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- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
In the last years of the twentieth century, while the narrative of women in other Latin American countries has received critical attention, Bolivian women's narrative has been widely ignored. The fact that the voice of Bolivian women in Latin American feminist discourse is rarely discussed in Latin American criticism is enough to justify the present study. This work focuses on three prominent Bolivian writers: Gaby Vallejos, Giovanna Rivero Santa Cruz, and Erika Bruzonic. The short stories of these three authors are characterized by accentuating certain telluric features revealed in the background of their feminine/feminist narratives. At the same time, based on the American and European feminist literary critique, this work analyzes the feminine/feminist themes mounted in the narrative of these authors. Gaby Vallejos, with a cinematic style, chronicles the life and customs of the "valluno" context, building a mosaic of different voices in dialogue. Her topics revolve around binaries: life-death, and pain and pleasure, voicing condemnation for a patriarchal society. Ericka Bruzonic deals with women and identity, memory and the breaking of lineage as an imposing structure. Her themes are built around the cosmopolitism of "paceña" urban life, and her voice transgresses the binomials established by a patriarchal society. Finally Giovanna Rivero Santa Cruz takes the life and customs of the Santa Cruz and the Guarani culture and her plots weave these elements reaching for myths and taboos, involving the reader into her stories. In this manner, her narrative makes an incursion into the conscious and unconscious realm of the readers questioning their wealth of moral and social values, their notions of heterosexuality, and sexual taboos. The three writers, with different narrative styles yet dialogical, narrate various experiences of women from different regions, social classes, ages, education, and sexual orientations. Our authors give high value to the word and the body embedded in the culture, thereby affirming their woman's voice as Bolivians and their literary presence in the context of Latin American literature.
ContributorsLopez, Norma (Author) / Urioste-Ascorra, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this dissertation is to study not only relations between Latin America and the United States, but also Latin American states with each other. It specifically aims to examine the extent to which the United States, the principal hegemonic power in the Americas, can play a constructive role by providing regional public goods. These goods include conflict resolution and economic progress. Although the United States has the potential to create such goods, it also has the potential to create public bads in the form of regional instability, political terror, and economic stagnation. This raises two fundamental research questions: Under what conditions can Washington play a positive role and if these conditions cannot be met, under what conditions can Latin American nations bypass the United States and create their own economic progress and conflict resolution strategies? Drawing upon qualitative research methods and case studies that have attracted scant academic attention, this dissertation finds that through regional multilateral diplomatic negotiations, the United States can play a positive role. However, due to U.S. parochial economic interests and the marginalization of diplomacy as a foreign policy tool, these conditions rarely occur. This research further finds, however, that through flexible regionalization Latin American nations can bypass the United States and create their own goods. Supported by an alternative regional power, flexible regionalization relies upon supranational institutions that exclude the United States, emphasize permanent political and economic integration, and avoid inflexible monetary unions. Through this type of regionalization, Latin America can decrease U.S. interference, sustain political and economic autonomy, and open space for alternative conflict resolution strategies and economic policies that Washington would otherwise oppose. This dissertation is academically significant and policy relevant. First, it reconsiders diplomacy as an instrumental variable for peace and offers generalizable results that can be applied to additional cases. Moreover, finding that Latin American countries can address their own regional issues, this study recognizes the positive agency of Latin America and counters the negative essentialization commonly found in U.S. academic and policy research. Finally, this research offers policy advice for both the United States and Latin America.
