Muerte Los Separe: La Representación De La Violencia Machista En La Literatura Y El Cine Hispánicos Contemporáneos, Anna M. Martija Perez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Violence against women is a worldwide social problem that is far from being eradicated. Sociologists and psychologists have studied this complex issue rooted in the unbalanced distribution of power between the sexes and writers have portrayed it in their works since the Middle Ages to present. This dissertation provides a comparative study of recent representations of male violence in fictional and non-fictional works produced in different Hispanic countries. The works analyzed include: Icíar Bollaín´s film Te doy mis ojos (2003); recent documentaries such as Home Truth (2017) and Las tres muertes de Maricela Escobedo (2021); shortfilms like Disonancia (2005) and …

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

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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 …

Repensando La Discapacidad En España Y Latinoamérica: La Producción Cultural Hispánica De Autores/As Con Diversidad Funcional En Los Siglos Xx Y Xxi, Montserrat Fuente-Camacho

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

Esta tesis se centra en el análisis de la producción cultural hispánica contemporánea de autores/as con diversidad funcional para investigar cómo se representan a sí mismos en sus obras y qué medios utilizan cuando cuestionan el discurso capacitista que los margina. Además, se comparan las semejanzas y diferencias que existen entre dichas representaciones y se señala cuál es su valor temático y estético. Mediante el análisis de la interconexión de la diversidad funcional con múltiples categorías como género, sexualidad, raza, edad y clase social, exploro varios tipos de obras –documental, poesía, diario, novela gráfica y ficción juvenil– creadas por un …

Introduction. RocíO Silva Santisteban. BibliografíA Esencial (2021), Bethsabe Huaman Andia

International Languages & Literature Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Gender And Violence In Spanish Culture: From Vulnerability To Accountability Edited By María José Gámez Fuentes And Rebeca Maseda García (Review), Angela M. Acosta

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

No abstract provided.

Spaces For Becomings? Heterotopic Fictions In Preciado’S Testo Yonqui, Caroline King

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This article examines the possibilities and limits of gender becomings in Paul Preciado’s book Testo yonqui (Testo Junkie). A genre-fluid “body-essay,” his text theorizes a departure from gender through contemporary medicine. Following Preciado in his self-administration of testosterone, the book labels today’s reality a “pharmacopornographic era,” a new iteration of Foucault’s biocapitalism. After designating Preciado’s self-generated transformations as becomings, I explore how the book’s heterotopic spaces––including its genre––facilitate Preciado’s forward-moving gender identity. A Foucauldian term, heterotopia has not yet been applied to Testo Junkie, however it offers insight into the book’s potential to motivate individuals to …

Deconstructing Feminine And Feminist Fantastic Through The Study Of Living Dolls, Raquel Velázquez

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her "Deconstructing Feminine and Feminine Fantastic through the Study of Living Dolls," Raquel Velázquez analyzes the treatment of one idiosyncratic image within the fantastic genre, and one that also has a special impact on the configuration of the feminine: the doll. On the one hand, she examines the evolution of this fantastic motif in order to determine whether it involves a transformation of how the feminine fantastic is represented. On the other hand, she establishes some correlations between the image of the fantastic doll, and the development of processes such as the dollification of women or the humanization of …

Desmitificando Un Nombre. Juana, “La Loca”, A Través De Su Representación Biográfica Y Dramática. Siglos Xviii-Xxi, Maria Carmen Vera Lopez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The mythification of the character of Queen Juana I of Castile is the subject of this thesis. The biographical and literary representation are discussed from the biographical and literary perspectives which implies the study of two fundamental aspects in the formation of this myth: woman-power and madness. The main objective of this research is to break down the myth known today as Juana, “the mad” through historical and literary analyses.

This work is part of new Hispanic medievalism because it explains a phenomenon that began in the Middle Ages. The five chapters affirm that, in the case of Juana I …

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: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

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 …

Surrogate Histories: (De)Mythifying The Franco-Female In Transitionary Spain, Christina Beaubien

Doctoral Dissertations

Within the context of Franco Spain, academic scholarship has proven that the regime manipulated collective history via both active remembering and active forgetting in order to construct legitimacy and a national identity. Moreover, much of the regime’s mythology was based on predetermined concepts of gender difference that was exacerbated by the influence of the Catholic church. In this way, what it meant to be female during the Franco dictatorship was a large part of what came to be the nationalized-gender-mythology of the regime, or rather – myths that constructed the Franco-female. On the one hand, the regime constructed mythology …

Fronteras Hispánicas: Identidades Fronterizas Y Diálogo Intercultural En La Literatura Y El Cine Contemporáneos, Claudia Battistel

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Border-crossings —both geographical and metaphorical— are a fertile territory for critical and fictional discourses that explore the forging of gendered personal, social, and cultural identities. The notion of the border becomes a political, material, discursive or symbolic limit, a space of conflict, resistance and negotiation, where power relations are articulated. In this dissertation I analyze the following border-crossing narratives and films: The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros; Jo també soc catalana and El último patriarca, by Najat El Hatchmi; Retorno a Hansala, by Chus Gutiérrez, and Sin dejar huella, by María Novaro. My study …

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 …