English Studies in Latin America: A Journal of Cultural and Literary Criticism (ESLA)
Welcome to English Studies in Latin America: A Journal of Cultural and Literary Criticism (ESLA), a digital journal hosted by the Faculty of Letters, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. This journal provides a space for writers of academic and creative genres to publish their reflections on cultural productions that connect us to human experiences through the English language. Living, teaching and learning in a primarily Spanish-speaking culture, we, at ESLA, believe that it is crucial to open spaces for the many different readings, interpretations and uses of culture in English. As Chinua Achebe reminds us, English allows people to read each other beyond a given country’s borders and it has also been forcefully imposed on many. We believe that the spectrum in between these points, the bright and dark sides of globalization and colonization, demands our critical attention from this part of the world.
Esta revista recibe el apoyo de Bibliotecas UC.
About Us
Ver más keyboard_arrow_downAbout Us
- ESLA Journal of Cultural and Literary Criticism is a biannual online journal from the English Literature Department of the Facultad de Letras at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Our aim is to provide a platform for Latin American scholarly voices that are speaking about literature written in English. We also seek reflections on cultural exchanges between Latin America and English-speaking worlds. We accept original contributions from any disciplinary focus, especially those that reflect on the issues we describe in our Call for Papers .
- We welcome academic papers as well as essays, reviews, interviews, and any type of written reflection on literature and cultural productions in English. We are happy to receive and review poetry, graphic novels and short stories. If you would like to propose any other kind of digital text feel free to write us! In both our Non Fiction and Fiction sections, we are open to innovations.
- We are a double blind peer reviewed open access journal. No subscription is required and we pay no fees to authors or peer reviewers. All our contents are protected by Creative Commons (CC) license, which allows the sharing of our contents under the following terms: BY, NC, ND.
- We are indexed in Latindex and Modern Language Association (October 2017).
History
The conversations leading to the creation of this journal began in 2010, a year when student protests were on the rise. Professors continued to be available during class time, which made space for open conversations with students. Fom those, an idea was born: to create a journal within the Faculty of Letters focused on literatures in English. The journal would be a platform for academic articles as well as creative writing by university students and professors. By 2011, professors Carmen Luz Fuentes-Vásquez, Allison Ramay and several undergraduate students: Juan Pablo Vilches, Francisco Aranguiz, Beatriz Rengifo, Manuela Mercado and Francisca Ibaceta, launched the journal White Rabbit: English Studies in Latin America. The name reflected the curiosity and excitement of creating a new journal regarding a topic that had not yet been the focus of academic discussions via a formalized journal in Chile. The topic was literature and contemporary literary and cultural theories in English. A major highlight from Issue 1 was an interview by the White Rabbit staff with activist, theorist and academic Judith Butler titled “Meaningful Protests in the Kitchen: An Interview with Judith Butler”.
In 2017, the journal’s name was revised to English Studies in Latin America: A Journal of Cultural and Literary Studies or ESLA to better reflect its commitment to cultural and literary criticism. Additionally, over time, it became difficult to maintain undergraduates within the permanent staff. And despite the journal’s continued double-blind peer review system in place, it seemed that academics were hesitant to send their contributions because of indexation requirements within Latin American universities. Therefore, in 2017, editors Allison Ramay and Andrea Casals took the necessary steps to index the journal in MLA and Latindex, which was complete that year.
Staff
Editor Andrea Casals, PhD acasals@uc.cl | Professor Andrea Casals’ special academic interests are ecocriticism or green cultural studies, poetry and children’s literature. Besides reading…in her spare time, she enjoys yoga, trekking, family bonding and a coffee cup for warm conversations. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5940-1050 |
Editor Allison Ramay, PhD aramaya@uc.cl | Professor Allison Ramay studies indigenous writings of the past and present in Abiayala, intercultural theory, gender, and critical indigenous studies. She finds joy watching her children grow and exploring nearby mountain trails. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3968-7092 |
Assistant  Francisca Fernández Arce francisca.fernandez@ug.uchile.cl | Francisca Fernández Arce is a former student of Lingüística y Literatura Inglesas at Universidad de Chile and holds a MA on Modern and Contemporary Literature from the University of York. Her academic interests range from contemporary poetry, Northern Irish literature, and the intersection between the visual and the textual. |
Layout Design and Web Management Tamara Cubillos tecubillos@uc.cl | Tamara studied English Literature and Linguistics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and is currently working as a Conversation Designer. |
Illustrator  Catalina Salvatierra catipsr@gmail.com | Catalina Salvatierra is a Chilean illustrator and tattoo artist, with a diploma in illustration from Universidad de Chile (2017) where she was also a TA in 2018. Formerly a nutritionist, Catalina transformed her passion for drawing and tattooing into her main activity, which she performs as an independent artist. |
Board Members
 Héctor Calderón | Professor Héctor Calderón is a specialist in Spanish American, Mexican, and Chicano literature and cultures. He began his career in Spanish American literature and early modern Spain. His Conciencia y lenguaje en El Quijote y El obsceno pájaro de la noche (Pliegos 1987) examines two classic novels within their respective modern and postmodern contexts. However, Calderón is most widely known for his contributions to Chicano literary studies. He is one the field’s leading figures. His co-edited anthology Criticism in the Borderlands (Duke 1991) is considered one of the founding works in the field. His most recent book is Narratives of Greater Mexico: Essays on Chicano Literary History, Genre, and Borders (Texas 2005). Calderón’s numerous publications have concentrated on border studies and the North American Mexican cultural diaspora. His current research projects include Mexican literature, film, and rock and Mexican American fiction of Los Angeles. He is currently completing a book on Mexico, “America Mexicana: The Mexican Cultural Diaspora of North America.” At UCLA, Professor Calderon was founding Chair of the César E. Chávez Center (1994). He has also served as Director of the University of California, Education Abroad Program’s Mexico Study Center (2004-2008) and founding Executive Director of la Casa de la Universidad de California en México, A.C. (2006-2008). Prior to coming to UCLA in 1991, Calderón was Professor at Scripps College (1989-1991) and Associate Professor at Yale University (1983-1989). |
 Susan Foote | Susan Foote was born in San Diego, California and studied Spanish at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her doctorate and master’s degrees from the Universidad de Concepción, Chile where she teaches English Literature in the Foreign Language Department. She also teaches courses in the Magíster en Literaturas Hispánicas and in the Doctorado en Literatura Latinoamericana at the same university. She has led many workshops and talks on poetry in English and has published several articles relating to her workshops. She is interested in the teaching of literature in English in Chile and the therapeutic effects of group literary discussions. Her interests include 20th century American poetry and Postcolonial literature in English as well as Mapuche testimony and poetry. Her book Pascual Coña, historias de sobrevivientes, la voz en la letra y la letra en la voz was published by the Universidad de Concepción Press, November 2012. |
 Thomas Rothe | Thomas Rothe holds a PhD in Latin American Literature from the Universidad de Chile and is an adjunct professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile. His lines of research include Latin American and Caribbean literature with a focus on translation, cultural magazines, and literary history. He has translated into English many Chilean poets, including Rodrigo Lira, Jaime Huenún, and Julieta Marchant. With Lucía Stecher, he translated into Spanish Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously and Claire of the Sea Light, published in Chile by Banda Propia. He is currently a researcher in the project “Connected Worlds: The Caribbean, Origin of Modern World,” part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under the Marie Sklodowska Curie grant agreement Nº 823846. |
 Francisco Lomelí | Distinguished Professor in Chicana/o Studies and Spanish & Portuguese, Professor Francisco Lomelí has been faculty at UC Santa Barbara since 1978 as part of a joint appointment between the Spanish & Portuguese and Chicana/o Studies Departments. He has published extensively on Latin American literature and culture (Mexican, Chilean, Argentine, Central American, including theory on the novel and translation) and Chicano literature and culture (literary history, Colonial New Mexico, theory on the novel, numerous reference books, journals and translations, and has recovered works prior to 1965). Some of his publications include: La novelística de Carlos Droguett, Chicano Studies: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Chicano Literature: A Reference Guide (co-eds. G.García & I.Ortiz), Dictionary of Literary Biography (3 volumes; co-ed. C. Shirley), Handbook of Hispanic Cultures and Literatures: Literature and Art, Barrio on the Edge (trans.), Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico (co-author C. Colahan), The Writings of Eusebio Chacón (co-author G. Meléndez), The Chicano Literary Imagination (co-eds. J. Cañero & J. Elices), Routledge Handbook of Chicana/o Studies (forthcoming; co-eds. D.Segura & E.Benjamin-Labarthe), co-director of the journal Ventana Abierta (co-director S.Poot-Herrera), and a special journal issue (Greece, forthcoming; co-eds. S.Emmanioulidou & J.Oliva). Prof. Lomelí has published 35 books and over 120 articles in journals and special collections from throughout the world in addition to being elected to the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (2016). |
