This work is a study of the prostitute in early antebellum America as she exists in the literary world. I argue that the prostitute is a metaphor operating on two levels: she is symbolic both of a failed democratic state and the feminist as imagined by a hysteric patriarchy. Looking especially at Charles Brockden Brown's Ormond and Arthur Mervyn, Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple, and a variety of newspaper and journal articles, I explore the ways in which the prostitute embodied the belief that female independence was unnatural and could only result in the widespread vice of the very component of society whose political duty it was to raise virtuous male citizens and the fear that the fate of the French Revolution could reproduce itself in America.

En esta tesis analizaré en la poesía de Georgina Herrera, Nancy Morejón y Excilia Saldaña 1 los conceptos de género y raza y cómo han sido apropiados del esquema patriarcal y redefinidos en la elaboración de identidad y nación a través de lo que Flora González Mandri y Catherine Davies han llamado la memoria cultural. Mi propósito es demostrar como dichas poetas han subvertido, a través de la palabra, un discurso historicamente maniqueísta que ha servido para reafirmar la doble subyugación de raza y género, como también exploro los resortes de auto-inscripción y el imaginario mítico-cultural que cada poeta emplea en su poesía para desmantelar el paradigma patriarcal. Lejos de ofrecer un análisis exhaustivo de la obra de cada escritora, mi objetivo es más bien deslindar las complejidades culturales que enmarca la producción literaria de cada una. He tomando en cuenta el contexto sociohistórico de donde surgen para comprender el lugar que han reclamado en la producción y reproducción cultural. Aunque no abordo los discursos de raza y género mediante un filtro estrictamente teórico, más bien utilizo ciertas teorías como ópticas en el vislumbrar poético de la aportación de cada poeta, me he apoyado cuando necesario en algunos postulados feministas, postestructuralistas, y postcoloniales. No obstante mi intención es ante todo ofrecer una lectura que se fundamenta en el análisis literario. En ciertos poemas aplico algunos aspectos de la teoría feminista de bell hooks, la contrapropuesta que ofrece Oyèrónké Oy ĕwùmi ante el discurso feminista occidental, el planteamiento sobre el poder del lenguaje y la dominación del discurso de Michel Foucault, y la teoría postcolonial de Homi Bhaba sobre el tercer espacio y la mímica. Herrera, Morejón, y Saldaña se adueñan de sus historias y reivindican las de sus ancestros femeninos mediante el protagonismo que ejercen como creadora/sujetos. Utilizando los temas de la memoria, la reconstrucción de la identidad, el homenaje a los antepasados femeninos, la recreación del vínculo con África como matriz, el rescate de la imagen de la mujer en el proyecto de identidad nacional, y la exaltación de la maternidad, dichas poetas deconstruyen los estereotipos afro-femeninos para después reconstruir y proyectar la imagen de la mujer dentro de un marco de resistencia. En su afán de desmontar los códigos establecidos, desarticulando y reconstruyendo el pasado para redefinir la identidad de la mujer afrocubana de manera protagónica en el presente, la obra de Morejón, Herrrera, y Saldaña rompe y transciende los parametros vanguardistas del negrismo 2 misógino de la primera mitad del siglo XX. Tras su auto-inscripción dentro de la poesía, la mujer afrocubana se plantea como creadora y portadora de la palabra constructora. En su lucha por crear un sujeto lírico que la represente y quede impreso en el subconsciente imaginario cultural, emerge como la voz más influyente de la poesía cubana post-revolucionaria.

