Spanish

Borges’s literary production, particularly between 1923 and 1955, drastically changes in its depiction of Buenos Aires. The city that Borges considered his home was the center of various political and cultural changes in Argentina during those years, and the more that Argentina changed, the deeper Borges’s disillusionment became.
Examining these changes in the depiction of themes such as city, community, and history, we can better understand the process of disillusionment by which Borges begins with a utopic view of Buenos Aires that becomes dystopic before it is abandoned in order to imagine a new utopia.

Explains the reasons that led Spain to support the independence of the United States, and to declare war on Britain in 1779, especially, the account of the Spanish monarch's attempt to mediate between Britain and France. At the same time as the Spanish King issued this manifesto, the King of France put forth his "Exposé des motifs de la conduite du roi, relativement à l'Angleterre". In the volume of the Annual register for 1779, p. 367-412, are translations of both the Spanish and French documents with the justifying Memorial issued by Great Britain in reply to the English translation published under title: An exposition of the motives of the conduct of the king of France towards England : with the justifying memorial in answer to the exposition, &c. of the court of France (London, 1780).

The chroniclers who accompanied Lope de Aguirre on his expedition to find "EI
Dorado," accuse him of being a "crazy" tyrant, responsible for the rebellion to
emancipate the conquerors from the Spanish crown. Aguirre was made a scapegoat,
in Girard ian terms, not only for that reason but due to his critique of what Angel
Rama defined as the "Lettered City," a rebuke voiced in the infamous letter he wrote
to the Spanish king denouncing imperial institutions in the Americas. 20th century,
Spanish writer Ramon J. Sender's novel, La aventura equinoccial de Lope de Aguirre
(1964), reverses the historical discourse in order to use Aguirre's attack on the
"Lettered City," to criticize the intellectuals who supported Franco's regime in
Spain, as well as the Catholic Church. This thesis's critical reading of the source
chronicles on which Sender based his novel leads to a more profound understanding
of both the early modem imperial and the modem fascist violence unleashed, not
only by supposed "tyrants-scapegoats" the likes of Aguirre, but by power itself: that
of monarchies and dictators.

Silas Weir Mitchell in 1872 defined as "phantom limb" the sensation and feelings of
anxiety, confusion and even pain the amputee receives from an absent body part. By extending
this concept and applying it to the architectural imagery within literature, it is possible to observe
the dynamics between the characters and their structural environment. This thesis explores the
relation between spatial structure and identity in two Latin American works: "Walking Around"
(1933) by Pablo Neruda and Aura (1962) by Carlos Fuentes. Both authors introduce architecture
as an intrinsic element in the construction of their narrative; Neruda's poetic voice wanders
around a seemingly living city, while Fuentes's characters abandon the city to become part of a
house. The architectural imagery of both texts leads the reader to explore the construction of its
literary subjects and to see the physical space as their "phantom limbs." This reading will
elucidate the importance of architecture within Latin American literature as well as reveal the
maneuvering of the structural representations in the construction of the Latin America identity.

In my thesis, I argue that the 1 ih -century Spanish writer, Maria de Zayas y
Sotomayor, in a unique form of 'mimesis,' uses elements of magic to transform the
popular concept of the Spanish witch. Drawing on theories from Jacques Lacan's
mirror phase, Homi Bhabha and Barbara Fuchs's notion of mimesis, and Judith
Butler's idea of gender performitivity, I demonstrate how Zayas frees the witch from
the subjugated language constructed by the Catholic Church and society of her time.
I examine six of the short stories in her two novels to show how the author alters the
role of the witch associated with the devil, transforming her to a saint associated with
"lo magico de los cielos, " assigning the diabolical role to the man.

This thesis examines the arduous and controversial attempt of literary critics to
classify appropriately the novel Los rfos profundos (Deep Rivers) by the Peruvian
novelist and ethnographer, Jose Marfa Arguedas and reviews the main theories that were
applied to decipher its meaning. But more than a task of classifying, the thesis itself is a
work of interpretation, which required broadening the research boundaries previously
employed. Confronting the dominance of Western discourse that has shaped how we
understand Andean literature, I identify the elements of indigenous Andean discourse that
are deeply embedded in the novel. This perspective may decisively influence the way we
read Latin American Literature and hopes to more rigorously draw attention to the
presence of ancestral indigenous civilization in the cultural identity of Latin America.

Religious ideology played a powerful role in the shaping of the Spanish Empire as
seen in the writings of Christopher Columbus, the first widely documented European
explorer to reach the Americas. Columbus was driven by intense feelings of divine
providence and saw his project in biblical and prophetic terms. In his diaries and letters,
as well as his Book of Prophecies, Columbus' religious fervor shows a messianic zeal
and his rhetoric mimics that of the newly emerging Spanish Empire who, in tum,
mimicked the messianic and imperialist rhetoric of the Catholic Church. This zeal was
not particular to Columbus' personality but rather it reflects the common beliefs of his
times. The cosmology of Columbus was a composite ofvarious Medieval and early
Renaissance philosophers whose erroneous conceptions of geography and apocalyptic
visions of the future were based on astrological patterns and various prophecies in the
Bible rather than empirical facts.

This paper argues that Kim Il-Sung of North Korea and Fidel Castro of Cuba established personality cults of differing degrees of intensity due to the relative degrees of historical and political isolation present in each state. Although both states followed a similar pattern of dominance, resentment, nationalism, and socialism in their recent histories, their differing overall histories dictated the intensity of their leaders' personality cults. Korea's long history of self-imposed isolationism in combination with xenophobia was continued in Kim's self-reliance ideology and allowed for a fanatical personality cult to develop. Cuba's only experience with isolation was that imposed by the United States through its embargoes, and the resulting hostility between Cuba and the United States actually helped legitimize Castro's regime and personality cult.

This research study on the antislavery novel, Sab (1841), by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, explores issues of race, gender and social status in Cuban society during the 19th century. Avellaneda’s narrative establishes a difference between ethnic, gender and economic privileges portrayed through the most influential characters in the novel: the slave, Sab; the daughter of the landowner, Carlota; orphaned daughter of Carlota’s uncle, Teresa; and Enrique, a British landowner and Carlota’s fiancé. This study pays particular attention to Teresa’s resistance to the patriarchal values in a colonial society ruled by Spain. I consider this character crucial to understand the antislavery discourse that Avellaneda incorporates in her novel to destabilize a hierarchical and prejudiced society. Furthermore, I will illustrate the major role of Teresa in the novel, whose presence has been shaded by the central female character, Carlota, and frequently underestimated by the critics.