 Alejandra Ortiz Salamovich | Full-time lecturer at the Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades of the Universidad de Chile. She teaches English literature modules in the Licenciatura en Lengua y Literatura Inglesas. She holds an MA in Medieval English Literature and a PhD, both from the University of Leeds (United Kingdom). Her PhD thesis, “Translation Practice in Early Modern Europe: Spanish Chivalric Romance in England”, dealt with the English translation of sixteenth-century Spanish chivalric romance, focusing on Margaret Tyler’s The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood (c. 1578) and Anthony Munday’s Palmerin D’Oliva (1588) and Amadis de Gaule (1590-1619). She was a part-time lecturer at the Facultad de Letras of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile from 2008 until 2010 and also in 2015, teaching modules in the areas of classical, medieval, and children’s literature. |
 Mike Wilson | Mike Wilson, PhD, is an academic of Facultad de Letras UC and author of the novels El púgil (2008), Zombie (2009), Rockabilly (2011) and Leñador (2013). His last novel, Leñador, obtained el Premio de la Crítica 2014 y el premio del Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes 2014. He was also editor the of an essays collection called Where Is My Mind? Cognición, literatura y cine (2012). |
 Maria Ines Zaldivar | PhD in Literature, professor, essayist and poet. She is an academic in the Department of Literature at the Faculty of Letters, PUC (Santiago, Chile). She is the author of the following books Reiterándome, o la elevación frente a la negación (1994), La mirada erótica, (1998), co-author of 100 Años de Cultura Chilena (2006), and Bibliografía y antología crítica de las vanguardias literarias CHILE (2009). She also co-authored Lengua Castellana y Comunicación for primary and secondary education in Chile and other texts on literature and literary criticism. Her poetic works include Artes y oficios (1996), Ojos que no ven (2001), Naranjas de medianoche (2006, finalist for the Critic’s Award 2007), Década (2009), Luna en Capricornio (2010, nominated for the Altazor Award 2011) and Bruma (2012). |
Former Staff
| Name | Dates involved | After working with ESLA |
| Constanza Brahm | 2011 | M.F.A in Screenwriting at the New York Film Academy |
| Francisco Aranguiz | 2010 – 2012 | MSc in Literature and Modernity at University of Edinburgh |
| Beatriz Rengifo | 2010 – 2012 | MA in English in Education at King´s College London |
| Manuela Mercado | 2010 – 2012 | MSc in Literature and Modernity. University of Edinburgh |
| Francisca Ibaceta | 2010 – 2012 | N/A |
| Juan Pablo Vilches | 2010 – 2012 | MA in Cultural Heritage Studies at UCL |
| Valeria Tapia | 2014 | Union College – New York |
| Kattia Ansieta | 2014 | Programa de Formación Pedagógica UC |
| Valentina Rivera | 2014 | Programa de Formación Pedagógica UC |
| Valeska Miranda | 2014 | MA in Applied Linguistics in EFL, UC |
| Margarita Maira | 2010 – 2014 | MA in 19th Century Literature, University of York |
| Florencia Roncone | 2017 – 2018 | International Affairs Office at UC |
| Felipe Acevedo | 2015 – 2018 | Doctor of Philosophy in Literature ©, UC |
| Javiera Sepúlveda | 2013 – 2022 | Translator |
| Carolina Osorio | 2017 – 2022 | Editor and Translator |
For Authors
Ver más keyboard_arrow_downHow to submit?
Simple! Email us at esla@uc.cl. Please make sure to review our Style Guide and Ethical Declaration of Editorial Practices before submitting an article.
We will then read to make sure the article (its topic and writing style) falls within the journal’s scope. If so, then the work is sent to two peer reviewers (double-blind review process).
Why submit?
We are committed to celebrating the collaboration and dialogue between early-career researchers and established academics. While academics are usually required to publish, open-access journals, like ESLA, allow for the open circulation of ideas. At ESLA we are happy to serve as a platform for researchers whose creative questions lead to provocative writing on pressing social issues from the Humanities. Additionally, publishing with us implies reaching a diverse audience within Latin America and the Global South.
Whether or not your article is accepted for publication, receiving feedback from our peer reviewers is always helpful. And all works published with ESLA are protected by a Creative Commons License. This means that people are allowed to download and share publications, without modifying them and as long as they are not used for commercial purposes.
For Peer Reviewers
Ver más keyboard_arrow_downHow to be a peer reviewer?
Please express your interest to us via email at esla@uc.cl. Our ideal reviewers have published texts in the genre they will review (literary or academic) and hold a graduate degree (MA or PhD).
Why be a peer reviewer?
Being a peer reviewer is a wonderful way to get connected to ESLA. We are a community of readers and writers who enjoy thinking about the production, distribution and interpretation of culture in English from Latin America. As a peer reviewer you will give a writer constructive and crucial feedback, which will also improve your own writing. We also invite our reviewers to include their work as peer reviewers on their CVs.
Issue 25
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, It is my pleasure to present to you the 25th issue of ESLA, after several issues where guest editors took on this role. Thanks to our ever-growing readership, this issue covers a variety of places and themes. | Download PDF |
| Articles | Imaginaries of the Anthropocene and “The Tamarisk Hunter” by Paolo Bacigalupi as Narrative in the New Ecological Era- María José Buteler The environmental crisis, which we are facing nowadays, is the result of the action of human beings on the planet. The loss of biodiversity, the melting of ice and glaciers, the rising sea levels worldwide, floods, droughts, and forest fires are just some of the consequences of the human action and its impact on the environment. Faced with anthropogenic global warming and its consequences on the planet, writers take on the challenge of narrating the possible consequences of humankind’s action in order to raise awareness in the readers through their productions. The aim of this work is to analyze the story “The Tamarisk Hunter” by Paolo Bacigalupi as an aesthetic representation of the environmental crisis that attempts at raising awareness in the reader about a possible future if humanity does not assume its responsibility for the environmental crisis it faces. The questions raised in this paper are: How does this text contribute to the perception of the environmental crisis? What dialogue is established between the new geological era of the Anthropocene and the cli-fi? What kind of imaginary is presented in “The Tamarisk Hunter”? How does this fictional narrative contribute to understand the role of human beings as agents of change? The text will be approached from the paradigm of ecocriticism and climate fiction, in particular, as a new way of narrating in the Anthropocene. KEY WORDS: Anthropocene, environmental crisis, climate fiction, ecocriticism | Download PDF |
| Articles | “(Un)even Cultural Productions: (Re)theorising Silences in the Kenyan Political Life writing” – Stephen Mutie & Albert Rutere This article examines how the Kenyan political self-writing (re)enacts silences while claiming to memorise the country’s past. The paper interrogates the self-writings as cultural productions ridden with interested (re)theorisings. The question to be answered in this article regards whether the Kenyan political self-writings, in the quest for nationhood in Kenya, silence particular strands of histories and other equally essential themes in the Kenyan political memory. To answer this question, the discussion was located within the post-colonial theory, with particular emphasis on the strand that articulates resistance as a form of strategic calculation and interrogates the interest that inhabits the production of specific knowledges. The article examined the political autobiography chosen here as located from a place of privilege, often silencing particular themes while amplifying others. The biographical method was used to analyse Not Yet Uhuru by Jaramogi Odinga and The Flame of Freedom by Raila Odinga. Revealing the dangers of a single story in autobiographical works, the article argues that Kenyan political self-writing is imbued with rhetorical performances determined by the need to tell a compelling story. Hiding behind the romantic concept of speaking truth to power and using grandeur themes like nationhood and subalternity as survival tropes, the leaders examined here deliberately and conveniently elbow out other themes that do not serve their interests. Uhuru and Freedom are, therefore, public performances of deference and loyalty so crucial in power relations, especially in maintaining dynastic life and constructing a flattering self-image of their writers. In the final analysis, Uhuru and Freedom become cultural constructions, remembering the past with a slant. KEY WORDS: autobiography, nationhood, ethnicity and identity construction | Download PDF |
