abstract: Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876) is considered as one of the biggest villains of Mexican history. This frequent president in the first decades of Independence of México is the main character portrayed in the novels analyzed in this dissertation: Su alteza serenísima (1895-1896) by Ireneo Paz, Santa Anna, el dictador resplandeciente (1936) by Rafael F. Muñoz, El seductor de la patria (1999) by Enrique Serna, and México mutilado (2006) by Francisco Martín Moreno. Many Mexican novelists have tackled iconic personalities from Mexican history. However, based upon the historical context that occurred within their lifetime, each author takes a different approach to the story and characters they portray. In the novel Su alteza serenísima, Santa Anna is presented with identical characteristics as in the official history. That was written for other liberals, like Paz, the author. In El dictador resplandeciente an image almost romantic of the leader is presented through the valorization of his role in history. The narrator shows the contradictions of Santa Anna, who was a hero and villain. Santa Anna is presented from different perspectives in El seductor de la patria. The narrator uses Santa Anna's voice projecting a consciousness of the future's judgment of history upon his actions and the voices of "the others" that live around him. In México mutilado Santa Anna is presented from the same perspective as the official history, although other traitors are added to distribute the fault among various important figures. This dissertation works through the analysis of the discursive mechanisms used in these novels, of the configuration of the message that they wish to convey to the reader, of the level of re-writing official history, of the perspective from which each author is reviewing the history, of the recount of what historical aspects and voices were chosen for inclusion in each novel, and through the evaluation of how the authors recover the figure of Santa Anna. This study follows an eclectic model of cultural commentary, taking up critical concepts from Latin American literary scholars such as Perkowska, Pons, Jitrik, Aínsa, among others. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Spanish 2011

abstract: In the midst of historical ruptures and transfiguration caused by a globalization that has restructured new realities marked by violence, Central American and Chicanos realities have come into contact in a global space such the United States. Thus, the interdependence between these two cultures is so close that the literary influences are unavoidable. We argue that there is an asymmetrical relationship in the narrative of globalization, which sets new unpublished orders and generates perceptions of reality. The ideological dimensions of globalization that have caused systemic violence can be traced through military interventions and economic ventures. Thus, the subject of our research is assumed as a literary whole within certain social facts, i.e., as a symbolic aspect of the processes of violence within a culture undermined by globalization. Hence, in using theory of violence by Slavoj Ziek and theory of globalization by Manuel Castells, Tony Shirato, Jenn Webb, James Petra, and Henry Veltmeyer, we explore the narrative and criticism of U.S-Central Americans and Chicano in order to expose the forces of systemic violence that globalization produces. Our results show that, historically, globalization has formulated epistemologies via violence for Chicanos and U.S-Central Americans; such violence marks both groups, allowing for solidarity, through discursive practices of resistance, to take place in the textual space as well as in the real world. Such solidarity disrupts the textual borders, creating a dialogue of mutual understanding. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2011

abstract: In the first thirty years of the XX century, an old literary visual tradition was reborn in a series of new striking visual texts better known as calligrams. They were produced by some avant-garde poets such as Vicente Huidobro, José Juan Tablada, Alberto Hidalgo and Carlos Oquendo de Amat in Latin America, and Juan Larrea, Guillermo de Torre, Francisco Vighi, Luis Mosquera, and others in Spain. However, with few exceptions, the interpretation of those written drawings has caught little attention from literary critics. This research, contrasted to that of Willard Bohn's, is a contribution to the deciphering of such literary art form, designated here as the figurative visual poem. It is a proposal for its visual reading which draws from the fact that this type of text is concretely a drawing formed by written verses. As such, it can be regarded as a plastic writing, combining pictorial and verbal signs in one perceptible configuration on the page. The result of this semiotic operation is a hybrid product in which the iconic forms become symbolic and vice versa. It is in fact, an art object which should be approached as a text that can be seen as well as read. The study leads to the conclusion that Willard Bohn misreads the order in which language and image are articulated in the visual poem identified with the second order semiological system proposed by Roland Barthes, placing preeminence on language over image. This results in reading the avant-garde visual figurative poem in an ekphrastic fashion. Consequently, the role of the image in the system is left in an ambiguous realm at the time of deciphering this hybrid text. Our contribution to re-conducting this undertaking has been equally drawn from a semiotic stance taken from Louis Hjemslev that balances language and image as correlates of a semiotic function. Due to the signaling nature of both, language and figure, a visual poem becomes an iconic metaphor as well as a metaphoric icon, and moreover a self-referential sign, thus justifying its status of an autonomous art. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Spanish 2011

abstract: ABSTRACT Of all the writers associated with the McOndo movement, a literary movement that focuses on the reality of urban life for millions of young Latin Americans, Jorge Franco is perhaps the most distinguished. As the author of Paraíso Travel and Rosario Tijeras, Franco has expertly shown his international audience the brutal conditions under which so many residents of his birth city of Medellín, Colombia, live. In both novels the reader is introduced to a world in which various factors have set up a society characterized by victims and predators. This study will attempt to show how economics, violence, machismo, racism and class discrimination all play a role in establishing a social hierarchy that facilitates anti-social behavior, and how these social institutions perpetuate themselves to the detriment of those caught in the cycle. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2012

