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Title
"Narrativas de transicion en el cine y la literatura de Chile : neorrealismo, virtualidad y cuerpos ciberneticos de la postdictadura"
Creator
Vidal-Jones, David A.
Date
2016
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
This dissertation project explores cultural narratives in Chile during the transition to democracy from 1990 to 2010. I examine the impact of literature and cinema in the construction of (post) national discourses and its implications in the context of the globalized Chilean society. In the works of Alberto Fuguet, Carlos Franz, Alicia Scherson, Ernesto Díaz-Espinoza and Gonzalo Contreras, I advance the idea of a third space in transition which allows a post-colonial place of enunciation that...
Show moreThis dissertation project explores cultural narratives in Chile during the transition to democracy from 1990 to 2010. I examine the impact of literature and cinema in the construction of (post) national discourses and its implications in the context of the globalized Chilean society. In the works of Alberto Fuguet, Carlos Franz, Alicia Scherson, Ernesto Díaz-Espinoza and Gonzalo Contreras, I advance the idea of a third space in transition which allows a post-colonial place of enunciation that falls between democratic realism and authoritarian narratives of dictatorship.Following Bernardo Subercaseaux’s conceptualization of historical national time as a theatrical world of spectacle, this dissertation explores emergent narratives of liminal communities, interrupting dichotomist discourses about the past.This study situates the following literary and cinematographic corpus between the centripetal discourse of national imagined communities and the centrifugal dynamics of globalized imagination. Walter Mignolo’s concept of ‘borderthinking’ helps to problematize the post authoritarian local-global axis, inciting the following question: Can we determine the existence of a new kind of post-national neorealism in Chile’s post-authoritarian period? If so, do these narratives present a disruption from the post-dictatorial rhetoric? Alberto Fuguet’s novel Mala onda (1991) and film Se arrienda (2005) offer fractured subjects as they enter fluid spaces between modernity and resistance. As the main characters fail, desacralizing the bildungsroman, they allow a critical representation of the subject within democratic realism, defined by Nelly Richards. Conversely, Ernesto Díaz-Espinoza and his film trilogy Kiltro, Mirageman and Mandrill (2006-2009) render a parody of the national hero between the fluid spaces of global and local realities. Through the novel Películas de mi vida (1993), Alberto Fuguet dislocates the period of political transition towards democracy with new temporality and velocity relocating the narrative from extraterritorial spaces. This study problematizes also the concept of ‘virtual realism’ in Alicia Scherson’s film Play (2005) and Carlos Franz’s novel Santiago cero (1988). These works navigate the world of hyperreality created through epistolary interchanges and virtual gaming to contest the place of enunciation of the national subject, specifically its construction and deconstruction process of Santiago’s neoliberal landscape. Finally, the figure of the cyborg appears to challenge democratic progressivism through historicity and memory in the works of Gonzalo Contreras’s novel La ciudad anterior (1991) and Alberto Fuguet’s film Velódromo (2009).It is important to establish a connection between these works and new ‘glocal’ imaginaries that have been overlooked since the decade of the 1990s. These cultural productions, in their visual and textual dynamic language, challenge national identities by intersecting the global with a local through folklorization, parody, and hyperbolic realisms. They deconstruct the naturalized national hero and reconstitute virtual and precarious cyborg identities disrupting dominant discourses such as the dictatorship and the democratic transition rhetoric.
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Title
Estrellas, medios y relatos de fútbol en México (1941-2001)
Creator
Gonzalez Landeros, Alejandro
Date
2016
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
ABSTRACTESTRELLAS, MEDIOS Y RELATOS DE FÚTBOL EN MÉXICO (1941-2001) ByAlejandro González Landeros This doctoral dissertation explores how Mexican soccer narratives have changed throughout the 20th century under the impact of different platforms of mass media and new technologies (i.e. written press, radio, cinema and television). I have three goals in undertaking this project. First, I map and trace the history of changes of what I call “the parole of Mexican soccer” or the way Mexico talks...