| Articles | “Henri Christophe: a Haitian Macbeth” – Rosario León The dramatic play Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes (1949) by Saint Lucian playwright Derek Walcott sets the scene during the rule of Henri Christophe, one of the great leaders of the Haitian Revolution, in Northern Haiti, from his ascent to power, through his controverted excesses, until his downfall. The article analyses this drama from two points of view, on the one hand, discussing and controverting the nature of the play as a historical drama, and on the other hand analysing it from an intertextual perspective, starting from the allusions to various Shakespeare’s works, especially the one alluded in the title. The article puts forward the idea that the work of Walcott does not conform with the model of historical drama, since it makes almost no reference to the macro historical context, and it fails to mention the historical forces driving the conflict. Instead, he focuses on the character development of the hero, modelled after Macbeth, where the opposing forces are internal and arise from the passions of the character. KEY WORDS: Derek Walcott, Drama, Haitian Revolution, Intertextuality, Macbeth | Download PDF |
| Non-fiction | “Toward a non-appropriative rhetoric: Julio Cortázar’s Reading of John Keats” – Diego Alegría | Download PDF |
| Non-fiction | “Making the Most of Non-Gendered Language” – Marco Katz Montiel | Download PDF |
| Non-fiction | “Death and Class in Hard Times and Howard’s End” – Rebeca Canales | Download PDF |
| Fiction | “The Coat” – Dani Cortés | Download PDF |
| Poetry | “When September was four again” – John Dunn | Download PDF |
| Fiction | “Juanito, Poor Juanito” – Sayén García | Download PDF |
Issue 24
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| Editor’s Note | This special issue of ESLA came about as a result of the V Jornada de Literatura en Inglés which had as its main topic Poetry and Performance and was hosted by Letras UC in January 2022. The conference was held online and brought together two clusters of actively experimental poets based in the UK and Chile. | Download PDF |
| Articles | “‘Song-Song Stare’: Maggie O’Sullivan’s Ritual Listening in Poetry and Performance” – Nia Davies Drawing from research in the field of creative writing, this poetics essay explores performance and ritual in the work of Maggie O’Sullivan. I focus on sound poetry and listening to explore some of O’Sullivan’s ritual techniques of transformation. Following O’Sullivan’s ‘mattering of material,’ I elucidate some of the processes of ritual, embodiment and ecological relation which she makes use of in her poems and performances. I bring concepts from ritual theory and performance studies into play with O’Sullivan’s poems and sound texts. Ritual techniques are used by O’Sullivan to transform the material of language and open up a liminal potential of poesis, a making anew in language or a sensual re-enchantment. These ritual techniques include fragmentation and re-composition of language into new material, the use of rhythm and repetition in a poem to create a resonant ‘pulsing’ and approaches which emphasise the embodied connections between those present in the space of the poem and their ecological interrelation. O’Sullivan makes poetry a medium for transformation where language becomes ‘an active physical presence in the world’, creating the possibility in performance of a liminal ‘space of undiminishment’, a poesis which opens our ears to ‘other-than-(as well as human)-sentience’ (in Olsen 204). The essay asks what new openings might be possible in the field between embodied arts and poetry. | Download PDF |
| Articles | “Performative Translations, Intimate Dialogues and Political Transformations: Contemporary Experiments on Translating the Classics” – Jessica Pujol In this article I bring together three different textual practices that set up intimate dialogues with the works of variously canonical authors (Dante, Petrarch and César Vallejo). William Rowe and Helen Dimos present a new bilingual version of Vallejo’s Trilce with glosses, Tim Atkins answers Il Canzionere with 366 “sonnets” that not only enter into a dialogue with Petrarch but also with previous translations of his work, and Caroline Bergvall performs an experimental engagement with translations of Dante’s Divine Comedy. These exercises in translation challenge notions of fidelity and break phantasmagorical hierarchies built by the canon. Instead of fidelity, there is intimacy in their dialogues, since they each open up particular, personal approaches to the oeuvre, its author, its translators, its history, and the audience or reader. I argue that these works understand translation as an intimate performative and political action, and their reading provokes a reconfiguration of both the source text and its previous translations. | Download PDF |
| Articles | “‘Language is à virus’: tendencias de la poesía sonora actual / ‘Language is à virus’: trends in current sound poetry” – Martin Bakero, Felipe Cussen, and Rachel Robinson This article gives an account of the cycle “Language is à virus”, curated by Martin Bakero and Felipe Cussen, which brought together various international poets, artists and musicians linked to sound poetry through the Zoom platform between April 2020 and April of 2021. In the 52 meetings that made up this cycle, various works were presented and commented on, which gave rise to different reflections that have been summarized and analyzed here, which allow access to a broad and transversal view of current sound poetry. | Download PDF |
| Non-fiction | “The Voice That Calls, The Voice That Answers (and The Parenthesis in Between)” – Edward Gonzalez | Download PDF |
| Non-fiction | “Text as Instrument” – Iris Colomb | Download PDF |
| Fiction | “WHiSTLing AN imAGE, BOUNCiNG POEMs OFF bioACOUSTIC BODiES” – Luna Montenegro & Adrian Fisher | Download PDF |
| Fiction | “Notes on a Kineopoetics” – Scott Thurston | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Coming Soon: Performance by Edwin Torres (Recordings from the Jornada de Letras Inglesas: Poetry and Performance, January 2022) | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Coming Soon: Nia Davies on Maggie O’Sullivan and Performance (Recordings from the Jornada de Letras Inglesas: Poetry and Performance, January 2022) | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Coming Soon: Felipe Cussen on Language is a Virus (Recordings from the Jornada de Letras Inglesas: Poetry and Performance, January 2022) | Download PDF |
Issue 23
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, This fall-winter semester in the Southern Hemisphere brought the joy of in personThis fall-winter semester in the Southern Hemisphere brought the joy of in personacademic life after two years of online teaching because of the Covid 19 pandemic. The patiospacked with first, second, and third-year students, many of whom had never been in a universityclassroom, filled our hearts and their presence also elicited thoughts about the importance ofhuman encounters and the impact of living in such a globalized world. ESLA’s Issue 23 featurestwo articles and one essay that ponder upon these impacts. [ . . . ] Andrea Casals-Hill ESLA Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | “The Symphony, Rhythm, and Identity in The Kingdom of this World ” By Nathan King Article Among other things, the Cuban author Alejo Carpentier is well known for his book, Music in Cuba, and for his symphonically structured work, The Chase. With that in mind, this essay takes the position that his earlier novel The Kingdom of This World is structured as a symphony. This study elaborates on why this novel is a symphony, both structurally and thematically, and how Carpentier chose the Vodou drums and chants to create rhythm. By doing this, the author creates a musical duality that mirrors his belief about Latin American identity. Identity for Carpentier means that we are forever between two worlds, such as those alluded to by the symphony (Europe) and first age rhythms (First Age cultures). The only “real” escape from this continuum is if we have the power to transform ourselves like Ti Noël at the end of the novel. Keywords: Symphony, identity, musical novel | Download PDF |
| Articles | “Cambio climático y ficción: Solar, A Novel de Ian McEwan” By Marianela Mora Article Anglophone literary production of the last two decades shows a clear tendency to imagine and narrate the impact of anthropogenic climate change. These fictions ―recently called Cli-Fi― present humanity’s agency as a geological force in the current epoch of the Anthropocene (Crutzen-Stoermer 2000). From an ecocritical reading, the article explores how the Anthropocene paradigm is presented in Solar, A Novel by the British author Ian McEwan, particularly in the representation of three axes: time, space and risk (Trexler 2015; Mehnert 2016), parameters that need resignifying in the Anthropocene. Keywords: Anthropocene, anthropogenic climate change, cli-fi, climate fiction | Download PDF |
| Non-fiction | “Theatricality and Race in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Raquel Carrió and Flora Lauten’s Otra tempestad” By María José Cornejo Otra tempestad was performed at La Habana’s Teatro Buendía in 1997, with dramaturgy by Raquel Carrió and Flora Lauten.2 This play marked a new direction in Latin American rewritings of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This tradition began with Ruben Darío, Paul Groussac and José Enrique Rodó, who discussed the image of Caliban in relation to the United States and its intervention in Latin America. The climax of these rewritings came with authors such as George Lamming, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Kamau Brathwaite and Roberto Fernández Retamar. Their readings and understanding of the play vindicate the image of Caliban and emphasize the processes of colonization in the context of the Cuban Revolution, the Négritude Movement, and the decolonization of the Caribbean. Continuing with this tradition, Carrió and Lauten composed their play focusing on the processes of globalization and the new millennium (Flaherty 102), transferring their focus to the experimentation with new ways of understanding theatricality and Cuban identity through dialogue, establishing a counterpoint with The Tempest. Carrió herself has stated that rewriting the plot of the Shakespearean play became more complex by the end of the century (“Otra” 159). This results in a temporal and thematical distance with Césaire’s rewriting and the Caribbean tradition of the 50s and 60s because, for Carrió, it is not enough to negate the language of the colonizer but researching the process of cultural formation through cultural contact is also needed (“Otra” 159). The main gesture that the dramaturges offer comes from the title itself. By entitling it Otra tempestad (Another Tempest), Carrió/Lauten include the play in relation to Césaire’s play Une Tempête (A Tempest). […] By María José Cornejo | Download PDF |