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Na diversidade das postulações do (neo?) barroco latino-americano ensaiadas no século XX existe uma constante: o discurso político que é sobre-impresso à recepção das teorias européias do Barroco. A tese examina as relações entre essa politização, veiculada principalmente nos debates sobre a historiografia literária, e as representações da comida que aparecem em múltiplos textos ficcionais desde meados do século XIX até a década de 1970, sob a hipótese de que tal vinculação teria construído um complexo dispositivo retórico: uma retórica da comida que operaria politicamente no âmago da ficção. O objetivo não é demonstrar a hipótese, mas procurar estabelecer a possibilidade teórica dessa demonstração. A recepção na América Latina do barroco (como termo e como teoria) é examinada sob uma ótica heterodoxa, que tenta avaliar o papel do barroco na historiografia e nas leituras críticas do século XX. A proposta de análise das obras avança em torno de quatro tipos de representações da comida: a alimentação, a antropofagia, a fome e os banquetes. Trata-se, enfim, de uma leitura que, sem rejeitar totalmente as contribuições da historiografia nem as interpretações tradicionais, propõe conexões alternativas e singulares entre variadas obras de autores latino-americanos, por fora das limitações impostas nos modelos da literatura nacional ou da literatura continental / Within the diversity of new baroque Latin American postulations existing during the 20th century there is a constant: their political speech is submitted to the reception of European baroque theories. This paper analyzes the relationship between this politization diffused mainly throughout debates about literary historiography and the representation of food that appeared in different fictional texts since the middle of 19th century up to the seventieth of the 20th. That hypothesis sustained that such a linkage would erect a complex rhetorical mechanism --rhetoric of food-- which would politically act inside the essence of fiction. This paper aims to establish the theoretical possibility of this statement developing the topic in two parts. The first part refers to baroque reception in Latin America as a term and theory from a point of view of a heterodox perspective that tries to evaluate the roll of baroque in the historiography as well as in the critical readings all over the 20th. In the second part, the analysis of works proceeds around four types of food representation: alimentation, anthropophagi, starvation and banquets. Consequently, this paper is about a reading, which without refusing contributions made by historiography and traditional interpretations, proposes alternative and singular connections among a variety of works written by Latin American writers beyond the boundaries imposed in the patterns of national or continental literature

abstract: Narrativas no-convencionales en cuentistas hispanoamericanos contemporáneos: Iván Thays (Perú), Jorge Volpi y Ricardo Chávez Castañeda (México) y Héctor Libertella (Argentina) se centra en cuentos contemporáneos de autores de diferentes tradiciones nacionales dentro de un marco de tiempo veinticinco años, que convergen en la práctica de las narrativas no-convencionales. Defino narrativa no-convencional como un efecto narrativo controlado e intencional que implícita o explícitamente cuestiona procedimientos o convenciones generalmente catalogados como "realismo" y por lo tanto se desvía de él. Este estudio establece conexiones, afinidades y potenciales diferencias entre los textos del corpus seleccionado, y se enfoca en los procesos por medio de los cuales las narrativas no convencionales se desvían en mayor o menor grado del "realismo". El marco teórico que utilizo se compone de dos enfoques. Me centro, por un lado, en una área muy reciente de estudios definida como narrativas no naturales, que abarca teorías narratológicas que exponen extrañamiento y experimentación en una variedad de textos literarios y permiten el análisis de la representación del espacio-tiempo de manera innovadora. Por el otro lado, me baso en teorías epistemológicas, complementadas con un enfoque fenomenológico desarrollado por Darío Villanueva, según la cual el lector es capaz de crear una simulación intencional de realismo/antirrealismo interactuando, reconociendo y comparando los sistemas de referencia o esquemas con otros marcos a los que ha tenido acceso anteriormente. Todos los textos despliegan un conjunto de prácticas narratológicas para crear o destruir la ilusión de realismo. Además de poner de relieve la narrativa no-convencional, la disertación enfatiza la narrativa antimimética como uno de los géneros menos explorados dentro de la tradición hispanoamericana. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2015