Show moreABSTRACTESTRELLAS, MEDIOS Y RELATOS DE FÚTBOL EN MÉXICO (1941-2001) ByAlejandro González Landeros This doctoral dissertation explores how Mexican soccer narratives have changed throughout the 20th century under the impact of different platforms of mass media and new technologies (i.e. written press, radio, cinema and television). I have three goals in undertaking this project. First, I map and trace the history of changes of what I call “the parole of Mexican soccer” or the way Mexico talks about soccer. Second, I explore how Mexican media invested in creating a soccer star mega-system. Third, I analyze how Mexican soccer imagination changes under the impact of a media cross-fertilizations process. Up to this point, there are no studies that research how different technologies influence of language of Mexican soccer. This is a void that I propose to fill by revising the history of the relationship between soccer and mass media in Mexico throughout the 20th century. My dissertation consists of 5 chapters. The first chapter analyzes Esto, which became the sports weekly magazine most widely sold in Mexico during the 40s. In this chapter, I examine how Esto narrated soccer by addressing the following questions: 1) how did the press begin to organize and imagine Mexican soccer narratives, 2) how did Esto’s chronicles and/or interviews build a star-system that later established itself as a common practice for other mass media, and 3) what rhetoric started to be associated with soccer, or how was a soccer narrative founded in the newspapers of the 1940s. The second chapter analyzes the “Golden Age” of Mexican cinema, especially the movie Los hijos de don Venancio (1944). I review how did cinema speak about soccer in Mexico along with the star system that movies built or how they fed the celebrity discourse already institutionalized by the written press. In chapter three, I focus in Chanoc (1959-1981?), which was one of the most successful comic books in the 1960s through the 1980s. By entering the universe of soccer comic books, Mexican soccer began to be narrated through parody and picaresque. Also, the topics start to diversify. Acknowledging all these changes, I explore how Chanoc mocked the “nación mexicana futbolera” through the lens and satirized language of Televisa sport commentator Ángel Fernández, a major talking point of Chanoc’s football series. Chapter four analyzes how Tomás Mojarro talked in his UNAM radio program Paliques y cabeceos (1982-1986) about the social and economic implications that the 1986 World Cup had on its staging throughout Mexico. Tomás Mojarro provides insights into Televisas’s investments in the mega-event, and how the Mexican state aided the media corporation. The last chapter analyzes the telenovela El juego de la vida (2001) and the new “sentimental” and “feminine” language that the soap opera added to the existing (male) narratives of soccer in Mexico. I am interested in finding how this telenovela was able to imagine the impossible women of mid/high classes becoming protagonists of such an uncharted territory of Mexican masculine landscape.
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Title
Retórica de la imitación : identidad sexual y raza en la producción cultural dominicana y puertorriqueña contemporánea
Creator
Montalvo, Jonathan
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Esta tesis examina cómo las producciones culturales de la República Dominicana y Puerto Rico, particularmente la literatura y el cine, establecen una conexión entre género, sexualidad, raza y los discursos políticos e intelectuales represivos en ambos países. Exploraré desde una perspectiva queer cómo estas producciones (de)centralizan los discursos hegemónicos y paternalistas que perpetúan identidades raciales, sexuales y de género fijas en la región. En este proceso de cuestionamiento, se...
Show moreEsta tesis examina cómo las producciones culturales de la República Dominicana y Puerto Rico, particularmente la literatura y el cine, establecen una conexión entre género, sexualidad, raza y los discursos políticos e intelectuales represivos en ambos países. Exploraré desde una perspectiva queer cómo estas producciones (de)centralizan los discursos hegemónicos y paternalistas que perpetúan identidades raciales, sexuales y de género fijas en la región. En este proceso de cuestionamiento, se pueden identificar dos tendencias que guían este estudio. Por un lado, las producciones puertorriqueñas queer reproducen y a la vez cuestionan los discursos de los intelectuales de la Generación del 30. Por otro lado, los escritores dominicanos denuncian las luchas de la comunidad diverso-sexual y sus estrategias para sobrevivir en una sociedad caótica a consecuencia de los disturbios políticos durante los regímenes de Rafael L. Trujillo y Joaquín Balaguer. Los autores dominicanos y puertorriqueños analizados en este estudio utilizan una nueva retórica caribeña, la cual llamo la retórica de la imitación. Los personajes de las obras analizadas imitan algunos elementos de modelos sexo-genéricos y raciales hegemónicos. De este modo, los escritores contemporáneos utilizan esta nueva retórica para idear estrategias (a través de la imitación de esos modelos) con las cuales puedan cuestionar los discursos dominantes históricamente perpetuados por la clase política e intelectual de ambos países caribeños.