Issue 22
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, This 22nd issue of ESLA focuses on musical cultures in our Hemisphere, especially the relationship between the written word and music. From the musical presence in modern literature to literary presence in contemporary musical practices, the relationship between literature and music has long enriched the work of both writers and composers. This issue seeks to contribute to the study of this relationship. [ . . . ] Alejandro Rossi Guest Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | “Making Music Mean – An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Composing Music that Reads Poetry and Narrative” By Marco Katz Montiel Article Music provides new readings of literature. Although readers expect writers to employ words while commenting on music, the first section of this report, called “Theory,” demonstrates how the musical text brings out new understandings from what readers can now refer to as a wordful text. A history of this undertaking brings together Ancient Greek philosophy, centuries of semiotics, and twentieth-century Caribbean thoughts on filin, with autobiographical references that show how these all synthesize into a highly personal form of Cultural Studies newly reconsid-ered as Creation-Research. “Practice,” the second section, begins with a musical epigraph and then provides references to musical scores by Franz Schubert, Johann Friedrich Reichardt, and the au-thor. Contrasting with the preceding part, this creates more hearing than reading by including direct links to sonic examples of the music discussed, turning readers into listeners who can begin to read with their ears and hear with their eyes. Keywords: wordful, musical semiotics, filin, music and literature, Research-Creation, song cycle, musical meanings | Download PDF |
| Articles | “Todo Paisaje es Interno: From Nature to Music” By Alejandro E Mundaca Article This article explores current issues in the relationship between music, soundscape, and language, precisely when transnational musical strategies such as variations, transformations, and adaptations are used. This text discusses some interdisciplinary perspectives from a historical approach that scholars have put forward in contemporary musicology. This discussion aims to reflect on how these ideas echo the trend of Chilean music and provide practical methods for subjects other than traditional musicology. To do so, Mario Concha’s album Todo Paisaje es Interno offers excellent elements, contributing to world nature and environmental awareness through music from Chile. Keywords: soundscape, music and translation, Chilean folk music | Download PDF |
| Articles | ““Silence, silence, silence:” An Exploration of Music and Sound in Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts” By Kathleen Curtis Article Studies revolving around Woolf’s use of music have gained a large amount of traction in the last couple of decades, but still leave much ground to be worked on. Given the general novelty of the deep interdisciplinary study between literature and music, and particularly as it relates to Woolf’s Between the Acts, the present article will offer a fresh perspective on how circumstances of the time (particularly industrialization, and the two World Wars) affected not only the musical material present in her novel, but how it is represented and woven into the narrative. Through said analysis, new and interdisciplinary approaches are provided to understand how these two culturally informed phenomena work together towards the creation of a single coherent piece. Particularly, the text will include both the way sounds, silences, and music are incorporated in the structure of the text, as well as how some musical structures, belonging to both Modernism and Postmodernism techniques, are employed. Keywords: Rhythm, repetition, silence, war, Virginia Woolf | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | The In-Between and the Postcolonial Aesthetic of Reggae By Matías Palacios Non-Fiction || Essay This article focuses on reggae music’s postcolonial Caribbean aesthetic, following the ideas of Ghanaian-born Jamaican author Kwame Dawes. It is proposed that this aesthetic is closely related to two of Homi Bhabha’s concepts in the framework of postcolonial criticism: the in-between and hybridity. With the aim of proving this point, we analyze the lyrics and music of three reggae songs in chronological order. The works analyzed are Desmond Dekker & The Aces’ “Israelites”, Gregory Isaacs’ “Word of the Farmer”, and Burning Spear’s “Columbus”; musical productions spanning from 1968 to 1980. Constant references to Bhabha’s The Location of Culture and Dawes’ Natural Mysticism are used in order to support their arguments. The conclusion seeks to acknowledge how reggae artists have incorporated ideas from both Africa and Europe in order to create new thoughts while maintaining certain unifying characteristics. This is especially evident through specific themes in the compositions, such as establishing Africa as a homeland and re-evaluating history, as well as in the musicalization. Finally, Bhabha’s ideas allow for the discursive complexity of this Caribbean musical genre to be shown more clearly, as explored through the selected works. keywords: Reggae, Afro-Caribbean culture, postcolonialism, in-between | Download PDF |
| Fiction | “Silence” By Ana María Franquesa Strugo | Download PDF |
| Short Story | “Bobby Discovers Salsa” By Marco Katz | Download PDF |
Issue 21
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| Editor’s Note | Editor’s Note Dear Readers, This issue of ESLA includes poetry and an academic article from different parts of the world. In the poetry section, you will find the verses of poets: Sonakshi Srivastava, from Indraprastha University, Delhi; Constanza Contreras, from the University of Michigan and based in Dublin, Ireland; and María Inés Zaldívar and translator Edward González, from Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. Poetry can reveal the body’s need to communicate, whispering in languages that transgress the limits of everyday speech. These poets’ words transport us to that space, where we may access the body’s unique wisdom. [ . . . ] Allison Ramay ESLA Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | Negotiating Gender and Fútbol Matters in Yamile Saied Méndez’s Furia By Juanita Heredia Article This article examines the intersection of gender and fútbol (soccer) as a process of negotiation that shifts from dependency to agency in the context of the Ni una menos movement in twenty-first century Argentina, in U.S. Argentine Yamile Saied Méndez’s first young adult novel, Furia (2020). As part of a generation of transnational U.S. Latina authors of South American descent, Saied Méndez focuses on the challenges and rewards of an aspiring female adolescent fútbol player in Rosario, Argentina, who must confront domestic abuse and gender inequality in this male dominated sport. By drawing attention to the protagonist’s multi-ethnic genealogy, Saied Méndez also intervenes in the revision of the national narrative of belonging in Argentine fútbol based on gender and heritage. She claims that the daughters as much as the sons of immigrants have a right to play fútbol if their talents permit. Saied Méndez further recovers a history of violence against women and young girls at home and in public to foreground the importance of women’s activism and consciousness to bring social justice for the victims and the survivors. Despite the social obstacles based on gender discrimination at the personal and institutional levels for young female fútbol players in South America, Saied Méndez maintains that achieving one’s goals and dreams of freedom to continue their college education and play professional fútbol are possible beyond national boundaries with community support, female role models, and the memory of one’s female ancestors who sacrificed for future generations. Key words: South American/Argentine diaspora, gender, soccer (fútbol), social justice, novel | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Selected Poems By Constanza Contreras | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Selected Poem By Sonakshi Srivastava | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Selected Poems By Mané Zaldívar Translated by Edward Gonzalez | Download PDF |
Issue 20
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, This issue is a milestone in the life of ESLA; we have reached 10 years publishing twice a year uninterrupted. What started as a joint initiative between a group of students and professors, has consolidated into an indexed scholarly journal. Issue 20 represents an effort to publish articles that are meaningful and timely, returning the gaze from academia in the so-called Global South to the English-speaking North. [ . . . ] Andrea Casals Hill ESLA Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | Resistiendo el encierro: la hegemonía de género y el discurso médico en disputa en Mrs Dalloway By Felipe Acevedo Riquelme This article is centered on the different ways in which Virginia Woolf ’s Mrs Dalloway questions and exposes two devicesthat control the binary hierarchical order of “male/female” and “health/disease”:heteronormativity and the medical discourse. Moreover, it is proposed that those devices use confinement to operate and manifest themselves. The analysis focuses on two research axes: on the one hand, it is possible to observe how the devices aforementioned work within the private space, and on the other hand, how these are overflown in the urban space. In order to convey the analysis, the ideas of Judith Butler exposed in Gender Trouble and Georges Canguilhem’s The Normal and the Pathological were taken into consideration. Key words: Confinement, heteronormativity, medicine. | Download PDF |
