This dissertation studies the emergence of literary history and criticism in the Americas during the eighteenth century. It focuses upon the study of 1.) Natural history as a matrix of literary history and criticism; 2.) The geopolitical functions of literary history and criticism in the periodical press; and 3.) The recovery of manuscripts as a residual product of modernity. Texts associated with a hegemonic Enlightenment, such as “Disertación sobre el derecho público universal” by Francisco Javier de Uriortúa, are analyzed. Next, we study modern historical-critical thought as emphasized in the periodical press of Bogotá and Quito. Finally, the circulation of manuscripts is studied as an indicator of the participation of Spanish American authors in discussions about the Enlightenment. For the latter, the dissertation analyzes the development of theories of good taste in El Nuevo Luciano de Quito by Eugenio Espejo and in the Plan elementál del buen gusto en todo genéro de materias by Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez de la Victoria. The study challenges the epistemological conflict provoked by the handwritten condition of a considerable portion of scholarship from the eighteenth century, in which the projects of an American modernity become subjugated by the power of European print.

xiv, 485 p. / The organizing principle of this dissertation is that Las Casas's most famous work, the Brevisima relacion , is primarily an intricately reasoned legal argument against the excesses of early Spanish colonialism rather than a fiery polemical diatribe by the "first human rights activist." Contrary to such anachronistic (though enduringly popular) characterization, this study employs a historical perspective to view this influential text as belonging to the genres of the early modern juridical tradition. Accordingly, this investigation begins by examining the historical matrix of fifteenth-century and early sixteenth-century Spain to properly contextualize Las Casas's early life and certain initial colonial institutions of the Spanish Indies. Similarly, his juridical expertise is firmly rooted in an explication of his contemporaneous formation in canon law and theology. From these foundational strands of his life and work, his maturing juridical voice spoke most decisively in certain of the major debates among Spanish jurists, theologians, and politicians--as well as in the Brevísima relación --in the wake of the Iberian "discovery" of what was for all concerned a physical as well as philosophical "New World." The combined focus of subsequent chapters elucidates the fundamentally juridical dimensions of the text, beginning with the specific context accompanying its genesis in 1542 until its publication a decade later. The treatise's legal character as an official publication based on various evidentiary sources is further revealed by the text's triple function--to inform, to denounce, and to petition, which in turn corresponds to the genres of relaciones, denuncias , and peticiones of the civil juridical tradition. The Brevísima relación 's content unveils far more than this; the epistemological rationale and analytic framework are intimately linked to canonistic, Thomistic, and biblical genres of the ecclesial juridical tradition. Continuing this historical investigation, the concluding chapter demonstrates anew the fundamental grounding of Las Casas's approach in the vibrant first generations of juristic discourse of the so-called Spanish colonial era. His multifaceted juridical voice was distinctively encoded in a powerful melding of civil and ecclesial legal traditions. This dissertation intends to communicate this voice intelligibly with the proper accents of the past. / Committee in charge: Dr. Robert Haskett, Chairperson; Dr. Carlos Aguirre, Member; Dr. Stephanie Wood, Member; Dr. David Luebke, Member; Dr. Stephen Shoemaker, Outside Member

Une idée particulière de littérature est née au cours des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, période qui coïncide avec la naissance du genre romanesque moderne. L’idée de roman moderne issue de ces transformations à cette époque-là configure un champ virtuel de caractéristiques qui a marqué aussi bien la théorie littéraire du XXe siècle que la production de textes. Cette recherche pose la question de la vitalité de cette idée de roman moderne et, par voie de conséquence, de la notion de littérature qu’elle suppose. Nous proposons donc une étude de l’idée de roman au sein des poétiques de trois auteurs hispano-américains contemporains : Juan José Saer, Ricardo Piglia et Roberto Bolaño. Cette étude tient compte autant d’aspects théoriques que formels et se concentre sur les essais et les entretiens des auteurs, ainsi que sur trois romans : La grande, La ciudad ausente et 2666. Nous postulons ainsi une lecture comparée à partir de l’indétermination, du rapport à l’expérience et de la réflexivité, considérés comme traits principaux de l’idée de roman moderne, ainsi qu’une analyse des trois romans à partir de leurs formes narratives, réflexives et hybrides. / A particular idea of literature was born during the 18th and 19th centuries, a period that corresponds with the rise of the modern novel genre. The idea of the modern novel, which came about during this time period, constitutes a virtual field of characteristics that has left its mark on both 20th century literary theory and on textual production. This research questions the vitality of this particular idea of the modern novel and, therefore, of the notion of literature it withholds. Our aim then, is to study the idea of the novel as it is expressed in the poetics of three contemporary Latin American writers: Juan José Saer, Ricardo Piglia and Roberto Bolaño. This study considers theoretical aspects as well as formal ones, focusing on essays and interviews of the three authors, as well as on three novels: La grande, La ciudad ausente and 2666.It presents a comparative reading of these poetics according to three main concepts: indetermination, relation to experience and reflexivity, which we think to be central to the idea of the modern novel. In addition, this study analyzes the three novels in terms of their narrative, reflexive and hybrid forms.