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Title
Beyond the biblical and millenarian : place, space, & meaning in the poetic landscapes of Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaragua, 1950 to the present
Creator
Fuchs, Kevin Artur
Date
2014
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal's exteriorista brand of verse is devoid of abstract metaphors. The objective tone of his poetry obscures underlying subjective inclinations. This dissertation analyzes Cardenal's exteriorista poetic landscapes to decode the subjectivity of place embedded within them. The study begins with Alexandra Kogl's equation "place = space + meaning," which invites interpretation of place both from the perspective of cultural studies, with a focus on the...
Show moreNicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal's exteriorista brand of verse is devoid of abstract metaphors. The objective tone of his poetry obscures underlying subjective inclinations. This dissertation analyzes Cardenal's exteriorista poetic landscapes to decode the subjectivity of place embedded within them. The study begins with Alexandra Kogl's equation "place = space + meaning," which invites interpretation of place both from the perspective of cultural studies, with a focus on the culturally contested terrain of meaning, as well as from an ecocritical vantage point as it pertains to physical space and how human relationships and interactions with the natural environment can influence identities of place. Kogl's equation is modified to show that Cardenal's landscapes are not static, monolithic, or biblical backdrops, but rather are in dialogue with historical and autobiographical moments as well as with competing narratives that contest meanings of place. Meaning and space are not mutually exclusive addends. Meaning in Cardenal's poetry is influenced by material spaces as well as by activities themselves that alter space. That is to say, Cardenal also responds to the space addend, to the narrative that imperialist incursions and exploits have physically "written" over the land and the bodies of its inhabitants. Cardenal's poetry is considered chronologically across four periods based upon "ruptures" found in his memoirs and in historiographical accounts. Chapter 1 (1950-1970) focuses on the poems "Con Walker en Nicaragua" and "Hora 0." The analysis highlights a trend in his verse which leads from "transcultural identity conflict" regarding U.S.-Nicaraguan relations towards a more sharply defined polarization of identities, linking changes in landscape representation to the heating up of the Cold War in the 1950s. Chapter 2 (1970-1977) locates linkages between Cardenal's "Canto nacional," "Oráculo sobre Managua," and "Viaje a Nueva York," historical events, and competing narratives prevalent at the time. It is shown how the poet depicts nation as a natural habitat of organisms which form synergetic webs of life, support, and self-defense. The focus on the first-person lyrical voice is amplified as the need for self-realization and self-preservation become increasingly intertwined with national renewal in a time of upheaval. Chapter 3 (1977-1990) considers the collections Vuelos de victoria and Cántico cósmico, written in the midst of revolution, Sandinista rule, and the Contra War. Landscape representations shift from the euphoria of national renewal towards the "starscapes" of exile. The poet retools landscapes on the scale of the cosmos and enters into competitive dialogue both with narratives emanating from U.S. empire as well as with the autobiographical and historical events that challenge the poet to reframe his nationalist vision. Chapter 4 (1990-2014) explores how the poet wrestles with the neoliberal conceptual apparatus and the fragmentation that it has exacerbated. He advances a unifying perspective of the universe, advocates for a renewed sense of history and for the protection of the "commons." Cardenal's poetry assumes a more transnational character, a transition that coincides with the rampant globalization of free-market capitalism. This study makes clear that the changing texture of Cardenal's landscapes are not merely the product of a liberation theologian or of an adherent to Marxist ideologies, but the result of a man responding to the historical and autobiographical context of his own life and times. Nicaraguan transformation throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is strongly registered across Cardenal's poetry. By adopting an ecocritical stance, this dissertation makes evident the intersection of the literary, historical, and the ecological and highlights their multiple configurations within the dynamic and primary referent of Cardenal's poetic landscapes.
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Title
De la resistencia a la revitalizacion cultural en la narrativa maya contemporanea
Creator
Moreno Mosqueda, Zenaida
Date
2014
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Esta disertación analiza cuatro obras de la narrativa maya contemporánea de Guatemala y Chiapas, México, publicadas entre las décadas de 1980 y 2000. Los textos elegidos para este estudio incluye las novelas El tiempo principia en Xibalbá (1985) de Luis de Lión, La otra cara: La vida de un maya (1992) y El retorno de los mayas (1998) de Gaspar Pedro González y la colección de cuentos Todo cambió (2006) de Josías López Gómez. Esta investigación estudia las transformaciones discursivas que se...
