The object of this thesis is to reach towards an understanding of Cuban society through a study of its detective fiction and more particularly contemporary Cuban society through the novels of the author and critic, Leonardo Padura Fuentes. The method has been to trace the development of Cuban detective writing and to read Padura Fuentes in the light of the work of twentieth century Western European literary critics and philosophers including Raymond Williams, Antonio Gramsci, Terry Eagleton, Roland Barthes, Jean Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Jean François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard in order to gain a better understanding of the social and historical context from which this genre emerged. By concentrating on the literary texts, I have explored readings which lead out into an analysis of the broader philosophical, political and historical issues raised by the Cuban revolution. Since it deals primarily with modes of deviance and notions of legality and justice within the context of the modern state, detective fiction is particularly well suited to this type of investigation. The intention is to show how this is as valid in the Cuban context as it is in advanced capitalist societies where such research has already been carried out with some success. The thesis comprises an introduction, ten chapters and a conclusion. The chapters are divided into three sections. Chapters 1 to 3 attempt a broad theoretical, historical and socio-political analysis of the cultural reality within which the Cuban revolutionary detective genre emerged. Chapters 4 to 6 analyse the Cuban detective narrative from its inception in the early part of the twentieth century until the emergence of Leonardo Padura Fuentes as the foremost exponent of the genre in Cuba after 1991. Chapters 7- 10 concentrate upon the work of Leonardo Padura Fuentes, offering a reading of his detective tetralogy informed by the preceding discussion. The contribution made by the thesis to knowledge of the subject is to build upon the work of Seymour Menton and Amelia S. Simpson on the development of the Cuban detective novel and to provide analyses of the pre-Revolutionary Cuban detective narrative and the work of Leonardo Padura Fuentes for the first time in the English language. The thesis concludes that the study of this popular genre in Cuba is of crucial importance to the scholar who wishes to reach as full an understanding of the social dynamics within that society as possible. In particular, it proves that Cuban detective fiction provides a useful barometer of social change which records the shifts in the Cuban Zeitgeist that have taken place over the past century.

My thesis is intended to throw new light on the biography of the late-fifteenth-century writer Juan de Flores and to elucidate various aspects of his role in the development of the Spanish sentimental romance. To this end, I have prepared a critical edition of his romance La hiatQri. a sie Gr i. Bel y Mirak-elle (ca. 1480) in the three distinct versions in which it is known to have circulated: (1) an original text (preserved in MS 5-3-20, Biblioteca Colombina, Seville, fos. 69r-86r), (2) a revised version (preserved in MS 940, Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan, fos. 1r-76v), and (3) a second revision, probably anonymous (preserved in the eight extant printed editions, which range in date from ca. 1495 to 1562). The edition contains a full corpus of variants for the printed witnesses, along with linguistic, exegetical and textual notes. Accompanying this edition is a textual study (Chapter 3) in which I establish the relationship to one another of the surviving witnesses and discuss in detail the work's genesis. The remaining chapters concern the attribution to Flores of two works hitherto regarded as anonymous. In Chapter 1, I argue that the known as La ==na-WQn da la zel a GTaniBla is modelled on GI, 1, Bgl y Mirabelle, and I adduce stylistic and other circumstantial evidence to show that Flores is probably -2- its author. Employing a similar methodology, I demonstrate in Chapter 2 that Flores can be identified as a royal chronicler to the Catholic Monarchs and author of the GjQai-Qa i. nQQIp1at de 14a Ray! aa Qat4j -Q4a" Drawing on information in the chronicle, I provide a plausible reconstruction of his life at the ducal court of Alba and illustrate the importance of his historiographic work for our understanding of his fictional output. This thesis provides a revaluation of Juan de Flores as a far more prolific, versatile and influential author than has previously been recognized.