ContributorsRipley, Charles (Author) / Doty, Roxanne L (Thesis advisor) / Stoner, Lynn (Committee member) / Simon, Sheldon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Discovering Puerto Rican art song: a research project on four art song works by Héctor Campos Parsi
Description
Puerto Rico has produced many important composers who have contributed to the musical culture of the nation during the last 200 years. However, a considerable amount of their music has proven to be difficult to access and may contain numerous errors. This research project intends to contribute to the accessibility of such music and to encourage similar studies of Puerto Rican music. This study focuses on the music of Héctor Campos Parsi (1922-1998), one of the most prominent composers of the 20th century in Puerto Rico. After an overview of the historical background of music on the island and the biography of the composer, four works from his art song repertoire are given for detailed examination. A product of this study is the first corrected edition of his cycles Canciones de Cielo y Agua, Tres Poemas de Corretjer, Los Paréntesis, and the song Majestad Negra. These compositions date from 1947 to 1959, and reflect both the European and nationalistic writing styles of the composer during this time. Data for these corrections have been obtained from the composer's manuscripts, published and unpublished editions, and published recordings. The corrected scores are ready for publication and a compact disc of this repertoire, performed by soprano Melliangee Pérez and the author, has been recorded to bring to life these revisions. Despite the best intentions of the author, the various copyright issues have yet to be resolved. It is hoped that this document will provide the foundation for a resolution and that these important works will be available for public performance and study in the near future.
ContributorsRodríguez Morales, Luis F., 1980- (Author) / Campbell, Andrew (Thesis advisor) / Buck, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Holbrook, Amy (Committee member) / Kopta, Anne (Committee member) / Ryan, Russell (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation analyzes three films from Mexico, Spain, and Argentina--Kilómetro 31, El orfanato, and Aparecidos (2007)--and their interplay with the historicism that has traditionally served as the default referent for "reality" in Western narrative. While grounding my approach in temporal critique, I borrow from deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and queer theory to explore ways in which ghosts and the rhetorical figure of the family are manipulated in each national imaginary as a strategy for negotiating volatility within symbolic order: a tactic that can either naturalize or challenge normative discourses. As a literary and cinematic trope, ghosts are particularly useful vehicles for the exploration of national imaginaries and the dominant or competing cultural attitudes towards a country's history, and thus, the articulation of a present political reality. The rhetorical figure of the family is also pivotal in this process as a mechanism for expressing national allegories, for articulating generational anxieties about a nation's relationship with its history, and for organizing societies and social subjects as such, interpellating them into or excluding them from national imaginaries according to its grammar/logic. The proposed trajectory through these films will help facilitate a study of the potential of these rhetorical figures to either reinscribe or question two of the most fundamental processes that go into the cartography of ideology: the imposition of (a) time and the negotiation of social subjectivity within it. Competing political narratives may use any number of rhetorical strategies to position themselves in time to promote their agendas while continuing to reinforce the overall framework that determines the parameters of what is visible, and thus debatable. As temporal anomalies who are defined by their (in)visibility, ghosts can be used to either reinforce this framework or they can be used to articulate alternative relationships to time, and consequently, other political possibilities. Ghosts, families, and children are especially volatile rhetorical figures because of their potential to expose the mechanisms of societal organization--the construction of social subjects through their relationship to the time and the families of which they are presumably products--as negotiable processes rather than self-evident truths.
ContributorsSt-Georges, Charles (Author) / Foster, David W (Thesis advisor) / Urioste, Carmen (Committee member) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The &ldquoMormon; Colonies” in Chihuahua, northern Mexico, boast a sizable population of women originally from the United States who have immigrated to these small Mexican towns. This ethnographic study of the immigrant women in the area focuses on questions of citizenship and belonging, and bolsters the scholarship on U.S. American immigrants in Mexico. Using data from 15 unstructured interviews, the women&rsquos; experiences of migration provide a portrait of U.S. American immigrants in a Mexican religious community. Analysis of this data using grounded theory has revealed that these U.S. American women have created a third social space for themselves, to a large degree retaining their original culture, language, and political loyalty. Their stories contribute to the literature on transnational migration, providing an account of the way migrants of privilege interact with their society of settlement.
