Spanish Ph.D. Dissertation Abstracts
2020
2019
- María de la Luz Bort Caballero
- José Alfredo Contreras
- Sarah Dowman
2018
- Kayla Jean Watson
- Anne Giller-Wilde
2017
- Ginette Alomar Eldredge
- Macarena Garcia-Avello
- Douglas Glynn
- Maria Gomez-Martin
- Melissa Gonzalez-Contreras
- Maria Cristina Monsalve
- Kathryn Taylor
2016
- Luis Charry
2015
- Norman Gonzalez
- Chila Hidalgo
- Maria Elena Longares
- Andrew Milacci
2014
- Jason Bartles
- Sofia Calzada
- Loredana Di Stravolo
- Alejandra Echazu
- Oscar Gonzalez
- Maggy Rodriguez
2013
- Hikka Marja Booker
- Maria Elena Campero
- Lina Morales Chacana
- Rocio Flor Gordon
- Rebeca Moreno-Orama
- Oscar Santos Sopena
2012
- Carolina Gomez-Montoya
- Dolores Lima Vales
2011
- Agnieszka Bolikowska
- Cristina Burneo
- Maria Renata Eguez
- Laura Maccioni
- Martha Maus
2010
- Angela DeLutis-Eichenberger
- Tanya Huntington
- Maria Veronica Munoz
- Katherine Thompson
Angela Delutis-Eichenberger
In October of 1865, the body of one of the most prominent figures of the 19th century, Andrés Bello, was laid to rest in Chile, the country that had been deemed by various authors and, on occasion, by Bello himself, as his adopted homeland. However, the initial burial site did not remain a fixed one of corporal exhibition. By the turn of the century, the remains were exhumed and placed in a more splendid mausoleum that prompted a re-valuation of his signifier, as an array of discourses exemplify. In this analysis of Bello, the physical transition serves as a metaphor for the shifts in his textual re-presentations that were fashioned in a series of 19th century archives, and that culminate in his re-production as cultural and international hero (a signification that is generally accepted in current criticism and in his contemporary biographical sketches). Therefore, by tracing the displacements of his various signifiers created in archives that, based on the aforementioned metaphor, we denominate as "text-tombs", this study illustrates how several (unfavorable) representations of Bello were manipulated by authors, including Bello, to textually exhume and entomb him once and again as an international figure acclaimed for his many achievements. Bello's participation in politics during a time marked by hegemonic shifts, coupled with trends in historiography, leads to his re-production as a traitor of the patriots and of the Spanish government, signifiers that are subsequently exhumed and re-written to postulate him as a victim wrongfully accused of treason against the patriots. Through self-inscriptions created during his first exile in London, Bello builds his own image as a nostalgic exile in suffering and a self-conscious writer who anticipates a textual and personal improvement. These inscriptions ultimately lead to his re-configuration as a formidable scholar of Cidian studies and an illustrious composer of nationalistic poems. Finally, his representations as a foreigner in Chile were also utilized to later posit him as a cultural hero of many nations. From these semiotic shifts we arrive at a final inquiry: Who really was Andrés Bello, the self-inscriber who seemingly invited his own textual revisions by others?
Advisor: Jorge Aguilar-Mora
Tanya Huntington
El águila y la serpiente de Martín Luis Guzmán: Una mea culpa revolucionaria
The effectiveness of the 1910 Revolution in bringing about social change continues to be fiercely debated one hundred years after the fact. The genre called "narrative of the Mexican Revolution" has acted as a literary compass in this regard. One outstanding example is El águila y la serpiente by Martín Luis Guzmán. Written during the author's second exile in Spain, it quickly became a bestseller. Since then, however, it has been criticized as lacking in genre or as an elitist series of portraits of "los de arriba," or those on top. In order to vindicate Guzmán's fictionalized memoirs, I take a different approach based on a key character ignored by 20th-century critics: the narrator. First, the ways in which moral judgment has been wielded against Guzmán by critics such as Fernando Curiel, prevented a clear vision of his literary "I." Despite his contributions in the political and literary arena, he became in essence the Cortez of the Mexican literary canon, one whose faults eclipsed not only his name--notable for its absence within the arena of celebratory public manifestations--but also his major cultural and literary contributions. These contributions include: editing newspapers such as El sol and La voz under the 2nd Republic of Spain as a trusted collaborator of President Azaña's, spearheading the independence of Latin American academies of language from the Royal Academy, and founding the National Commission of Free Textbooks in Mexico. Through an analysis of his intellectual agenda and the previous critical readings of El águila y la serpiente I offer new readings of his work, contrasting Guzmán's vision of the Revolution with that of his contemporary, José Vasconcelos, in La tormenta (1935). Finally, I conclude that El águila y la serpiente is a superbly written, sui generis vision unlike any others found in the genre, delving into the relationship between memory and guilt at a time that defined both Mexico and its literature. This book stands as a mea culpa from a member of the criollo intellectual elite, who courageously revealed his social class as a failure and the Revolution itself as a paradoxical wheel of fortune.