Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Teachers College, Columbia University, 1991. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Mordecai Rubin. Dissertation Committee: Lambros Comitas. Includes bibliographical references (p. 144-151).

Thesis (M.S.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2003. / Thesis advisor: Gustavo Mejía. In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Spanish. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-83). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / " ... Scotti's engraving of S. Nicolò Chapter House frescoes" ([1] folded leaf) inserted in pocket. Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 485-501). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (University of Texas Digital Repository, viewed on Sept. 9, 2009). Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation studies the use of the epic genre to legitimize totalitarian power. It focuses on the writings of a group of Dominican authors who worked at the service of the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Most specialists of the period agree that the wealth of texts produced by these men of letters articulated an ideological system that allowed General Trujillo's brutal regime to remain in power for three decades (1930-1961). Their governmental positions, as well as their prestige as writers and orators, granted them unrestricted access to the public school system and to the means of mass communication. They used this access to promote their notions of national identity, while naturalizing Trujillo's totalitarian power by building consensus in favor of what came to be known as "The New Fatherland." Their work in this respect was so effective that almost fifty years after the fall of the dictatorship their ideas about what it meant to be Dominican still plays a significant role in the anti-Haitian sentiment that fills the editorial pages of Dominican newspapers. These Trujillista authors and public servants, however, did not constitute a homogeneous front. An underlying current of texts produced by some them effectively departed from the main tenets of the official ideology, questioning the basic assumptions upon which lay its definition of dominicanidad. However, far from generating a unified discourse, they expressed divergent views on the Dominican racial and national identity. This fissure in the inner circle of power took the shape of a struggle between two generic forms in the field of cultural production. Whereas the dominant discourse followed the linear structure of the "epic of the victors," identifying the Dominican identity with Spanish culture and the Catholic faith, the oppositional texts incorporated the digressive form of an "epic of the vanquished," highlighting the contributions of the African diaspora to the emergence of a Caribbean consciousness. / text

This dissertation examines the bildungsroman genre in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. A close examination of the development of this genre demonstrates that it has ideological implications that link the young protagonists’ development with that of the nation. The authors on whom I focus—Ángela Hernández, Rita Indiana Hernández, René Marqués, Pedro Juan Soto, Magali García Ramis, Severo Sarduy, and Jesús Díaz—do not merely imitate the European model but revise, adapt, and often subvert it thematically and, in some cases, aesthetically. I argue that these bildungsromane differ, for the most part, from the European prototype due to their openly political themes, such as the establishment of the Estado Libre Asociado in Puerto Rico, the 1959 Revolution in Cuba, and, in the case of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo’s dictatorship. I claim that Dominican bildungsromane do not propose national projects or models but rather question the purported homogeneity of identity of the country as a normalized political body. On the other hand, in Cuba and Puerto Rico the genre has been used to promote absolute discourses of nationality as well as political projects that must be questioned due to their discriminatory and sometimes racist and violent nature.

This dissertation examines the bildungsroman genre in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. A close examination of the development of this genre demonstrates that it has ideological implications that link the young protagonists’ development with that of the nation. The authors on whom I focus—Ángela Hernández, Rita Indiana Hernández, René Marqués, Pedro Juan Soto, Magali García Ramis, Severo Sarduy, and Jesús Díaz—do not merely imitate the European model but revise, adapt, and often subvert it thematically and, in some cases, aesthetically. I argue that these bildungsromane differ, for the most part, from the European prototype due to their openly political themes, such as the establishment of the Estado Libre Asociado in Puerto Rico, the 1959 Revolution in Cuba, and, in the case of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo’s dictatorship. I claim that Dominican bildungsromane do not propose national projects or models but rather question the purported homogeneity of identity of the country as a normalized political body. On the other hand, in Cuba and Puerto Rico the genre has been used to promote absolute discourses of nationality as well as political projects that must be questioned due to their discriminatory and sometimes racist and violent nature.