abstract: Due to its interdisciplinary nature, the history of emotions has engaged much scholarly interest. This project draws from the historical, sociological and philosophical research on emotions to analyze the representation of emotions in narratives from Argentina and Chile. This historical investigation posits that socio-political, cultural and economic forces, which are represented in literature and film, shape emotions and emotional standards. The analysis of Rayuela (1963) by Julio Cortázar and Raúl Ruiz’s Tres Tristes Tigres (1968) is centered on the impact of Existentialism, capitalism and modernity on the construction of emotional standards in urban societies. The impact of militant groups in the shaping of collective emotions in Latin America during the 1960s and 70s is examined in Reina Roffé’s novel Monte de Venus (1973) and Aldo Francia’s film Ya no basta con rezar (1972). The analysis of Alberto Fuguet’s Las películas de mi vida (2002) and Pablo Larraín’s No (2012) sheds light on the paradigmatic shift in the construction of emotional standards resulting from the implementation of neoliberalism through dictatorships as well as the insertion into the globalized consumerist culture by way of technology and media. Finally, this project encourages future research of the emotions in literary and cultural studies of Latin America. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2016

abstract: In the mid-1990’s, in Mexico, a group of novelists emerged during a public appearance at a literary venture aimed to go against predominant forms of aesthetics, canon, groups or literary ‘mafias’ prevalent during that time period. The group of five young writers called themselves “El grupo crack,” (The crack group). They brought with them the crack manifesto (1996) where each member of the group wrote to plea for a renovation of the novel with the assurance of having literary works that would challenge the reader as much as the literary status quo. Along with the manifesto, each one of them presented a novel. A few years after the presentation, the members of the group received many literary prices and accolades, inside and out of academic circles. One of the primary objectives of this work is to expose the poetic proposal of the literary grupo crack as it relates to previous movements, groups, and literary trends. Among the five writers of the group, Jorge Volpi has shown a significant growth in his literary corpus in a very short period of time. Aside from the great recognition he has received for his novel En busca de Klingsor (1999), (In search of Klingsor), Volpi has been a motive of study, mostly, for his narrative, leaving behind his essays. There are two collections of political-cultural essays that are well hidden in the early Jorge Volpi bibliography. The first one is titled La imaginación y el poder. Una historia intelectual de 1968 (1998), (Imagination and Power. An Intellectual history of 1968), and the second, La guerra y las palabras. Una historia intelectual de 1994 (2004), (War and Words. An intellectual history of 1994). Both works have been ignored in the bibliography of the grupo crack. To analyze both works it was necessary to contextualize Mexican history of the years 1968 and 1994, respectively. The analysis shows the interaction and coexistence between the intellectual class and the Mexican political class in an authoritarian regime, same symbiosis that Vargas Llosa would once refer to as “the perfect dictatorship.” / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2015

abstract: Using Michel Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical approaches, this study analyzes the influence of discourse—particularly the discursive impact of the short story, novel, poetry, chronicle, essay, film, photography, and comics—in shaping how soccer has become known in Latin America. The analysis not only considers how the so-called “beautiful game” and related texts have been embedded with dominant ideologies—among these heteronormativity, nationalism, elitism, and neoliberalism—but also how resisting discursive forces have attempted to deconstruct these notions. The following pages demonstrate that soccer in Latin America represents more than just a mere sport, but rather a significant social and cultural entity that facilitates an understanding of the region. Furthermore, by providing a critical view of one of the region’s most powerful cultural institutions, this study sheds light on how dominant individuals use the sport and popular culture to construct knowledge and guide social practices. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2017

abstract: ABSTRACT In the 19th and 20th centuries, many Latin American intellectuals began to question why their countries had failed to modernize and produce the type of economic prosperity and democratic societies that they desired. Influenced by the scientific theories of their time, many of the explanations offered by these intellectuals centered on a single issue—race. Yet scientific and historical definitions regarding “race” have varied greatly ranging from a conceptualization of race as a cultural to a biological construct. This same time period also saw the emergence of two new literary genres which addressed “racial” conflict in their own right—indigenismo and neo-indigenismo. In the last thirty years, postmodernist and postcolonialist readings of these texts have tended to articulate these interethnic conflicts in highly racialized terms which diminish the importance of any cultural differentiation that may exist (i.e. attitudes, aptitudes, norms, religions, expectations) while simultaneously augmenting perceived racial discord between groups—even where racial difference barely exists. This dissertation is an analysis of Pueblo enfermo (1909) and Raza de bronce (1919) by Alcides Arguedas, as well as Sociología guatemalteca: el problema social del indio (1923) and Hombres de maíz (1949) by Miguel Ángel Asturias. By taking an interdisciplinary approach and drawing on texts from history, anthropology, economics and literature I challenge many of the commonly held notions regarding the issues of race in these texts. I argue that, despite tinges of what social scientists have termed “scientific racism” that these works should be interpreted as criticisms of what the authors understood as cultural problems and deficiencies within their societies. Additionally, I argue that this highly politicized cultural criticism of their countries by Arguedas and Asturias was meant to challenge the mestizo and Ladino hegemony of their times as a means of making their countries more democratic, and that the strident postmodernist and would-be postcolonial readings reveal actually hidden anachronistic and ahistorical bias of their authors. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2018