The object of this study is to investigate the origins of the traditional lyric poetry of the Iberian Peninsula through an analysis of the poetry of dawn meeting. The formative influences on each of the three types of traditional poetry, the Mozarabic kharjas, the Galician cantigas and the Castilian villancicos are examined and possible relationships are indicated. An introductory survey reviews the state of scholarship in the field of Spanish lyric poetry. Particular reference is made to the importance of the comparatively recent discovery of the kharjas because their publication has occasioned a profound reappraisal of the origins of Romance vernacular poetry. A new dimension has been brought not only to the study of the medieval lyric of Spain and Portugal but also to considerations of the relevance of the Provençal lyric to the poetry of the Peninsula. The individuality of the traditional Iberian lyric is seen in its singularly consistent use of certain related themes, one of the most significant of these being the theme of lovers' meeting at dawn. Each type of lyric is viewed against its cultural background and the many influences both popular and learned which contribute to its composition, to the development of its imagery and to its preservation are assessed. The treatment of the dawn theme and its associated imagery in each area of poetic composition is analysed both for continuity and for innovation and originality. Since religion, either Christian or pagan, is seen to be influential in the shaping of traditional poetry, religion as a theme of the poetry of meeting is reviewed in the concluding chapter. In its various aspects it is found to accord with many of the characteristics described in the previous chapters.

The introductory chapter discusses previous studies of Celestina imitations and adaptations, and the position of early Celestinesque works in Spanish literature. I then move further afield to investigate the diffusion of the Celestina in the rest of Europe, especially in England. Chapter II comments on the general influence of Spain on English literature with particular reference to the two eighteenth-century adaptations of the Celestina. Chapter III suggests some implications of the simultaneous appearance of these two adaptations. Chapters IV-VI are devoted to a closer examination of the dramatic adaptation, A Tragi-Comedy; an investigation into its sources, and the manner in which it remodels its original for the stages culminates in a discussion of the adapters' identity. Chapters VII-IX deal with The Bawd of Madrid; a biographical sketch of its author, Captain Stevens, is followed by a discussion of which version of the Celestina he used and of the sources for the description of Madrid in his first chapter. Chapter IX looks at the way he reworks the Spanish Tragi-comedia into a narrative account. I bring together in Chapter X elements from both adaptations for purposes of comparison. The final chapter shows the similarities between the fictional world of the Celestina and the environment of early eighteenth-century London, and I suggest why these English adaptations may have been particularly apposite at this time.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 1930. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-117). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Emerging organically in the 1960s and soon incorporated into the revolutionary leadership‟s official drive to democratise culture, the Cuban talleres literarios have expanded over the decades into a significant literary movement based on grassroots participation. In 2009, the municipio-based talleres literarios, open to mass participation, engaged over 40,000 talleristas in creating their own literature, with a smaller number involved in more specialised talleres literarios de vanguardia, including the one based within the Centro de Formación Literaria Onelio Jorge Cardoso, a national institution for young writers of narrative fiction. This thesis analyses this unique and under-researched cultural movement by placing it within its historical context and using the notion of Cuban cultural citizenship in order to assess its impact. It contends that the talleres literarios in Cuba, by acting as literary public spheres, have provided a broad range of people with the opportunity to gain and enact cultural citizenship, thus endowing the movement with a political and social significance which has largely been ignored by academic literature. The shared experience of the talleres literarios has formed Cuban cultural citizens who not only are invested in some of the core values of the revolutionary process, but who also have the tools and space with which to participate actively in the construction of meanings. In this way, Cuban cultural citizens formed within the talleres literarios benefit individually through gaining a sense of belonging to, and empowerment in, the literary world, whilst also contributing to the evolution of cubanía revolucionaria and the ongoing negotiation of revolutionary hegemony. The thesis follows the recent work on Cuban culture which rejects the liberal assumptions that the cultural and political spheres should not mix and that civil society and the state are two distinct and oppositional entities. Instead, it uses the conceptual framework of cultural citizenship, which is based on the theoretical premise that culture and politics are inseparable, in order to approach critically the talleres literarios as sites for cultural participation. It offers a detailed history of the movement, from its origins to the present day, as well as an evaluation of the shared experience of talleristas based on the voices of participants from different periods and levels of the movement. By focussing on an outcome of cultural democratisation, the thesis poses a challenge to conventional accounts of revolutionary cultural policy and literature. It argues that cultural policy should be viewed as a productive as well as regulatory force, because the talleres literarios have been instrumental in creating a broad and inclusive literary culture which emphasises dialogic communication and active, public participation. The cultural citizenship attainable in the talleres literarios has provided the initial phase in the literary education of many established writers, fostered personal relationships between them, and facilitated the circulation of diverse ideas. Finally, the notion of cultural citizenship also adds a further dimension to the already broad field of research on participation and political culture. This case study of the talleres literarios follows the approach to participation that views it not in terms of top-down control or achievement of consensus but as a process by which shared meanings are both reinforced and new ones created as society and state interact within institutional frameworks.

