Thesis (Ph.D. in anthropology)--University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003. / Title from title page (viewed Feb. 10, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 603-641).

The vast corpus of testimonial literature that has been produced in Latin America since the 1960s, reaches a peak in the 1970s and continues to the present day. The dissertation investigates this phenomenon in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, through the examination of a group of literary works that range from personal testimonies to documentary novels. This genre is defined by a pact of truth established with the reader in relation to the experience that is being narrated. The first chapter describes testimony as a collective discourse that responds to a counter-hegemonic cultural project which opposes the doctrine of “National Security” that prevailed in the region during that period. Chapter II presents the guidelines that will frame the dissertation, preparing a synthesis of several existing models based upon diverse criteria: social, semantic, syntactic and functional. In establishing the relationship between narration, history and testimony, the thesis emphasizes that narrative techniques are needed in order to tell any story, even those which were not developed with a literary purpose. Testimony is not an exception, because it transforms experience into stories, applying to remembrances the structure of a plot. The texts are organized accordingly, taking into account the types of narrativization employed, and this taxonomy is connected with the reception theory and the contributions of the social criticism, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the genre. Chapters III, IV and V examine various works from the three countries mentioned above, establishing a connection between the historic-social situation, the collective symbols, the artistic production of that period, and testimonies. The conclusion suggests that the return of Latin American literature to its hybrid origins implies transformations such as the democratization of writing and the disappearance of the author as the centre of the literary production. It also claims that this corpus provokes a change in the direction of contemporary writing in those countries, generating a necessary catharsis and a new elaboration of a fragmented collective identity.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology, August 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 743-826).

The vast corpus of testimonial literature that has been produced in Latin America since the 1960s, reaches a peak in the 1970s and continues to the present day. The dissertation investigates this phenomenon in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, through the examination of a group of literary works that range from personal testimonies to documentary novels. This genre is defined by a pact of truth established with the reader in relation to the experience that is being narrated. The first chapter describes testimony as a collective discourse that responds to a counter-hegemonic cultural project which opposes the doctrine of “National Security” that prevailed in the region during that period. Chapter II presents the guidelines that will frame the dissertation, preparing a synthesis of several existing models based upon diverse criteria: social, semantic, syntactic and functional. In establishing the relationship between narration, history and testimony, the thesis emphasizes that narrative techniques are needed in order to tell any story, even those which were not developed with a literary purpose. Testimony is not an exception, because it transforms experience into stories, applying to remembrances the structure of a plot. The texts are organized accordingly, taking into account the types of narrativization employed, and this taxonomy is connected with the reception theory and the contributions of the social criticism, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the genre. Chapters III, IV and V examine various works from the three countries mentioned above, establishing a connection between the historic-social situation, the collective symbols, the artistic production of that period, and testimonies. The conclusion suggests that the return of Latin American literature to its hybrid origins implies transformations such as the democratization of writing and the disappearance of the author as the centre of the literary production. It also claims that this corpus provokes a change in the direction of contemporary writing in those countries, generating a necessary catharsis and a new elaboration of a fragmented collective identity. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This thesis compares the ways in which the nationalisation process impacted the research practices of academics from two universities, the University of Rio Grande do Sul and the University of Parana. Systematic comparisons of both institutions located in the South of Brazil has shown that the differences between them were, indeed, significant during pre-nationalisation years. In Brazilian terms, they are ‘close’ together since only seven hundred kilometres separate them. However, the necessity for regionalised studies on the development of academic science is demonstrated in this thesis through a focus on specific faculties that achieved remarkably different research results, despite their geographical proximity. The comparative analysis carried out in this thesis reveals that significant differences existed, such as institutional arrangements, disciplinary boundaries and networks, despite the fact that they were often found under similar academic arrangements. The nationalisation project carried out in 1950 did not alter these differences overnight, but introduced a new element in both settings that would shape their scientific capabilities to this day. Substantial new evidence presented here indicates that in the early 1950s President Dutra, perhaps inadvertently, forced research-minded academics in both universities to consider the possibility of adapting their research projects to their nationalised institutions. Because of the chain of events enabled by this initiative, in later years, these universities became some of the most prominent institutional settings for scientific research in Brazil. A comparative study of the differences and similarities between ongoing practices in these academic settings at the moment of nationalisation indicates that nationalisation did not occur in an historical vacuum; rather, it enhanced and legitimised deeply rooted academic traditions that came to shape local research cultures over the following decades. When this context is explored it becomes clear that an understanding of nationalisation actually lends greater coherence to traditional chronologies of Brazilian academic science.