| Articles | Síntoma y archivo. Las enfermedades imaginarias en The Afflictions (2014) de Vikram Paralkar By Carlos Ayram This essay proposes to problematize the illness’ narrative and imaginary character in The Afflictions by Indian writer Vikram Paralkar. I claim that the novel unfolds in a history of physical, emotional, sexual, linguistic, mental conditions, syndromes, and disorders as a possibility to transform its symptoms into a kind of imaginary archive. The work produces a pathognostic and playful knowledge through some resources and repertoires of medical language to highlight the disease’s metaphorical dimension. Along with some general considerations, I conclude by talking about the reciprocal link between literature and disease as processes of negotiation of meanings and senses on the experience of the suffering. Key words: Body, illness, metaphor, symptom, Vikram Paralkar | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction Essay | The Beauty of Co-Translation By José Bañuelos Montes & Sally Perret Non-Fiction || Essay Translating poetry can be an unnerving and lonely process. There are infinite ways to navigate from one language to the next, causing the sole translator much doubt, insecurity, and general indecisiveness. Working as a team, however, we—José Bañuelos Montes and Sally Perret, who always write each other’s name first—have discovered the joy of sharing responsibilities and the excitement that dialogue brings to the process of translation. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | In memoriam: David William Foster By Emily Hind The loss of our beloved colleague, David William Foster, leaves us with the enduring contribution of his mentoring legacy and an almost incredible amount of groundbreaking publications. The staggering quantity and quality of books, articles, translations, and reviews that Professor Foster wrote over some fifty years helps us to think about LGBTQ and Jewish themes in a sweeping range of Latin American texts, from print literature to film to photographs, and shows especially profound expertise in cultural production issuing from Brazil and Argentina. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Fiction | El cero móvil de su boca / The Mobile Zero of Its Mouth (These selected poems were first published by Katakana Editores in 2020) By Gisela Heffes Translated by Grady C. Wray | Download PDF |
Issue 19
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, In the nearly ten years of ESLA´s existence, Issue 19 has perhaps the greatest international presence, considering the variety of places from which our authors write: Chile, Brazil, the United States, India, Spain, Scotland, and the Netherlands. This presence mirrors our increased awarenessof global connectivity; an awareness that COVID-19 has forced us to appreciate on new levels. Withthe unexpected pressures and concerns faced by authors and peer reviewers, we allowed extra time for their revisions and evaluations. For that reason, we are publishing in September rather than [ . . . ] Allison Ramay ESLA Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | Montaigne’s Essays, Study Abroad and Intercultural Learning: A Critical Examination By Elsa Maxwell Article In the late sixteenth century, the aging French thinker Michel de Montaigne wrote more than one hundred essays on a wide variety of topics ranging from classical literature and history, the human imagination, sickness and recovery, and the cultural encounter between the New and Old Worlds. Whereas Montaigne’s Essays are frequently studied in classical and literary courses, they are less commonly included in intercultural learning and study abroad curricula despite the interesting connections between them. As such, this article examines the relevance of his Essays for intercultural learning in the context of international education. To what extent do Montaigne’s ideas about self-awareness, self-examination and cultural relativism serve as pedagogical tools for promoting intercultural competency today? How did the encounter between the so-called New and Old Worlds shape Montaigne’s thinking about cultural differences? What are the limitations of Montaigne’s ideas about cultural relativism, suspending judgment and frameshifting, and how do they relate to intercultural learning in the context of study abroad? Key words: Montaigne, study abroad, intercultural learning | Download PDF |
| Articles | Peter and Wendy: Cultural References from British Literature and Beyond By Isabel Lopes Coelho Article Peter and Wendy, written by J. M. Barrie and published as a novel in 1911, is one of the most iconic works of English literature. This article aims to elucidate references that appear in Barrie’s Peter and Wendy which make it so fantastic and unpaired: the literary and the sociocultural references, which contribute to tag this book as an English “modern classic”. The references that are well-known by the British reader provoke an immediate sense of belonging and recognition. For instance, sociocultural mentions can easily be noticed throughout the narrative, especially the ones that bring to the reader aspects from Edwardian and Victorian everyday life of British families. Regarding the literary references, the reader might find aspects from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Stevenson’s The Treasure Island, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll). Or even from The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) and The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame), both works that are contemporary with Peter and Wendy, and are also conversing with it, particularly in terms of the notion of escapism and social criticism. Above all, Barrie’s novel opens a new field for the modern literature of the twentieth century. A literature that is more concerned with the psychological features of the characters, contributing to the emerging of a new narrative aimed at children, young readers and – why not – adults. This article uses the concept of “family romance” proposed by critic Marthe Robert in order to establish the connection between Barrie’s texts and those of other writers. Key words: Peter and Wendy, J. M. Barrie, escapism, edwardian literature, family novel | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction Essay | India in a Post-Pandemic World By Ananya Bhardwaj Non-Fiction || Essay In her novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy urges us to emerge from apandemic as evolved and sensitive human beings. She says that we can either come out of it and stay the same, fenced in our areas on earth by various demarcations, or we can come out of our homes with smiles, regardless of those demarcations. It will take time for us to exchange glances, shake hands, or to touch someone for more than a few seconds. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Gaslighting in The Yellow Wallpaper By Nícollas Cayann, Juliana Prestes de Oliveira and Amanda L. Jacobsen de Oliveira Non-Fiction || Essay It seems that since the first wave of feminism, every now and then someone rediscovers Charlotte Perkins’s (1860 – 1935) short story The Yellow Wallpaper, verifying the author’s powerful writing style and even calling her “one of the most commanding feminists of her time” (Hedges 37). Known mostly for her work on the status of women and economic issues (Women and Economics), Charlotte Perkins was largely considered an activist, feminist, and nonfiction writer. In addition to dealing with the socioeconomic status of women, she also produced an extensive work of poetry, short stories, and other fiction; none of which have achieved the same status of greatness that TheYellow Wallpaper has. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Transforming the Way We Think about Texts for Young Readers: An Interview with Evelyn Arizpe By Andrea Casals Non-Fiction || Interview Evelyn Arizpe is a Professor of Children’s Literature (Culture, Literacies, Inclusion & Pedagogy) in the Glasgow University, Programme Leader for the International Master in Children’s Literature, Media and Culture (IMCLMC), and President of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL). Her research interests are children’s literature and literacies particularly in relation to picture books; YA literature; reader-response, Latin America, migration and intercultural communities [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | 200th Anniversary of Herman Melville: Interview with Professor Rodrigo Andrés Gonzaléz By Andrés Ibarra Cordero Non-Fiction || Interview This interview is the result of a research stay at the University of Barcelona where I had the privilege of meeting Professor Rodrigo Andrés. This research stay, during 2019, also coincided with the 200th Anniversary of Herman Melville of whom Professor Andrés is a seminal expert. As such, we had an interesting conversation about Melville’s body of fiction and its importance togender studies. Professor Andrés is Senior Lecturer in 19th Century American Literature, a research member of ADHUC (Research Center for Theory, Gender, Sexuality), and currently Vice-President of the Spanish Association for American Studies (SAAS). [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
Issue 18
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, We publish this 18th issue in the context of intense social movements in Chile and a complex global scenario after a frustrating COP25 and complicated foreign relations amongst superpowers. These circumstances have not left our authors and contributors indifferent. Issue 18 features two academic articles; one inspires our cover image, honoring the life and contribution of Toni Morrison, 1988 Pulitzer Prize winner and 1993 Literature Nobel Laureate, who passed away last August [ . . . ] Andrea Casals and Allison Ramay ESLA Editors | Download PDF |