This thesis delineates the transformation of Iran’s so-called post-revolutionary ‘religious intellectuals’ (rowshanfekran-e dini) from ideological legitimators within the political class of the newly-established theocratic-populist regime to internal critics whose revised vision for the politico-religious order coalesced and converged with the growing disillusionment and frustration of the ‘Islamic left’, a constellation of political forces within the governing elite of the Islamic Republic, that following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini increasingly felt itself marginalised and on the outskirts of power. The historical evolution of this complex, quasi-institutionalised and routinized network, encompassing theologians, jurists, political strategists and journalists, which rose to prominence in the course of the 1990s, and its critical engagement with the ruling political theology of the ‘guardianship of the jurist’, the supremacy of Islamic jurisprudence, political Islamism and all forms of ‘revolutionary’ and ‘utopian’ political and social transformation, are scrutinised in detail. In this vein, the thesis examines the various issues provoked by the rowshanfekran-e dini’s strategic deployment and translation of the concepts and ideas of a number of Western thinkers, several of which played a pivotal role in the assault on the ideological foundations of Soviet-style communism in the 1950s and 1960s. It then moves to show how this network of intellectuals and politicos following the election of Mohammad Khatami to the presidency in May 1997 sought to disseminate their ideas at the popular level by means of the press and numerous party and political periodicals, and thereby achieve ideological and political hegemony. The thesis proceeds to demonstrate the intimate connection between the project of ‘religious intellectualism’ and elite-defined notions of ‘democracy’, ‘electoral participation’, ‘reform’ and ‘political development’ as part of an effort to accumulate symbolic capital and assert their intellectual and moral leadership of the polity.

abstract: ABSTRACT Mexican Golden Age Cinema materialized the narratives of identity, unity and morality that became the obligated point of reference to understand social stability and mexicaness during the post-revolutionary period. Hence, film stars evolved into cultural icons that embodied the representation of patriarchal order as a synonym for nationalism. However, dissident depictions that challenged carefully tailored heteronormative roles were as much a part of the post-revolutionary reality as was the attempt to manufacture a utopic heterosexual family on screen, that functioned as a metaphor for national reunification under the law of the father/president of the Mexican Republic. Nonetheless, even when an distinguished member of the Mexican star system, Sara García´s queer performativity of her quintessential sainted mother and even more revered grandmother characters highlights fissures in the effort to naturalize sexual passivity and heterosexual motherhood as the core of Mexican women identity. Furthermore, García took advantage of her romanticized butch characters in order to revert lesbian invisibility in movies where she portrait roles that exemplified sapphic households. In most of García's films masculine presence became redundant, hence challenging male privilege. Not very far from her own reality, García's queer women of a certain age, involved in female marriages, contested the post-revolutionary discourse of stability and mexicaness even in the heteronormative realm of Golden Age Filmmaking. Regardless of her queerness, unlike any other transgressive figure, Sara García became a national icon in her time and her image continues to hold relevance in current Mexican popular culture. More than five decades after her death young generations are still familiar with her legacy and her image has evolved into the representation of the nostalgia for tradition and alleged "more simple" times. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Spanish 2014

During Tina Modotti's time in Mexico in the 1920s, much of her photography and political activities focused on and fought for the rights of those who had been previously overlooked and marginalized, namely the indigenous people of Mexico. Many government officials, artists and intellectuals at the time believed that it was through the indigenous culture that Mexico could redeem itself and create its own national identity. Indigenismo, the philosophy that supported this claim, was of interest to Modotti and was a recurring theme throughout her photography. Following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, indigenismo appeared to be the solution to establishing this new identity that was authentically Mexican and distinct from the perceived corruption of Europe and North America. However, the principles of this theory were paradoxical in that proponents supported incorporating indigenous elements into Mexican society, but they also supposed that the only way to recreate the country was by dismissing and destroying these native cultures. Modotti was not as interested in advocating a rebuilding of Mexico as she was in promoting social equality among all races and groups of people in the country, similar to what international Marxism endorsed. Indigenismo to Modotti was more of a way to give voice to the marginalized indigenous people who had been forgotten politically, educationally and artistically for centuries. Through three phases of her photographic career in Mexico—her early phase (which included the Idols Behind Altars project), Mexican Folkways, and her work done in Tehuantepec-we can see how Modotti progressed as an indigenista artist. Although her audience varied in each of these three phases, Modotti's commitment to, and portrayal of, Mexico's indigenous culture was a central unifying theme in her work. This study argues that the photographs of Tina Modotti illustrate her concept of indigenismo by celebrating what she perceived as strong, egalitarian indigenous communities that appealed to her Marxist political philosophy. Modotti sought to counter previous distorted or exaggerated misconceptions of indigenous culture, and she tried to compensate for this lack of authenticity within the Mexican national identity and Mexican art through her photography.