ContributorsNielsen, Vanessa (Author) / Mean, Lindsey (Thesis advisor) / Téllez, Michelle (Committee member) / Gruber, Diane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela (FESNOJIV), also known as El Sistema, is an internationally recognized social phenomenon. By promoting social reform and development through music education, El Sistema is enriching the lives of thousands of impoverished youth in Venezuela by providing a nurturing environment for children in government-sponsored orchestras, choirs, and bands. In this thesis, I contend that the relationship between music education and social reform cultivates sociocultural ideas and expectations that are transmitted through FESNOJIV's curriculum to the participating youth and concert attendees. These ideas and El Sistema's live and recorded performances engage both the local Venezuelan community and the world-at-large. Ultimately, I will show that FESNOJIV has been instrumental in creating, promoting, and maintaining a national Venezuelan identity that is associated with pride and musical achievement.
ContributorsPalmer, Katherine (Author) / Solís, Ted (Thesis advisor) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Haefer, J. Richard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Due to the recent inclusion of a semi-regular "News from Latin America" column since 2007 in The Clarinet magazine and an increased emphasis on world music genre performances at the International Clarinet Association's annual ClarinetFest, Latin American clarinet compositions have become increasingly popular. Consequently, Latin American performers and composers are receiving more attention and recognition than ever before. The contemporary repertoire for clarinet increasingly includes works highlighted at the ClarinetFest international festivals, and many clarinetists express interest in finding new Latin American compositions. In order to supplement this growing Latin American repertoire and to introduce the life and works of Peruvian composer Armando Guevara Ochoa (1926-2013), this project presents a brief biography of the composer, a discussion of his musical style, and new editions of his popular works transcribed for clarinet. A recording of these works is included in an appendix to this document. Prior to this research, much of the scholarship written about Guevara Ochoa was in Spanish. While most sources and scholars relate that Guevara Ochoa composed over 400 works, the whereabouts of fewer than 200 are currently known. This project will supplement Guevara Ochoa's clarinet literature and raise awareness of his compositions in English-speaking countries.
ContributorsPalmer, Katherine H (Author) / Spring, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Micklich, Albie (Committee member) / Norton, Kay (Committee member) / Solís, Ted (Committee member) / Hill, Gary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
After the implementation of the racial laws sanctioned by Mussolini in 1938, many Italians Jews looked for safe haven in Argentina and Uruguay. This research study aims to investigate the transnational cultural space that emerges as result of the Italian Jewish diaspora to the La Plata River during fascism. This phenomenon has not been fully addressed by contemporary Jewish Latin American Studies conducted in the US and in Latin America. This study attempts to illustrate how this particular diaspora is closely linked to the specific nature of the host countries, in particular, to the fact that these are countries with a strong immigration tradition and with a significant representation of Italians. This research emphasizes the transnational dimension of the experience, the phenomenon is approached from a regional perspective, encompassing two countries that share common cultural and historical roots, Argentina and Uruguay. The study is also rooted in a global perspective, linking the region with Italy in the context of the Europe of the time. On this basis, the study is guided by the following main assumption: The specific Italian diaspora generated original spaces of transnational cultural production that had an impact in the River Plate region and in Italy. This is done by studying some of the cultural manifestations of this multifaceted experience. This work is theoretically guided by an integration of perspectives emerging from cosmopolitanism, diasporic criticism and Bakhtinian dialogism. More specifically, when studying autobiographical texts, the research focused on critical essays on life narratives in general and on studies linking this discursive typology to the narratives of the Shoah, including the human capacity for resilience and adaptation in the face of adversity and trauma. The diaspora has created a prolific and unique body of transnational cultural expressions and, moreover, this particular diaspora has proved to be closely linked to the specific nature of the host countries. The findings make contributions to the field of Jewish Latin American Studies and Transatlantic Studies.