| Articles | La literatura Indígena y la palabra autónoma de los pueblos originarios: Una perspectiva trans-Indígena y auto-etnográfica By Inés Hernández-Ávila Article Este ensayo auto-etnográfico procede de la disciplina conocida internacionalmente como Native American and Indigenous Studies, introduciendo el marco teórico de Chadwick Allen, en Trans-Indigenous: Methodologies for a Global Indigenous Literary Studies [Trans-Indígena: Metodologías para los estudios globales de la literatura Indígena], y poniendo en conversación escritores Indígenas de EE.UU, México, Canadá, Guatemala, y Chile, demostrando que abordan temas similares, y que sus voces, “juntas (aún) distintas” (como dice Allen) expresan y afirman, en actos descoloniales, su autonomía propia y la autonomía de sus pueblos. También el ensayo da énfasis a la necesidad de estudios hemisféricos de la literatura Indígena, y la importancia de la traducción, para fortalecer la solidaridad entre pueblos Indígenas de las Américas. Key words: Literatura, trans-indígena, auto-etnografía, traducción, metodología | Download PDF |
| Articles | Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Not a Single Story By Yeisil Peña Contreras Article This paper highlights the skeptical narrative treatment of history in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved (1987). My argument builds on the main concepts of narrative hegemony, power, and resistance through multiplicitous and authentic storytelling as described by Chimamanda Ngozi’s book and Ted Talk The Danger of a Single Story applied to the novel. Ngozi’s concept of the danger of a single story maintains that there is a kind of discourse behind the homogenisation of history; that discourse of relying on only one version of the past. I analyse how the danger of telling and believing a single story can be seen through Toni Morrison’s characters’ personal voices and narrative resources such as storytelling. I use the following ideas from Ngozi for this purpose: stories are incomplete, stories can heal, and stories exist because of power; power over history, and power over women. This paper, thus, seeks to analyse and illustrate the multiplicity of stories and voices within history by examining Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Key words: Single story, Beloved, history, feminism | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Chilean English as a Mother Tongue By Marco Katz Montiel Non-Fiction My story begins in New York City, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan before high rents forced us to leave. [As I extemporize this first paragraph, I play segments of the song “Misirlou” on a muted trombone between sentences.] As a young musician, I spent many years performing with African American soul bands, Big Bands, Jazz Ensembles, Puerto Rican salsa bands, Cuban conjuntos, Colombian cumbia bands, Brass Quintets, Chamber Orchestras, Symphony Orchestras, [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Diane Burko in Chile: The Environmental Way of an Artist By Alida Mayne-Nicholls Non-Fiction While visiting Chile last year, Diane Burko met with the Environmental Humanities Research Network at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (RIHA in Spanish). While gathering with professors and students, Burko told about her journey from artist to activist. This brief essay highlights some moments of that meeting, in which she talked about how she is facing the fact that “the Earth is still heating up”, adding, “I’m still worried”. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Poetry Review, Sin zapatos/Shoes Off by Edward González. Santiago de Chile: MAGO Editores, 2018 “Bilingual Meditations on Everyday Pleasures” By Francisca Folch Non-Fiction Edward González’s debut poetry collection is a thought-provoking bilingual work that renders homage to the lands that shaped him: born in Cuba and raised in Miami, the poet now lives in Chile, claiming both English and Spanish as native tongues. The result is a deeply philosophical exploration of identity and the everyday pleasures of life. The initial “10 minutos” opens the Spanish section, and sets the tone for the whole collection: [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Selected Poems By Edward González | Download PDF |
Issue 17
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, The articles in this issue ask us to consider literature, and art, as unique portals into the inner world of people. Eric Rundquist’s article, “Estilo y consciencia en Al faro de Virginia Woolf” (translated by Pablo Saavedra), argues that fiction is exceptional in this way. In his analysis of Free Indirect Style (that is, when a third person narrator assumes the internal voice of one of the characters) he shows us how authors provide readers with unique access to a character’s mental space. [ . . . ] Allison Ramay ESLA Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | Estilo y consciencia en Al faro de Virginia Woolf By Eric Rundquist Article En este artículo se utiliza la estilística para describir las técnicas lingüísticas que los autores pueden usar con el fin de revelar las mentes de sus personajes. En la ficción, estas técnicas pueden brindar un grado de acceso a las mentes de otras personas que no es posible lograr en la vida real ni en el discurso no ficticio. Una técnica en particular, el Estilo Indirecto Libre, es especialmente importante para esto, porque permite que se representen las experiencias mentales no lingüísticas de los personajes miméticamente con el lenguaje. En este artículo, se categorizan estas técnicas lingüísticas y se proveen ejemplos de Al faro de Virginia Woolf. Se concluye con un análisis estilístico detallado de un pasaje extenso de la novela, en el que se revela cómo las variaciones entre las categorías de la consciencia pueden tener implicancias importantes para los procesos psicológicos de un personaje. Palabras clave: Estilística, representación del pensamiento, estilo indirecto libre, mentes ficticias, estilo de la mente, modernismo | Download PDF |
| Articles | Towards an Approximation of Yeats’ Poetical Landscape in his Early Poetry By Francisca Fernández Arce Article This article discusses the development of William Butler Yeats’ poetical landscapes, in his early poetry. Understanding Yeats’ definition of symbols and his relation to Symbolism through the works of William Blake, I will analyse four different musical symbols across a selection of five poems taken from Yeats’ first two collections— “The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems” (1889) and “The Rose” (1893). In this sense, I present a common line from these selected poems based on a mythological character travelling to an other-worldly island, where an imbalanced dialogue is maintained with fairies. In accordance with late-nineteenth century landscape perspective, the relationship between soundscapes and Yeats’ musical symbols will be examined. By doing this, I seek to interpret the convergence of Celtic imagery within the emergence of a magical soundscape. Key words: W. B. Yeats, symbolism, celtic imagery, soundscape | Download PDF |
| Articles | Teaching Ecocriticism and the Global South By Maria Alessandra Woolson Article Modern environmental scholarship has been shaped largely by a rational approach to natural sciences, rooted in Cartesian principles. This universal and theory-centered criterion has often come into conflict with alternative world-views, generating tensions to the detriment of local communities. This article looks at ways in which the environmental humanities reconcile these tensions, while contributing to discussions about sustainability, enabling a transdisciplinary approach to environmental scholarship and stewardship. Ecocriticism, which had been traditionally understood as the dialectics of culture and nature, provides an analytical framework to look into the complex nature of environmental problems by drawing out the wisdom and insights of a wealth of creative works across diverse cultural landscapes. When this outlook is coupled with a Global South perspective, which sees environmental issues as fundamentally eco-social, it raises questions of justice and equity that make cultural and ethnic diversity inherent to discussions about environment and representation. This analysis draws from over 10 years of research on pedagogical approaches to sustainability and recent experiences from students in environmental humanities courses focused on Latin America. Teaching environmental humanities becomes an opportunity to view the concept of sustainability as a cultural project that engages with many of the enduring “big questions” of what it means to be human on this planet. As a result, environmental ethics becomes an entry point to discussions about some of the big questions of the present and the outlook for the future, and sees social and intellectual tensions about the environment as symptomatic of a broader crisis of modernity, a crisis of modern thought. Key words: Environmental humanities, sustainability, ecocriticism, environmental ethics, Latin America, minimum monument | Download PDF |