En el marco de los actuales debates sobre los cambios económicos, políticos y culturales producidos en España a raíz de la instauración democrática y la progresiva incorporación al proyecto de unificación de la Unión Europea, se ha ido poniendo de manifiesto la necesidad de indagar detalladarnente en los procesos de legitimación que conforman la construcción de identidades nacionales. En el caso de España uno de los principales focos de recientes estudios ha sido la discusión sobre las diferentes formas de continuidad y/o discontinuidad que se produjeron y/o se siguen produciendo en el paso de la dictadura a la democracia. Esta tesis se propone explorar esas continuidades y/o discontinuidades a través de su articulación en las variadas representaciones filmicas y literarias de la madre durante la democracia. La focalización en esta figura surge a raiz del repetido interés que hemos rastreado en los estudios de cine y de literatura de mujeres. Estos tienden a interpreter lo materna como personificación del pasado dictatorial, sin detenerse en las tensiones que pueden estar siendo articuladas por medio de esa figura ni en su relación con la construcción de nuevos discursos en democracia. Nuestro estudio ofrece, en primer lugar, una contextualización historico-psicoanalítica que sirva para enmarcar la discusion en relación al discurso franquista sobre la maternidad, a la importancia de la figura materna en la constitución de sujetos, conforme ha sido teorizada por el psicoanálisis, y a las imágenes de la maternidad proyectadas por la cultura occidental. Seguidamente, el aná1isis textual de las novelas y las peliculas elegidas está dividido en tres secciones, las cuales abordan, respectivamente: lo materna como amenaza, como marginal y como renovada heterodoxia. Consideramos que esas representaciones articulan las fricciones resultantes de: un intento de conjurar las conexiones entre el proyecto democrático y el régimen democrático, un oscurecimiento de las estrategias de exclusión y/o instrumentalización de diferencias de clase, región, etnia y género que operan en la legitimación de discursos democráticos, y una necesidad de entender y reinscribir el legado de la dictadura en formas no perpetuadoras de las narrativas hegemónicas.

This doctoral thesis analyses the types of feminine identity represented in Adelaida Garcia Morales' works. It examines as well how these subjectivities are constituted and points out that this Spanish writer's narrative proposes alternative symbolic representations of Spanish women and new feminine identities who are not framed according to patriarchal standards. Furthermore, this study highlights how Garcia Morales' novels and short stories constitute what it has been labelled as "fiction of debate". That is, they represent different ideas and feminist concepts proposed by the two main Spanish feminist approaches: feminism of difference and feminism of equality. The texts analyzed in these theses provide a valuable channel of communication, and create a forum for both airing and debating the main concerns of Spanish women and issues at stake during the 80's and 90's. This study will follow a literary feminist approach, which focuses on the historical and social frameworks of Garcia Morales work's production as well as contextualizes her narrative with reference to the recent Spanish social and political history. Therefore, this study points out the dialectical relationship between texts and ideological structures, which allows an account of the interrelationships between literature and feminist politics.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed Feb. 22, 2008). PDF text: 218 p. ; 464 K. UMI publication number: AAT 3275067. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 236-249).