Ce travail a pour objectif l’analyse de l’influence du cinéma dans la littérature hispano-américaine. L’hypothèse centrale est que dès que le cinéma, par essence un art de masse, a commencé à gagner sa place dans le système des arts, il a influencé la façon dont les écrivains représentent la réalité. L’enthousiasme que le cinéma a réveillé chez de nombreux écrivains latino-américains depuis le début, et la pénurie d’études critiques à ce sujet, font de l’Amérique Latine un terrain très fécond pour mener à bien nos recherches. Notre travail est structuré en trois parties. Dans la première nous introduisons la problématique qui nous intéresse avec une attention spéciale aux travaux de sémiologie et de narratologie élaborés à partir des années soixante. Nous reprenons la séparation structuraliste entre « histoire » et « narration » pour distinguer deux niveaux d’emprunt différents, que nous analysons séparément dans la deuxième et la troisième partie.Dans la deuxième, nous considérons le concept d’influence depuis une perspective intertextuelle, en regardant comment certains récits littéraires ont assimilé des histoires racontées précédemment par le cinéma, les intégrant sous la forme de l’ « insertion » ou à travers un processus de « réécriture ».Dans la troisième partie nous étudions l’influence cinématographique depuis une perspective intermédiale, c'est-à-dire en analysant des cas où le cinéma est évoqué dans sa spécificité médiatique. Dans ces cas, l’emprunt n’a pas lieu au niveau de l’histoire, mais à celui de la narration et les auteurs tentent de reproduire à l’écrit une série de procédés narratifs utilisés à l’écran. / This work aims to analyze the influence of cinema on Latin American literature. The central hypothesis is that as soon as cinema, by essence a mass art form, started to win its place in the system of the arts, it influenced the way writers represent reality. The enthusiasm that cinema awoke in many Latin American writers since the beginning, and the lack of critical studies on the subject, make Latin America a very fertile ground for our research. Our work is separated in three sections. First, we introduce the issue at hand, paying special attention to semiology and narratology works starting from the 1960’s. We use the structuralist separation between “story” and “narration” to establish two different levels of borrowing, which we analyze separately in the second and third sections.In the second section, we consider the concept of influence from an intertextual perspective, observing how certain literary texts have assimilated stories previously told by cinema, integrating them under the form of insertion or through a process of rewriting.In the third section we study cinematographic influence from an intermedial perspective, by analyzing cases in which cinema is considered in its specificity as a medium. In these cases, borrowing doesn’t take place at the level of the story, but at that of the narration and the authors attempt to reproduce in writing a series of narrative methods used for the screen.