| Articles | Desidentification and Multiplicity in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe By Camila Galdames Article In Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, there are two characters who are able to create a new space and a unique identity based on their heritage and sexual orientation, without abnegating either part of the individual. This article argues that the process of desidentification and reconstruction of their identity is unique to each individual who belongs to minority groups which may seem separate from one another. In order to analyze and support this argument, the characters were analyzed based on the concept of “desidentification” by Jose Estaban Muñoz and the theory of “borderlands” and the “mestiza” by Gloria Anzaldúa. Additionally, these concepts are seen as a tool to reclaim and strengthen an identity, which is set free from the preconceived definitions that each minority is supposed to embody. Key words: Queer Studies, young adult literature, desidentification, multiplicity, Chicano studies | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Gender Embodiment on Stage: an Interview with Elizabeth Hess By Felipe Acevedo Riquelme Non-Fiction Last year I received an e-mail inviting me to a gender roundtable with Elizabeth Hess. After the initial surprise, I was excited about the possibility of meeting and talking to this renowned actress, playwright and educator who specializes in gender embodiment on stage. This feature of her work could be clearly observed in her last play SPOILED which she talked about and did a workshop on embodiment at Sidarte theatre in Santiago de Chile in October 2018. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
Issue 16
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| Editor’s Note | Editor’s Note Since its inception, the noir genre has shattered the very boundaries with which it was imagined and has become a clear expression of World Literature. Its development has accounted for migration, transactions, exports, hybridizations, transculturation, and literary and cultural transplants, which have enriched and transformed it into the most read, best-selling literary form worldwide. [ . . . ] Marcelo E. González Z. Guest Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | An Analysis of Violence Against Women in Anne Perry’s Midnight at Marble Arch By Alida Mayne-Nicholls Article The female victim is not a rare element in crime novels. And Anne Perry’s Midnight at Marble Arch is not an exception; actually, there are two female rape victims. This paper proposes analysing how this story can be read in the context of the #MeToo movement against assault and sexual harassment. To do so, the article will review two aspects: the construction of the victims, and the representations of the investigators. Key words: Anne Perry, Midnight at Marble Arch, violence against women, crime novels, rape | Download PDF |
| Articles | Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap: Adaptation and the Repeat (Murder) Performance By Anita Neira Tiemann Article With little attention from the academic and critical world, Agatha Christie is considered to be one of the most popular authors in detective fiction. Possessing a recognizable style and admirably prolific, this paper will focus on her work as playwright and adapter of her own pieces. The works analysed are the short story “Three Blind Mice” and its transposition as a play for the stage The Mousetrap. Different concepts from reception and reading theories used commonly in the analysis of the formulae underlying detective fiction will be utilised in conjunction with notions of theatricality and the perception and reception of the stage, in order to understand the different effects and construction of both texts. Through the discussion of both short story and play, The Mousetrap is analysed considering its popularity and its belonging to the dramatic genre, hence performative, visual and aural. This will allow for a further understanding of Christie’s style and her rarely discussed expertise when it comes to crafting a play and a piece of detective fiction. Key words: Detective fiction, Agatha Christie, adaptation, reception theories | Download PDF |
| Articles | La serie del comisario Brunetti y el proceso de gentrificación de Venecia By Rocío Peñalta Catalán Article Una de las consecuencias más frecuentes de las nuevas formas de turismo de masas es la gentrificación de los centros históricos de las ciudades más visitadas. En Venecia, ciudad que es toda ella centro histórico, los problemas derivados de este proceso se agudizan. Donna Leon, en su saga policiaca protagonizada por el comisario Guido Brunetti, pone de manifiesto los cambios que sufre la ciudad: desaparición del comercio tradicional, subida de los precios, apertura de nuevos alojamientos turísticos, traslado de la población hacia Mestre y otras localidades cercanas, etc. El objetivo de este trabajo es rastrear las diversas facetas de la gentrificación presentes en la Venecia ficcional de Leon, retrato certero del devenir de la ciudad en los últimos años. Palabras clave: Gentrificación, Donna Leon, saga policial | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | El padre y la aprendiz: las lecciones del policial By Paula Ilabaca Non fiction Crecí en un hogar muy silencioso. Mi padre trabajaba todo el día. Mi madre tejía, leía o veía televisión en un volumen bajo en sus tiempos libres de las labores del hogar. Yo convivía en ese silencio jugando con mis muñecas y una radio antigua donde escuchaba música. Desde que aprendí a leer, acostumbré a deslizarme entre ese mismo silencio por los muebles de mi casa: el librero bajo la escalera, la biblioteca apoyada en una de las paredes del comedor. Escogía los libros por su portada o la tipografía de los lomos. Como mi padre era policía, había muchos libros de Criminalística en lo alto de la biblioteca, lejos de mí y mis hermanos, a los que llegaba después de haberme subido a una de las sillas del comedor. La casa de mi infancia no era lujosa. Las sillas, de una madera negra, pesadas, hacían un ruido molesto en el piso de fléxit cuando se movían, por lo que eran certeras delatoras si las movía para tomar los libros. Con el tiempo acostumbraría a hacer esta operación cuando mis padres no estaban en casa y ahí podía circular libremente por los libros prohibidos: libros con textos e ilustraciones y fotografías en blanco y negro, donde había mutilados, quemados, ahorcados, bosquejos de lugares del crimen o sitios del suceso – como aprendería a decir más tarde -, definiciones de palabras tabú en mi lenguaje de niña. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Walt I would sing the song of myself, however Selection of Poems By William S. Nelson II Fiction | Download PDF |
Issue 15
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, Our 15th issue of English Studies in Latin America opens with an illustration of geese “saying goodbye”, an image expressed in Graciela Huinao’s poem “Los gansos dicen adios”, translated by Margaret Towner. The arrival and exit of geese on the pampas parallels the life of the person looking and who will soon be gone forever. Memories of life lived and translation, together allowing us to connect across the borders of a single language, shine through in each section of this issue. [ . . . ] Sincerely, Allison Ramay ESLA Editor | Download PDF |
| Articles | Translating the Poetry of Graciela Huinao: Finding the Authentic Voice Within By Margaret Towner Article This article discusses the translation of literary works by contemporary Latin American women, specifically the poetry of Graciela Huinao, a Mapuche-Williche writer from Southern Chile. Given the opportunities for travel and the development of technology such as the Internet, translators today have many ways to interact with writers in order to delve deeper into the translation of their texts. In this context, elements such as hybridity, heteroglossia, paradox, grammatical structures, cultural nuances, and the author’s intention can be explored in greater detail. The translation of Graciela Huinao’s poetry by the author of this article is used to share examples of the exploration of literary and conceptual elements through the use of extensive communications enabled by technology. And in the case of Graciela Huinao’s writing, the relevance and overlapping of Spanish and Mapuzugun, the language of her people, becomes a significant part of the dialogue. Key words: Contemporary translation, Graciela Huinao, hybridity, technology, Mapuche, women writers | Download PDF |
| Articles | Building intertextuality in the classroom: approaching Edgar Allan Poe through literary and non-literary resources By Julio Uribe Ugalde Article Due to overexposure to technology, teaching literature to teenagers has become a pedagogical challenge in today’s educational context. This article proposes a method to bridge the gap between readers and texts by using literary and non-literary resources as an approach to intertextuality. This method will be explained by using American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s works “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839), “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) and “The Raven” (1845). Key words: Intertextuality, Poe, music, television, literature | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Celebración Día del Libro. 25 de abril de 2018. Actividad organizada por la Vocalía de Cultura y Comunidad del CEL de la Facultad de Letras By Sebastián Schoennnenbeck Grohnert Non-Fiction Dado que esta instancia es una celebración y dado que he aceptado esta invitación libremente, quisiera hablar sobre un libro que fue importante para mí, no como un lector especialista, sino como el lector común que todos somos o fuimos alguna vez. En este sentido quisiera hablar de los efectos o de las inquietudes que despertó en mí la lectura de la novela To the Lighthouse, Al faro, de la escritora inglesa Virginia Woolf publicada en 1927. Este ejercicio de lectura está, como todo, mediado por el tiempo. Leí por primera vez la novela a los veinte años. Hoy trato de recordar, más que la obra, una lectura juvenil cuando ya estoy en la mediana edad, es decir, se trata de un ejercicio autobiográfico por medio del registro de lecturas del pasado. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | A Great Amnesia: On Eastern Spirituality in the Work of Gabriela Mistral By Jessica Sequeira Non-Fiction Philosophical nostalgia can look toward the past, in the belief that some better or more authentic alternative exists, with ideals that have been lost or neglected but to which return might be possible. This is the lost innocence of the mystic poets and primitive painters, who longed for an unspecified Arcadia that drew its imagery from the “before” rather than the “yet to come”. Yet precisely what sacredness or mythical version is being remembered with such wistfulness? The answer is not evident; indeed, this kind of nostalgia often remains vague, its blurred focus forming part of its attraction as an alternative to the overly sharp reality of the present. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Selected Poems By Peggy Aylsworth Fiction | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Mathematics By Roberto Rivera Vivencio Translated by James Kelly Fiction | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Selection of Poems By Feliciano Sánchez Chan Translated by José F. Bañuelos-Montes & Sally Perret Fiction | Download PDF |
