1. Iniciokeyboard_arrow_right
  2. Programas de serviciokeyboard_arrow_right
  3. English Studies in Latin America: A Journal of Cultural and Literary Criticism (ESLA)

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_down

About 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

NameDates involvedAfter working with ESLA
Constanza Brahm2011M.F.A in Screenwriting at the New York Film Academy
Francisco Aranguiz2010 – 2012MSc in Literature and Modernity at University of Edinburgh
Beatriz Rengifo2010 – 2012MA in English in Education at King´s College London 
Manuela Mercado2010 – 2012MSc in Literature and Modernity. University of Edinburgh
Francisca Ibaceta2010 – 2012N/A 
Juan Pablo Vilches2010 – 2012MA in Cultural Heritage Studies at UCL 
Valeria Tapia2014Union College – New York
Kattia Ansieta2014Programa de Formación Pedagógica UC
Valentina Rivera2014Programa de Formación Pedagógica UC
Valeska Miranda2014MA in Applied Linguistics in EFL, UC
Margarita Maira2010 – 2014MA in 19th Century Literature, University of York
Florencia Roncone2017 – 2018International Affairs Office at UC
Felipe Acevedo2015 – 2018Doctor of Philosophy in Literature ©, UC
Javiera Sepúlveda2013 – 2022Translator
Carolina Osorio2017 – 2022Editor and Translator

For Authors

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

How 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_down

How 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

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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 
ArticlesImaginaries 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 AlegríaDownload PDF
Non-fiction“Making the Most of Non-Gendered Language” – Marco Katz MontielDownload PDF
Non-fiction

“Death and Class in Hard Times and Howard’s End” – Rebeca Canales
Download PDF
Fiction“The Coat” – Dani CortésDownload PDF
Poetry
“When September was four again” – John Dunn
Download PDF
Fiction“Juanito, Poor Juanito” – Sayén GarcíaDownload PDF

Issue 24

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
FictionWHiSTLing AN imAGE, BOUNCiNG POEMs OFF bioACOUSTIC BODiES”
– Luna Montenegro & Adrian Fisher
Download PDF
Fiction“Notes on a Kineopoetics”
– Scott Thurston
Download PDF
FictionComing Soon: Performance
by Edwin Torres (Recordings from the Jornada de Letras Inglesas: Poetry and Performance, January 2022)
Download PDF
FictionComing Soon: Nia Davies on Maggie O’Sullivan and Performance (Recordings from the Jornada de Letras Inglesas: Poetry and Performance, January 2022)Download PDF
FictionComing Soon: Felipe Cussen on Language is a Virus
(Recordings from the Jornada de Letras Inglesas: Poetry and Performance, January 2022)
Download PDF

Issue 23

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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.
Keywordswordful, musical semiotics, filin, music and literature, Research-Creation, song cycle, musical meanings
Download PDF
ArticlesTodo 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-FictionThe 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

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesNegotiating 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
FictionSelected Poems
By Constanza Contreras                                          
Download PDF
FictionSelected Poem
By Sonakshi Srivastava
Download PDF
FictionSelected Poems
By Mané Zaldívar
Translated by Edward Gonzalez
Download PDF

Issue 20

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesResistiendo 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
ArticlesSíntoma 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-FictionIn 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
FictionEl 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

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesMontaigne’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
ArticlesPeter 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 wordsPeter 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-FictionGaslighting 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-FictionTransforming 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-Fiction200th 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

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesLa 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-FictionDiane 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-FictionPoetry 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
FictionSelected Poems
By Edward González
Download PDF

Issue 17

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesEstilo 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
ArticlesDesidentification 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-FictionGender 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

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesAn 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-FictionEl 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
FictionWalt I would sing the song of myself, however
Selection of Poems

By William S. Nelson II

Fiction 
Download PDF

Issue 15

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesTranslating 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 LighthouseAl 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-FictionA 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
FictionSelected Poems

By Peggy Aylsworth

Fiction 
Download PDF
FictionMathematics

By Roberto Rivera Vivencio
Translated by James Kelly

Fiction 
Download PDF
FictionSelection of Poems

By Feliciano Sánchez Chan
Translated by José F. Bañuelos-Montes & Sally Perret

Fiction 
Download PDF

Issue 14

Ver más keyboard_arrow_down

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
ArticlesThe 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
ArticlesEl 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-FictionNoticias 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-FictionAn 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-FictionA 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
FictionSelected Poems
By Narlan Matos
Translated by José F. Buñuelos-Montes & Sally Perret
Download PDF

Contact Us

E-mail: esla@uc.cl

Facultad de Letras
Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860 – Macul
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Campus San Joaquín