No description available.

This thesis explores Tsimane understandings and creations of varying forms of sociality. Each chapter addresses different but related issues concerning sociality. Fieldwork was carried out in three riverine settlements over the period from December 1991 to August 1994. The thesis shows that sociality is created and perpetuated by individuals as a processual endeavour, and does not amount to a tangible structure predicated upon fixed social relationships. Community in a physically bound sense is not found amongst the Tsimanes. Given forms of sociality are shown to rest more upon an appropriateness or inappropriateness of mood or affectivity. These are created and effected by subtle details of each individual’s presence amongst others. Social presence is understood by the Tsimanes as both potentially nurturant and predatory. Tsimanes are explicit about their ideas of preferred and abhorred social presence and behaviour of human and non-human others. This thesis explores ways in which such ideas are articulated to create a discourse on social ethics. A Tsimane aesthetics of social living carries with it practical implications for creating and perpetuating forms of sociality. An underlying theme of the thesis is one of mobility and the oscillating nature of Tsimane movements between different groups of kin and affines, and between moods and forms of sociality. I demonstrate that the high value placed by the Tsimanes upon movement, and the enjoyment they experience from it, most efficiently enable the achievement of correct social existence. A lack of knowledge and intention, ultimately resulting in illness and death, are principally deemed to occur as a result of immobility.

Subduction zone structure and kinematics are topics of ongoing investigation with broadband seismology. Recent advances in experimental observations of mantle materials at high temperatures and pressure, expanded broadband seismic datasets, new seismic analysis methods, and advances in computational modeling are ever increasing our capacity for synthesized investigation of tectonic environments. With the resulting expanded capability for interpretation, the geophysical community is in a position to build more refined and detailed models of subduction zone processes. This study takes part in these advances by refining structural observations of the subducting slab and making new observations of mantle kinematics in a part of the South American subduction zone in Chile and Argentina (between 30 degrees and 36 degrees S). First, I investigate the utility of multiple-event earthquake relocation algorithms for accurate locations using a regional dataset for seismic events in Nevada and then I apply the observations resulting from this study in the determination of new Wadati-Benioff zone seismicity hypocenter locations for the study area in South America. I interpolate new contours of the top of the subducting slab from this seismicity that, when interpreted with focal mechanism solutions for these events, are consistent with its deformation due to slab pull. I use shear wave splitting of teleseismic earthquake waves and s-waves from local earthquakes to characterize mantle strain within the mantle wedge and within and below the subducting slab. From these observations, I conclude that mantle flow in subduction zones is quite responsive to local changes in slab geometry as well as the thermal state of and shear stresses in the mantle wedge.

This study examines the construction of the pre-Hispanic past of Colombia from the 1820's to the 1940s. It describes and analyses the reception, dissemination and appropriation of knowledge about ancient Colombian societies. It analyses the works by Colombian and foreign antiquarians, savants and archaeologists and the formation of Colombian pre-Hispanic collections in the Museo Nacional in Bogotá and in three major European Museums : the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin, the British Museum in London and the Musée d'Etnographie du Trocadero in Paris. The study shows the ways Colombian archaeological objects were viewed in the course of this history. At its outset, during the Colonial period, Colombian pre-Hispanic objects were first seen as "Idols of the devil"; in Europe, they were initially considered as curiosities and as works or art. During the nineteenth century, archaeological objects began to be valued and interpreted by Colombian and foreign scholars and antiquarians as antiquities and also as art objects. How Colombia was presented and represented in the National Museum in Bogotá and in international exhibitions during the second half of the nineteenth century is described and analysed, and how pre-Hispanic artefacts came to form part of a representation of Colombia nationally and internationally. The final chapters deal with the first four decades of the twentieth century, when the pre-Hispanic period received a new degree of recognition in Colombia with the enactment of official measures for the protection of antiquities, the building of archaeological collections in the National Museum in Bogotá and in research done by foreign and Colombian archaeologists, which began to define archaeological areas scientifically. The final chapter examines the background for the establishment of the Colombian scientific tradition in archaeology during the 1930's with the creation of the Servicio Arqueológico Nacional, the Institute Etnológico Nacional and two archaeological museums, the Museo Arqueológico Nacional and the Museo del Oro.