Dans ce travail nous analysons le rapport de l’individu au mimétisme dans l’œuvre de l’écrivain Chilien Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003). La notion du mimétisme est étroitement liée à celle du désir. En effet, selon le penseur français René Girard, l’individu ne désire pas par soi-même, mais il imite un modèle. Le désir est ainsi déterminé par ce médiateur. Cette forme de désir opère de manière inconsciente car le sujet est sûr de l’autonomie de son choix. Jacques Lacan enrichi cette lecture inspiré d’une idée typiquement hégélienne : le désir de reconnaissance. Pour Lacan, l’individu, avec une idée figée de soi-même (que Lacan appelle l’Imaginaire) est investi par le désir en forme de pulsion. Le mimétisme est double, non seulement l’individu imite des modèles pour tenter de correspondre à cette image figée, mais il destine son effort à être reconnu par les autres (que Lacan appelle le grand Autre ou le Symbolique). Cette étude utilise l’approche méthodologique que nous venons de décrire pour analyser l’œuvre de Roberto Bolaño. Bolaño, un des écrivains le plus importants de la littérature hispano-américaine des dernières années, est un auteur qui place au cœur de ses textes la problématique de l’autonomie du sujet. Cette problématique est surtout visible dans les deux thématiques, à notre sens dominantes, de son œuvre : l’art et le Mal. En effet, dans les textes de Bolaño il est toujours question d’artistes qui luttent pour faire reconnaître leur autonomie (c’est pour cette raison que ces artistes s’inscrivent souvent dans les mouvements d’avant-garde opposés à la tradition). De même, dans l’œuvre de l’écrivain chilien la violence est causée soit par la violence mimétique (les rivalités causées par une lecture erronée de la nature du désir : l’autre est un obstacle à la satisfaction du désir et non un médiateur de celui-ci) soit par les actes répondant à l’obsession d’un manque chez l’individu : généralement celui de ne pas pouvoir arriver à satisfaire une pulsion ayant son origine dans l’Imaginaire. / In this work we analyze the link between the subject and mimetic desire in the works of Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003). The concept of mimetic is closely related to the notion of desire. In fact, for French thinker René Girard, the individual doesn’t desire by himself, but he imitates a “model”. Desire is thus determined by the mediator. This type of desire operates in an unconscious way, because the subject is confident about the autonomy of his choice. French psychanalyst Jacques Lacan enhances this theory in a typically Hegelian way: the desire of recognition. For Lacan, the individual projects himself in a fixed image (called by Lacan the Imaginary); this fixation assails him in the form of a drive. Here mimetic desire is doubled: it doesn’t only imitate models to try to match with this fixed image, but also aims its effort to be recognized by others. Our work uses this methodological approach to study the works of Roberto Bolaño. Bolaño, one of the most important Hispanic American writers of the last years, puts the issue of the autonomy of the subject in the heart of his writings. This topic is mainly noticeable at the two main themes of his work: art and Evil. As a matter of fact, Bolaño’s writings always highlight the struggle of the artist who wants his autonomy recognized by the Other (for this reason, Bolaño’s artists are often members of the avant-garde, thus opposed to tradition). Correspondingly, violence can be caused in one hand by mimetic desire (rivalries provoked by an erroneous interpretation of desire’s nature: the Other is saw more as an obstacle for desire’s satisfaction than its mediator) or, on the other hand, by acts that meet the obsession of a lack: one that generally consist in a drive (originated in the Imaginary) that can’t be satisfied.

This dissertation analyzes the representations of immigrants from North Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe in Spain. As engaged scholarship, it seeks to better the portrayal of immigrants in the mass media through the study of literature, film, and music about immigration spanning from the year 2000 to 2016. Because misconceptions continue to propagate in the media, this dissertation works to counteract anti-immigrant, xenophobic representations as well as balance out overly positive and orientalized portrayal of immigrants with a call to recognize immigrants as human beings who deserve the same respect, dignity, and rights as any other citizen. Chapter 1 examines and analyzes the background to immigration in Spain by covering demographics, the mass media, and political theories related to immigration. Chapter 2 analyzes Spanish music about immigration through Richard Rorty’s social theory of ‘sentimental education’ as a meaningful way to redescribe marginalized minorities as full persons worthy of rights and dignity. Chapter 3 investigates the representation of immigrants in Spanish filmic shorts and cinema. Lastly, Chapter 4 demonstrates how literary portrayals of immigrants written by undocumented immigrants can give rise to strong characters that avoid victimization and rear empathy in their readers in order to affect a social change that minimizes cruelty.