Issue 14
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| Editor’s Note | Dear Readers, This special issue focuses on indigenous writings and covers many of the topics included in our Call for Papers: politics and poetics, issues of sovereignty, indigenous feminisms and resistance through indigenous epistemologies. Each section reflects multiple experiences and critical approaches as well as disciplinary perspectives (history, literature and education), challenging our understanding of academic writing in the humanities [ . . . ] Sincerely, The Directors of English Studies in Latin America Andrea Casals and Allison Ramay | Download PDF |
| Articles | The Desolate Paradise: Empire, Exile and Existentialism in Colonial Latin America: Antonio di Benedetto’s Zama and Juan José Saer’s The Witness By Matt Jones Article The link between exile and existentialism is often lost in the depersonalised world of the Other, where individual expression and desire, as well as the individuals themselves, are blurred by the broad metaphors and sweeping generalisations used to describe and understand groups of people. Yet, both Antonio di Benedetto’s Zama and Juan José Saer’s The Witness offer precise and distinct visions of the powerful effect exile and oppression have on the individual and their sense of identity, belonging and hope. Recently translated into English, Zama subverts traditional imperial/colonial stereotypes to offer a more complex vision of the existential effect of colonisation on the individual. Similarly, The Witness deconstructs the age of exploration and complicates the received wisdom of this period of history and its silenced characters. Both novels use the colonial period as an allegory for Latin America’s position in a contemporary global setting, and as such speak to groups struggling for sovereignty or autonomy. In addition, either explicitly or by implication, both novels turn the Latin American gaze back toward Europe and so offer insights for those looking to understand their role as colonisers in the postcolonial Anglophone world. This essay aims to identify the existential pressure created by exile and examine how the struggle for identity manifests itself in Latin American literature. Given that Latin American writers continue to find inspiration and allegory in the colonial experience even after two centuries of independence, and given that the Anglophone world has much less experience of the postcolonial setting, it seems highly relevant that we study these insights in detail. Key words: English literature, postcolonial, exile, existentialism, sovereignty | Download PDF |
| Articles | The Image Keeps Talking: A Visual Interrogation of the Colonial Archive of the Mapuche People By Sebastián López Vergara Article This essay interrogates the colonial visual archive of the Mapuche people as a decolonial exercise. As a decolonial intervention, it moves away from phenomenological approaches to visual archives in which meaning resides only in the image. Rather it proposes to engage with colonial history and its social formations as ongoing forms of political power that give shape to the Chilean nation-state, modernity, and capitalist extraction. A decolonial engagement with visual culture is not a restoration of the “original meaning” of colonial archives, but a critical interrogation of the remainders of structural forms of subjugation and differentiation from the present. Thus, I propose to place Gustavo Milet Ramírez’s photographic portraits of Mapuche women along with the racialization of the Mapuche people and dispossession and extraction of their territories at the turn of the twentieth century. I read these images from the present with Francisco Huichaqueo Pérez’s short film Chi Rütram Amulniei ñi Rütram in order to unlock the rigidity of colonial meaning and explore questions of subaltern history-making, gender, Indigeneity, culture, and extractivism. For this final point, I will discuss the complex contestations that Indigenous media offers to critically engage with colonial visual regimes and forms of cultural agency. Key words: Visual culture, colonialism, archives, Mapuche | Download PDF |
| Articles | Escenarios de frontera y migración en la voz poética de Faumelisa Manquepillan en “Paseo Ahumada” By María Angélica Peralta Valderrama Article Este artículo busca escuchar la voz poética de Faumelisa Manquepillan en su poema “Paseo Ahumada”, en el cual escenifica parte de las experiencias y sentimientos vividos cuando, en la década de 1980, debe migrar desde su comunidad de origen a la ciudad de Santiago para trabajar como “nana” y así aportar a la economía familiar que se encontraba en una situación de pobreza. La cantautora y poeta nos lleva a recorrer sentimientos de dolor y discriminación en un espacio fronterizo, buscando ser una voz para otras mujeres y para su comunidad al denunciar y a la vez reivindicar a quienes han quedado forcluidos de los espacios de poder. Desde una perspectiva en base a los pensamientos de las feministas poscoloniales y de la mirada decolonial, se busca seguir el relato que la poeta construye desde su lugar, desde sus inscripciones emotivas, alejándose así de las imágenes que han estereotipado a la mujer indígena mapuche en una sola lectura. Key words: Frontera, migración, nana, decolonial | Download PDF |
| Articles | El lugar como espacio de denuncia y significación en el poemario Wafpule Mülenymun (Aquí estamos) de Rubén Curricoy By Elvira Rodríguez Droguett Article Existe una vinculación entre la poesía mapuche y la política. En esta, encontramos distintos ejes temáticos desarrollados por los autores. En este caso, nos interesa revisar aquella que apunta a la construcción de la identidad a partir de las características del lugar. El objetivo de este artículo es establecer una relación entre la poesía, la ecocrítica y el movimiento autonomista mapuche en la obra del poeta Rubén Curricoy. En esa tríada, la idea de lugar se vuelve fundamental, pues desde ahí surgen estas relaciones. Desde el lugar, se critica el desarrollo industrial que atenta contra la tierra, además, se construye un espacio identitario. La aproximación a la poesía se realizará a partir del concepto de lugar propuesto por L. Buell y las ideas sobre el territorio trabajadas desde el movimiento autonomista mapuche. Key words: Poesía mapuche, autonomía, ecocrítica, lugar, territorio | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | Noticias de Guamán Poma By Rodrigo Cánovas Non fiction Este ensayo es la transcripción de la intervención que hizo el profesor Rodrigo Cánovas en la Facultad de Letras de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile en otoño de 2017 a propósito de las celebraciones del día de las Letras que se festeja en conmemoración de Shakespeare y Cervantes. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | An interview with Dr. Philip Nel By Andrea Casals Non fiction Dr. Philip Nel is Director of the Children’s Literature Program at Kansas State University, author of Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books (2017) and Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (2012) and co-editor of Keywords for Children’s Literature (2011) with Lissa Paul and Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (2008) with Julia Mickenberg, among others. Last August he was invited by the Chilean Ministry of Education to open the Seminario Internacional ¿Qué leer? ¿Cómo leer?: Lectura e Inclusión held at Universidad Católica with a keynote called “Was the Cat in the Hat Black?”. The local audience responded to his arguments with a big round of applause. Reading children´s literature as a boy himself, he became a lifelong reader, yet professor Nel does not romanticize children´s books, actually, he takes them very seriously, and that was made clear during his presentation in Santiago. In this brief interview he offers us further insights to his arguments. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Non-Fiction | A propósito de la eco-espiritualidad: El caso de la UNIBOL en Bolivia By Ginett Vanessa Pineda Non fiction Este trabajo explora la epistemología y la praxis indígena de la eco-espiritualidad en la educación intercultural y plurilingüe de la Universidad Indígena de Bolivia (UNIBOL)2. Este planteamiento sugiere repensar la forma en que se conciben, construyen, transmiten y practican conocimientos eco-espirituales en las universidades y hasta qué punto incitan (o no) un modelo de vida saludable para el individuo y de protección de la Naturaleza3. Los objetivos principales son dos: En primer lugar, se examina y cuestiona la inclusión de epistemes indígenas en el currículum formativo, en especial la relación eco-espiritual del ser humano con la Pachamama, con el propósito de formar profesionales y técnicos indígenas que contribuyan al desarrollo sostenible local y regional y al mejoramiento de la calidad de vida de sus comunidades y, en segundo lugar, se analiza este centro académico como un proyecto de decolonización eco-crítica del pensamiento, donde se negocia con los discursos de las ciencias ecológicas y los saberes indígenas permitiendo así la coexistencia de varios discursos distintivos, reconociendo sus tensiones, desafíos y posibilidades. [ . . . ] | Download PDF |
| Fiction | Selected Poems By Narlan Matos Translated by José F. Buñuelos-Montes & Sally Perret | Download PDF |
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