ContributorsMarsiglia, Edith (Author) / Volek, Emil (Thesis advisor) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / García-Fernández, Carlos (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
ABSTRACT
The analytical sensitivity of Nellie Campobello allows her to perceive and draw several contexts into her fiction. Her work offers the reader a glimpse of the subtle connections between the individual experience and the social milieu that make up history. In the two editions of Cartucho (1931 and 1940) the reader encounters the Mexican Revolution as a plausible setting. By transferring this context into fiction, the author deals with core social matters that fostered the disfunctionality of Mexican society, at the time the novel was written. Furthermore, her intuition allows her to depict in her literary work many aspects of dehumanization that are timeless and universal. This depth of social cognition is expressed freely, producing a literary style that communicates a modern worldview.
Therefore, a critical analysis of the book should supersede historical facts to discern the expression of an object of ethical appreciation. The active reading of Cartucho forces us to appreciate the precise aesthetic form that communicates, through a plurality of voices, history to reconfigure -through discourse- diverse social contexts that are accessible, identifiable and pertinent to readers from different epochs. This is perhaps the value of the book for the social sciences. However, our study seeks to understand the social and historic minutiae of the text to better equip the reader to achieve an ethical catharsis through the reading of fiction. We believe that it is only when the reader surpasses the historic level of discourse that he or she can fully identify himself or herself with the characters, thus restoring their humanity and at the same time becoming more fully human.
SÍNTESIS
El temperamento analítico y sensible de Nellie Campobello le permite abordar aspectos sociológicos de múltiples contextos; derivando además los puntos de contacto entre el desarrollo social y la experiencia individual. Cartucho nos presenta, en sus dos versiones (1931 y 1940), la Revolución Mexicana como un contexto verosímil que permite expresar los temas que preocupan a la autora. A partir de esta ambientación ficcional, ella expone las causas del estado en el que se encuentra la nación en el momento en el que escribe la obra. Además, su intuición la lleva a trazar procesos de deshumanización inherentemente humanos con los que se puede identificar un lector universal. Esta profundidad de pensamiento se formula libremente dando lugar a un estilo propio que comunica una cosmovisión moderna.
Una lectura crítica de la obra debe partir del contexto de la Revolución Mexicana. Pero debe también rebasarlo para observar que Cartucho no es un receptáculo de voces rescatadas del pasado, sino la expresión de un objeto de apreciación ética formulado mediante una estética precisa que complementa y enuncia el discurso de la autora con la pluralidad de voces que reconstituyen, discursivamente, contextos sociales con los que el lector de cualquier época se puede identificar. En esta observación recae el valor de la obra camposiana para las ciencias sociales. Sin embargo, nuestro trabajo busca alcanzar una mejor apreciación del discurso histórico y sociológico para que el mensaje de la obra surta un efecto ético. Consideramos que es mediante este tipo de análisis que el lector logra identificarse con los personajes de Cartucho humanizándolos y humanizándose mediante la lectura de un texto de ficción.
The analytical sensitivity of Nellie Campobello allows her to perceive and draw several contexts into her fiction. Her work offers the reader a glimpse of the subtle connections between the individual experience and the social milieu that make up history. In the two editions of Cartucho (1931 and 1940) the reader encounters the Mexican Revolution as a plausible setting. By transferring this context into fiction, the author deals with core social matters that fostered the disfunctionality of Mexican society, at the time the novel was written. Furthermore, her intuition allows her to depict in her literary work many aspects of dehumanization that are timeless and universal. This depth of social cognition is expressed freely, producing a literary style that communicates a modern worldview.
Therefore, a critical analysis of the book should supersede historical facts to discern the expression of an object of ethical appreciation. The active reading of Cartucho forces us to appreciate the precise aesthetic form that communicates, through a plurality of voices, history to reconfigure -through discourse- diverse social contexts that are accessible, identifiable and pertinent to readers from different epochs. This is perhaps the value of the book for the social sciences. However, our study seeks to understand the social and historic minutiae of the text to better equip the reader to achieve an ethical catharsis through the reading of fiction. We believe that it is only when the reader surpasses the historic level of discourse that he or she can fully identify himself or herself with the characters, thus restoring their humanity and at the same time becoming more fully human.