Show moreEsta disertación analiza cuatro obras de la narrativa maya contemporánea de Guatemala y Chiapas, México, publicadas entre las décadas de 1980 y 2000. Los textos elegidos para este estudio incluye las novelas El tiempo principia en Xibalbá (1985) de Luis de Lión, La otra cara: La vida de un maya (1992) y El retorno de los mayas (1998) de Gaspar Pedro González y la colección de cuentos Todo cambió (2006) de Josías López Gómez. Esta investigación estudia las transformaciones discursivas que se observan en las obras literarias de estos autores indígenas. Mi objetivo principal es demostrar que dichas transformaciones expresan la transición de un discurso maya contestatario a un discurso maya de revitalización cultural. Al examinar esta transición, esta disertación propone que la narrativa maya contemporánea trata los siguientes temas políticos, literarios e históricos: (1) problematiza categorías binarias de identidad racial y étnica como mestizo/ladino e indio/indígena así como su asociación al poder que se refleja en la relación entre hegemonía y subalternidad, (2) desestabiliza las representaciones estereotípicas y homogeneizantes de los pueblos indígenas para ilustrar su diversidad cultural y (3) enfatiza la capacidad y la determinación de los mayas para preservar su cultura y su identidad. Con este objetivo en mente, la disertación define el contexto histórico, sociocultural, político y artístico que precede la reaparición de la literatura maya contemporánea. Enseguida discute y analiza su discurso contestatario y el discurso de revitalización cultural así como la forma en que se manifiestan en las obras de los autores antes mencionados. La disertación concluye con una serie de ideas y temas aún pendientes en el estudio de la identidad indígena en la literatura maya contemporánea y latinoamericana.
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Title
National disidentifications : diasporic identity formation in contemporary Puerto Rican and Dominican narratives of migration
Creator
Borges-Delgado, Octavio
Date
2016
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
In the 20th Century, the mass exoduses that displaced thousands of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans to the United States marked the beginning of ethnic diasporas that have redefined preconceived notions of national identity. This dissertation focuses on contemporary narrative representations of Dominican and Puerto Rican migrations to the United States beginning in the first half of the 20th Century. The project addresses the processes of negotiation that take place in multi-ethnic and multi...
Show moreIn the 20th Century, the mass exoduses that displaced thousands of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans to the United States marked the beginning of ethnic diasporas that have redefined preconceived notions of national identity. This dissertation focuses on contemporary narrative representations of Dominican and Puerto Rican migrations to the United States beginning in the first half of the 20th Century. The project addresses the processes of negotiation that take place in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural sites that result in the development of diasporic identities. At the same time, the project proposes that the intersections between the geographical and identity boundaries of these groups allow for cultural and individual interactions that affect the ways in which they negotiate their national ties beyond a state of liminality. The interactions resulting from these spaces of contention facilitate varied relationships and affiliations between diaspora and homeland. At the root of this project is my belief that the texts selected present diverse positions that rearticulate national identification in order to develop diasporic identities. The study contributes to critical work on diasporic identity formation as it comments on the processes of acculturation of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in the United States. While many studies dedicated to this topic have read identities in the diaspora as being located in liminal dilemmas, this dissertation presents how diasporic subjects develop national identifications that are not perpetually in conflict. In the Introduction I discuss the critical approaches that see diasporic subjects as individuals that are located in an “in-between” space, and propose the study of Dominican and Puerto Rican narratives of migration as case studies in which we can assess the intricacies contained in the development of diasporic identity formation.In chapter 1, “Carving Identities in Writing: The Migrant Jíbara, Gastronomy, Class and Encounter with the United States in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican (1993),” I explore the author’s narrative representation of her younger self as a Puerto Rican migrant, and the identity changes and national identification shifts brought upon dislocation. In chapter 2, “Etching Identities in Alien Turfs: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in Piri Thomas’ Down These Mean Streets (1967),” I examine the role multi-ethnic and multi-racial urban environments play in the development of diasporic subjectivities and their impact on the subject’s racial, ethnic, and national identity consciousness. In chapter 3, “(Re)Assembling Home in the Diaspora: Gendered Returns, Religion, and Patriarchy in Loida Maritza Pérez’s Geographies of Home (1999),” I analyze the domestic junctures in which the formulation of “home” reproduces national discourses and their reexaminations from members of different migrant generations. In the last chapter, “Fictionalizing History: Comic Books, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and the (Re) Articulation of the Past in Junot Díaz’s The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007),” I focus on the process of writing about the nation-as-ancestral land as a form in which discourses about nationness can be rewritten.
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