Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Alejandro Lugo. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-208) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

The present work seeks to identity possible sources of the persistent link between the Spanish language and national identity in Puerto Rico. By examining mass media discourse in the 1940s as a turbulent period of language policy conflict between the Island and the U.S. federal government, I suggest that the federal imposition of language policy without the consent or approval of local politicians or educators was influential in the construction of national identity that included language as a major defining factor. Local elites reacted to the colonial hegemony by defining Puerto Rican identity in opposition to American identity. The construction of identity in 1940s is characterized by a cultural conception of nation that redefined national symbols (such as language) in social rather than political terms in order to avoid disturbing the existing colonial hegemony.

This thesis examines San Miguel as a cultural symbol in the Mayan community of San Miguel Acatan, Guatemala from 1940 to 1960. During the decades examined the community underwent a series of political, economic, social, and religious changes. This thesis focuses on the religious transformations. American Maryknoll priests were assigned in 1946 as the town's first full-time priests. They sought to 'convert the pagan Catholics' by introducing a universal form of Catholicism. Resistance to the efforts of the priests culminated in 1959, when San Miguel fled the town center to the nearby village of Chimban where a chapel was built for San Miguel and a market established. The traditional religious hierarchy moved to Chimban shortly afterwards. Within a year people from the town center kidnapped and burned Chimban's image of San Miguel. The thesis draws primarily on archival and oral history sources.

<p> This dissertation contributes to an understanding of contemporary art practices from Mexico City, as they are received in Mexico and abroad, by interpreting the meaning of local and global sources in recent work shown in Mexico, the U.S., and Europe by three internationally established, contemporary artists from Mexico City: Gabriel Orozco, Carlos Amorales, and Pedro Reyes. These three artists established their careers in the 1990s, when, for the first time, Mexican artists shifted from a national plane to a global realm of operation. Through three case studies of recent bodies of work produced by these artists, I show how each of them engages with both Mexico's artistic lineages and global art currents in ways that bring to light the problem of identity for Mexican artists working internationally. This study explores the specific ways in which each artist deals with Mexican content, in order to discuss how contemporary notions of `Mexican' are framed, misconstrued, and contested in the artworks themselves, and in the critical discourse on these artists, in Mexico and internationally.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the role of the Haitian Revolution in helping to shape Jose Marti's writings on the social, political and economic conditions in Cuba during its wars of independence. The first chapter examines some of the similarities and differences between these two events (the Haitian Revolution and Cuba's independence wars) and the impact of the Haitian Revolution on Cuba during its wars of independence. The second chapter analyzes some of Marti's political essays and shows how Marti, throughout his works, mentions Haiti as an example not to be emulated. He stresses his desire for Cuba not to become another Haiti and proposes ways for Cuba to avoid the fate of Haiti. The final chapter studies Cuba's political, economic and social environment in the years following Marti's death and establishes whether or not Cuba did indeed accomplish Marti's wish of Cuban independence.

In the late 20th century, Bogota, capital of Colombia, a country where homicide is the leading cause of death, became a model of governmental intervention aimed at managing violence. My dissertation inquires into this puzzling transformation. It, however, is not intended as another evaluation of the reduction of violence and crime in the Colombian capital. Rather, my work examines the unfolding of municipal initiatives aimed at reducing violence---locally known as coexistence and citizen security policies---and their further framing as a model of governmental intervention for managing violence elsewhere. I examine these initiatives in terms of their crafting and deployment at the local level, the ideas and approaches to violence that lie behind them, and both local and extra-local dynamics that intervene in their further circulation. To put it in the most simplified manner, my dissertation addresses citizen security and peaceful coexistence as ways of managing violence in contemporary Bogota, as they circulate and as they are redefined through a variety of settings including official and private institutions, academic circles, governmental agencies, multilateral organizations and daily urban scenes. My research takes place at a historic moment: the transformation of Bogota from a city frequently described as one of the most violent and chaotic cities in Latin America, to a city increasingly addressed as an exemplary case for other cities in the region in terms of violence reduction, urban governance, and the management of crime and violence. This transformation unfolds in the aftermath of the Cold War and under the shadow of both the war on drugs and, more recently, the war on terrorism. Redefinitions of violence and crime, of security and governance that are attached to these shifts, express themselves in particular ways at the local level. Rather than considering these geopolitical shifts as merely a broader context for my research, I inquire into a local version of them. I look into the creation, adoption, and circulation of a model of governmental intervention aimed at reducing violence, tied to specific settings and yet not restricted to them.

The study of Ginastera's three Piano Sonatas can be viewed as an example of the composer's general development. The historical context in which Ginastera lived is an important departure point. His native country, Argentina, was originally the home of the Incas who practiced music, although at a primitive stage. The first foreign influence was the Spanish colonization in 1516. After Argentina's independence in 1816, the figure of the gaucho appeared; it was a legend of the pampas and a constant source of inspiration for the Argentine nationalistic culture. A new European immigration further reinforced western music in Argentina and inspired the country in its search for a cultural identity. Ginastera's output is often catalogued in three periods: Objective Nationalism, Subjective Nationalism, and Neo-Expressionism. A parallel can be drawn between Ginastera's evolution as a composer and Argentina's development as a cultural entity. The first Sonata shows the influence of Bartok and Stravinsky as well as Argentine folk elements, among which we recognize the guitar symbolism. The second Sonata goes back to the pre-Columbian era, inspired by primitive Indian melodies and rhythms. To these Ginastera adds an advanced atonal language, including chromatic clusters and microtone effects, thus bringing the dissonance to an extreme level. The third Sonata mixes both sources of inspiration. As a synthesis of the previous two sonatas, it shows a tendency towards balance and greater economy. All three works show an evolution, but also reflect similarities: the importance of the third interval, the melodic exaltation, the strong rhythms, and the sense of magic.

Through examining the political, economic, and social developments of the Grenada Revolution, it is possible to view the revolutionary period as part of a continuum of Grenada's history. In most areas the Peoples' Revolutionary Government was unable to break away from its inherited constraints. An examination of the political control of the revolution reveals the continuity of authoritarian tendencies in Grenadian political culture emanating from the colonial period, while the PRG was unable to break successfully the ties of its dependent economy. The revolution did initiate considerable improvements in social conditions in Grenada, and its attempts at popular democracy provide some useful lessons for future policy makers in the Caribbean. The rigid imposition of an imported ideology, however, not designed for Grenada's unique historical conditions, meant that the revolution failed to change the complex and constricting barriers of class, race, and gender.

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<p> This thesis argues that Mexican painter Enrique Guzm&aacute;n is a central figure in the transition between the Ruptura movement and postmodernism. Construed by many as a surrealist artist, Guzm&aacute;n employs idiosyncratic imagery not to probe inner realities, but to explore themes such as abjection and the fragmentation of self into commodity images. Inhabiting the chasm between an oppressive ultra-conservative provincial culture and the turbulent revolutionary ideology of Mexico City of the sixties and seventies, Guzm&aacute;n articulates, by fusing aesthetic categories such as, among others, the grotesque, the campy and the advertising clich&eacute; and exploring language, paradox and gaze, a deconstruction of cultural and political codes by satirizing their interlocking systems of signs and simulacra, initiating a critique of national and personal identity that will later be developed by the Neo-Mexicanists (Neomexicanistas) into a bold denouncement of sexual, socioeconomic and national marginalization.</p>