SÍNTESIS
El temperamento analítico y sensible de Nellie Campobello le permite abordar aspectos sociológicos de múltiples contextos; derivando además los puntos de contacto entre el desarrollo social y la experiencia individual. Cartucho nos presenta, en sus dos versiones (1931 y 1940), la Revolución Mexicana como un contexto verosímil que permite expresar los temas que preocupan a la autora. A partir de esta ambientación ficcional, ella expone las causas del estado en el que se encuentra la nación en el momento en el que escribe la obra. Además, su intuición la lleva a trazar procesos de deshumanización inherentemente humanos con los que se puede identificar un lector universal. Esta profundidad de pensamiento se formula libremente dando lugar a un estilo propio que comunica una cosmovisión moderna.
Una lectura crítica de la obra debe partir del contexto de la Revolución Mexicana. Pero debe también rebasarlo para observar que Cartucho no es un receptáculo de voces rescatadas del pasado, sino la expresión de un objeto de apreciación ética formulado mediante una estética precisa que complementa y enuncia el discurso de la autora con la pluralidad de voces que reconstituyen, discursivamente, contextos sociales con los que el lector de cualquier época se puede identificar. En esta observación recae el valor de la obra camposiana para las ciencias sociales. Sin embargo, nuestro trabajo busca alcanzar una mejor apreciación del discurso histórico y sociológico para que el mensaje de la obra surta un efecto ético. Consideramos que es mediante este tipo de análisis que el lector logra identificarse con los personajes de Cartucho humanizándolos y humanizándose mediante la lectura de un texto de ficción.
ContributorsEstevez, Dulce (Author) / Volek, Emil (Thesis advisor) / García-Fernández, Carlos (Committee member) / Keller, Garry (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Desde los textos más tempranos, la literatura de Latinoamérica ha sido marcada por la presencia de sus comunidades indígenas, la representación de las cuales siempre está cambiando. A lo largo del siglo XIX vemos que esos textos tienden a dar una perspectiva de esas culturas desde afuera. No es hasta después de la emergencia del realismo mágico en el siglo XX que conseguimos una mirada a esas culturas desde adentro. De los tempranos mágicorrealistas, tal vez ninguno de ellos haya captado la realidad social del indígena mejor que el guatemalteco Miguel Ángel Asturias. Sin embargo, a pesar de sus buenas intenciones de representar la realidad indígena, sacar a luz los desafíos que enfrentan y mejorar las condiciones en que viven, muchos críticos han cuestionado la representación asturiana de las culturas indígenas, acusándole a Asturias hasta de ser racista. En aquellas criticas, el modelo teórico que ha sido aplicado a la relectura de las obras de Asturias ha sido sin duda el de los estudios poscoloniales. Pero, ¿se presta esa literatura a aquel tipo de análisis? ¿Son aplicables esas teorías a las realidades sociales de Guatemala? Otros investigadores creen que hacer eso es una simplificación y tomar las cosas fuera de su contexto histórico. Es a base de este último argumento que esta tesina se inicia. Los objetivos de este estudio son de examinar la propiedad de aplicar esas teorías a las obras de Asturias y también de analizar la imagen del indígena creada en su literatura a través del uso de la imaginación, mitología y lenguaje maya. Este estudio se centra en algunos de los textos más tempranos de Asturias tales como su tesis de abogado, producción periodística y obras de ficción para analizar cómo él ha representado la población indígena de Guatemala. Este análisis concluye que lejos del racismo de que Asturias ha sido acusado, él está completamente comprometido con el proyecto de mejorar las condiciones en las que los indígenas de Guatemala viven. Además, concluye que Asturias ha representado esas comunidades de una manera positiva a través del uso del imaginario, mitología, sintaxis, léxico y organización literaria maya.
ContributorsEngelbrecht, Jexson (Author) / Volek, Emil (Thesis advisor) / Acereda, Alberto (Committee member) / García-Fernández, Carlos (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011