El Caribe ha sido reconocido por considerarse una pluralidad de espacios que simultáneamente son solo uno. Contrario al contexto de su fragmentada geografía, su segregada historia colonial y su diversidad racial y lingüística, los intelectuales caribeños han establecido puentes de unidad cultural con la intención de configurar una identidad pan-caribeña. Por consiguiente, los ensayistas del siglo XX se enfrentan a la necesidad de examinar críticamente los factores que formulan sus respectivas identidades, en contraste con aquellas tradicionalmente impuestas bajo el discurso colonial y metropolitano. Desde el tercer cuarto del siglo, pensadores como Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969), Fidel Castro (1926-), George Lamming (1927-), Kamau Brathwaite (1930-), Juan I. Jiménes-Grullón (1903-1983), Hubert Devonish (1953-), Edouard Glissant (1928-2011), Antonio Benítez-Rojo (1931-2005), Arcadio Díaz Quiñones y Maryse Condé (1937-), entre otros, cuestionan el sistema colonial, los procesos étnicos y las propuestas lingüísticas, relacionándolos con conceptos tales como la hibridez, el sincretismo, la transculturación y la heterogeneidad. Estas teorías culturales, de alguna manera, reescriben ideas antecedentes en reacción a discursos hegemónicos previos como consecuencia de los cambios políticos que trajeron las guerras de independencia en América Latina durante el siglo XIX. En mi tesis demuestro que estos planteamientos delinean un mapa de modelos epistemológicos de la cultura del Caribe. Para indicar que estas propuestas constituyen metáforas que muestran una consciencia cultural, las proposiciones acerca de la cultura de Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) y Hayden White (1928-) sirven como marco teórico apropiado. Así, a través de las representaciones literarias ensayísticas de los modelos metafóricos de la cultura caribeña, este trabajo redefine algunos aspectos importantes de la identidad cultural vis a vis la mirada parcial que usualmente se utiliza para estudiar el archipiélago antillano. Igualmente, incluso aunque estos modelos proponen una representación metafórica de la cultura pan-caribeña, la construcción de un modelo del Caribe puede ser utilizado en otras regiones y espacios culturales en el contexto de la globalización, ya que elucida una gnoseología cultural que sirve para describir distintas realidades globales.

This dissertation asserts that the tortuous relationship Spanish American literature had with cosmopolitanism since the Wars of Independence reached a turning point towards the end of the second half of the twentieth century. While the literary production of the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century was centred on the Spanish American nation and the continent, contemporary literature has become increasingly deterritorialized, and has begun to present narrative worlds and discuss issues that transcend this circumscribed universe. The discerning of this articulation of global issues in contemporary literature – which I contend is predicated on the concept of cosmopolitanism – is the primary objective of this investigation. The five novels examined here are Elena Poniatowska’s La “Flor de Lis” (1988), Mario Vargas Llosa’s El Paraíso en la otra esquina (2003) and El sueño del celta (2010), and Jorge Volpi’s El fin de la locura (2003) and No será la Tierra (2006). This study aims to describe and assess an evolving perspective on the treatment of cosmopolitanism in Spanish America. I trace the shift from the previous generations’ main preoccupation with aesthetic cosmopolitanism, which sought to engage Latin American literary discourse with the Western canon, to what I identify as the current political implication of the concept. To this end, I show that whereas mid-twentieth century authors displaced cosmopolitanism in favour of more politically expedient concepts, authors now plot it in their novels as a means of discussing issues of identity and citizenship in an increasingly globalized world.

William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) theatrical work The Tempest was first performed in 1611 at the court of James I. Since the XVII century until today this work of art has travelled the world and has been (re)interpreted from the perspective of multiple ideologies. This thesis seeks to understand the representations and uses that Caliban has had in different spaces and historical moments. The anti-colonial interpretations of Roberto Fernández Retamar authorize us to read metaphorically the current socio-political situation of Latin immigrants in the United States through the perspective of The Tempest. The first chapter of this thesis studies and critically analyzes the way in which the character Caliban is negatively constructed. This chapter concludes that many of the critics that are cited base their interpretations of Caliban not necessarily on textual evidence but rather on their own colonial and oppressive ideologies. To illustrate this tension I present a detailed analysis of the supposed rape of Miranda by Caliban, I analyze Caliban’s poetic voice and give historical context of the theatrical work’s production and its critical reception by the European literary tradition. The second chapter seeks to present an ideological and analytic counterpoint to this European tradition. This chapter presents the anti-colonial project of Roberto Fernández Retamar who throughout his many essays on Caliban turned this character into a symbol of Latin-American and revolutionary identity. In this section I study the evolution of Fernández Retamar’s thinking through his many essays on Caliban. To understand the importance of his literary reinterpretation I analyze the Cuban historical context of the 60’s and 70’s while paying particular attention to the controversies surrounding the “Padilla affair”. The third chapter applies a metaphorical historic reading of contemporary Latin communities in the United States using the characters of The Tempest. This chapter seeks to centralize the importance of the feminine voice in this theatrical work by combating the supposed silence of Sycorax, Caliban’s mother. In this section I do a detailed textual study to demonstrate that Sycorax, even though she has no lines of her own, is an important character in the play and can be seen as a correction to a long masculinist trajectory that has silenced the importance of women in colonial literature. This last chapter seeks to synthesize the analyzing and theorizing of literature, the studying of social movements in Massachusetts and the political and social status of Latin people using Sycorax + Caliban as an identity metaphor.

No description available.