Encadré par la théorie et la méthodologie de la sémiologie des indices proposée par Anne-Marie Houdebine, ce travail analyse les relations homme/femme, sous le coup de la censure, dans le cinéma iranien postrévolutionnaire. L’analyse systémique permet de dégager d’abord les strates iconique, scénique, sonore et technique à l’intérieur du corpus des scènes de films. Ensuite, il met en évidence des éléments explicités qui montrent qu’au plan formel existe un certain nombre de récurrences dans toutes les scènes analysées quel que soit le film travaillé. Au plan de l’expression, une grammaire formelle de la relation homme/femme dans le cinéma iranien a été dégagée. Au plan du contenu, des illusions de proximité et de rapprochement, des déclarations d’amour, des propositions sexuelles, de l’érotisme ainsi que des relations amoureuses et sexuelles surgissent à travers différentes configurations syntagmatiques des indices tels que le regard, le geste avorté, la scène de retour, l’enfant, l’objet symbolique, l’extérieur, l’intérieur, la voiture, la cour, le hors champ, la transition et la musique. En construisant son espace comme l’architecture iranienne traditionnelle entre l’externe (espace réservé aux invités et aux étrangers à la famille) et l’interne (espace privé) mais également en s’emparant des figures de styles à l’instar de la poésie iranienne classique, le cinéma iranien parle pudiquement de l’amour et créé ainsi sa propre iranité concernant les relations homme/femme. / Using Anne-Marie Houdebine’s theory and methodology of semiology of indices, this work analyses the relationships between man and woman in the censured post-revolution Iranian cinema. The systemic analysis highlights the iconic, scenic, auditory and technical stratums within the movie scenes. It also shows explicit elements, which reveals the existence of a certain amount of repetitions on a formal scale in any analyzed film. We can see there is a formal grammar respected when it comes to the expression of man and woman relationships in Iranian cinema. Illusions of closeness, love declarations, sexual propositions, erotism, love and sexual relationships are suggested through various phrasal configurations of the indices, such as glances, abortive gestures, turn around scenes, images of the child, symbolic objects, outside and inside, car, courtyard, off screens, direct transitions and music. Iranian cinema chastely explores love, expressing its own Iranianity regarding relationships between man and woman, by constructing space in the way that traditional Iranian architecture does (external space for guests and internal for family and privacy), but also by using stylistic devices, as in classical Iranian poetry.

La tesi analizza le presidenze di Mahmūd Ahmadīnezhād (2005-2013) all’interno del fazionalismo iraniano postrivoluzionario, mettendo in luce gli aspetti caratteristici e peculiari dei cosiddetti ultraradicali. La prospettiva storica che introduce all’Iran contemporaneo attraverso l’analisi dei principali avvenimenti del Novecento, dalla Rivoluzione Costituzionale (1906) alla nascita della Repubblica islamica (1979), affianca un’analisi politica sull’ascesa al potere degli ultraradicali. La tesi esamina le reazioni e le relazioni politiche interne, la rinnovata postura internazionale, le politiche socioeconomiche e l’eredità lasciata dalle presidenze Ahmadīnezhād. È tracciata una panoramica storico-politica sull’esperienza degli ultraradicali per comprendere le cause socioeconomiche e politiche che hanno determinato la loro ascesa, i cambiamenti introdotti all’interno dell’élite postrivoluzionaria e, in ultimo, gli effetti interni e internazionali della loro parabola politica. L’approccio storico si è altresì servito di uno studio dei vocaboli in uso nella letteratura occidentale e dei termini persiani utilizzati per riferirsi al gruppo, al fine di individuare le etichette politiche impiegate e il loro rispettivo valore. Vi è quindi, in definitiva, un’analisi della categoria politica del radicalismo per decretare se, per quali aspetti e secondo quali schemi interpretativi, Ahmadinejad e il suo gruppo di alleati possano essere considerati e interpretati come radicali. / The thesis analyses the presidencies of Mahmūd Ahmadīnezhād (2005-2013) within the post-revolutionary Iranian factionalism, highlighting the characteristics and the peculiar features of the so-called hardliners. The historical perspective introduces the main turning points in contemporary Iran, from the Constitutional Revolution (1906) to the foundation of the Islamic Republic (1979). The political analysis looks therefore at the political ascendancy of the hardliners, the following internal reactions, the renewed international posture, the socio-economic policies and, ultimately, the legacy left by the Ahmadīnezhād presidencies. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the hardlines’ political experience to disclose their domestic and foreign postures and their effect within the post-revolutionary political debate. The thesis also examines the category of radicalism by looking at labels used by both the Western literature and Persian language to refer to the hardliners. This thesis aims to address whether, for which aspects and according to which perspective, Ahmadinejad and his close circle of allies could be considered and interpreted as radicals.

Contemporary Central American fiction has become a vital project of revision of the tragic events and the social conditions in the recent history of the countries from which they emerge. The literary projects of Sergio Ramirez (Nicaragua), Dante Liano (Guatemala), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), and Ramon Fonseca Mora (Panama), are representative of the latest trends in Central American narrative. These trends conform to a new literary paradigm that consists of an amalgam of styles and discourses, which combine the testimonial, the historical, and the political with the mystery and suspense of noir thrillers. Contemporary Central American noir narrative depicts the persistent war against social injustice, violence, criminal activities, as well as the new technological advances and economic challenges of the post-war neo-liberal order that still prevails throughout the region. Drawing on postmodernism theory proposed by Ihab Hassan, Linda Hutcheon and Brian MacHale, I argued that the new Central American literary paradigm exemplified by Sergio Ramirez’s El cielo llora por mí, Dante Liano’s El hombre de Montserrat, Horacio Castellanos Moya’s El arma en el hombre and La diabla en el espejo, and Ramon Fonseca Mora’s El desenterrador, are highly structured novels that display the characteristic marks of postmodern cultural expression through their ambivalence, which results from the coexistence of multiple styles and conflicting ideologies and narrative trends. The novels analyzed in this dissertation make use of a noir sensitivity in which corruption, decay and disillusionment are at their core to portray the events that shaped the modern history of the countries from which they emerge. The revolutionary armed struggle, the state of terror imposed by military regimes and the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, are among the major themes of these contemporary works of fiction, which I have categorized as perfect examples of the post-revolutionary post-modernism Central American detective fiction at the turn of the 21st century.

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This dissertation is interested in what kind of self and techniques of resistance are acquired in order to be a revolutionary in the contemporary West. While I was conducting an ethnographic research between 2008 - 2015 following young activists from Germany in urban spaces of demonstrations, riots, direct actions, jails, the Internet, universities, housing projects, parent's homes in Germany as well as during solidarity trips to Mexico, Argentina, Israel/Palestine, Denmark or Italy, it was discovered that a concept of political versatility may be helpful here. Young revolutionaries are what I call revolutionary amoebas. Revolutionary amoebas acquire capacities to discuss at universities or public debates, write texts, talk, but they manage to argue beyond the discourse by throwing stones or burning cars in riots, organizing direct actions, smashing corporate properties, beating neo­nazis, attacking ultra­nationalists, or actively defending themselves against the police. As citizens of advanced liberal democracy, they enter public discussions of contested opinions, persuade people with their critical arguments and a few of them even vote, but they as well explore the political terrain considered illegal. Many of them know how to get funded from the state, The EU,...