Languages, Literatures, & Cultures Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2785
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Item Exilios y redes en el hispanismo de Estados Unidos (1962-2011): Ficciones y migraciones(2022) Devesa Gómez, Nélida Isabel; Naharro-Calderon, Jose Maria; Merediz, Eyda; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing Franco dictatorship (1936-1975), Spaniards fled and went into exile in large flocks. Unfortunately, the United States only admitted a small group of Spanish intellectuals, deemed politically neutral, who joined institutions of higher education and developed multicultural, academic, and social networks. These intellectuals had a lasting influence that led to a significant revival of Hispanism in the USA. This dissertation, Exiles and Networks in US Hispanism (1962-2011): Fictions and Migrations, interrogates autobiographical novels and memoirs that focus on the experience of three of those exiles: Prof. Carmen de Zulueta (CUNY/Lehman College, 1966-1984), Prof. Ildefonso-Manuel Gil (Rutgers University, 1962-1983), and Prof. Víctor Fuentes (U. California-Santa Barbara, 1965-2003).Despite differences in genres and viewpoints (memoirs, autobiographies, autofiction, etc.), these authors share specific chronotopes of exiles. These chronotopes are based on three dimensions through their experience of displacement: spaces, times and intellectual networks, through which they recreate their exilic itineraries. Each author accentuates a specific dimension of these chronotopes: Zulueta (Chapter 1) puts distance between herself and her account and focuses on the portrayal of the intellectuals that assisted her along the way; Gil (Chapter 2) relishes the recreation of time as a game that is played out on the page; and Fuentes (Chapter 3) adopts characters of traditional Spanish literary works (picaresque, Don Juan, revolutionary) to create chronotopes in which the three dimensions are equally relevant. The analysis of these authors’ chronotopes of exile reveals not only their identities as exiles, but also their relationship with Spain as their homeland, and the United States as their host. They develop a special relation with both countries since they become transatlantic and transoceanic figures that greatly enjoy the new opportunities found in the US, but long for the past lives of their homeland. Their accounts also divulge the ways in which the previous Spanish intellectuals that had arrived in the US assisted each other and helped them to emigrates. They also portray the spaces of their new home and the “non-places” of Spanish culture that they constructed once they were settled.Item THE REPRESENTATION OF NAZI VILLAINY IN AMERICAN COMICS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ONGOING STRUGGLE OF GERMAN TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE “POST” TRUMP ERA(2022) Foster, Jordan Maxwell; Baer, Hester; Germanic Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the past 80 years, Nazis have been cast as the ultimate prototype for villainy in popular culture, especially in American comic books. The fetishization of Nazis in global popular culture has impeded the difficult tasks of coming to terms with the past and establishing a new transnational identity in Germany. However, recent publications, such as Freedom Fighters (2019) from DC Comics and Secret Empire (2017) from Marvel Comics demonstrate how manipulation, propaganda, fearmongering, and indoctrination powered the Nazi Party and continue to run rampant in modern-day fascist organizations. If mainstream comic books begin to consistently showcase these less sensational aspects of Nazism, they could highlight the subtle dangers of contemporary fascism, including neo-Nazism and far-right extremism, which have recently experienced a resurgence in mainstream politics all over the world. By doing so, mainstream comics could begin to emulate the sophisticated critique of works like Maus (1986) by Art Spiegelman.Item Coureurs de Bois, Backwoodsmen As Ecocritical Motif in Four Works of French Canadian Literature(2015) Rehill, Anne Collier; Orlando, Valérie K.; Frisch, Andrea M.; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The 17th-19th century French Canadian fur traders and interpreters called coureurs de bois and later voyageurs were known for their independence of spirit and connection to the wilds. They can also be seen as an ecocritical motif because, in addition to participating in the environmentally abusive fur trade, they also show the way forward through intercultural connections and business relationships with Amerindians. The four novels analyzed here--Taché's Forestiers et voyageurs: Moeurs et légendes canadiennes (1863); Hémon's Maria Chapdelaine (1916); Desrosiers' Les Engagés du Grand Portage (1938); and Maillet's Pélagie-la-Charrette (1979)--portray woodsmen operating in a collaborative mode within the realistic context of the need to make money. They participated in both ruthless capitalist exploitation and greater intercultural acceptance, as exemplified in Desrosiers' two opposing main characters. They entered folklore through the 19th century literary efforts of Taché and others to construct a distinct French Canadian national identity, then in an unstable and continually disrupted process of formation. Because coureurs linked the natural and human worlds as well as radically different human cultures, their entry into literature involved their Amerindian business partners, thus making intercultural connections an aspect of the national identity that Taché strove to construct and mirror. From a modern perspective, such cultural intersections pertain to the ecocritical acknowledgment of the need to respect global populations' widely varying modes of survival. Serres' Contrat naturel offers a broader proposal: that the human population, from the position of its diverse needs and power over the environment, should reach a silent contract with the rest of the planet that also acknowledges and respects its needs. The coureurs de bois and voyageurs portrayed in the works studied here embody both the problem and the way forward. They and their Amerindian partners occupy the perhaps unique position of contributing to environmental damage as well as greater understanding of the cultural other, which holds the promise of collaboration and the joint search for realistic solutions. Thus, in ways both positive and negative, coureurs de bois and voyageurs, far from perfect models, continue to serve as guides, even in today's tremendously diverse field of ecocriticism.Item Rewriting the French Colonial Topos of the Island in the Works of Marie Ferranti, Jean-François Samlong, and Chantal Spitz(2012) Baage, Silvia; Eades, Caroline; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The island trope is a recurring theme in colonial travel literature but how do contemporary authors of the French-speaking world conceptualize the island in the 20th and 21st century? My project examines the complexity of the notion of islandedness in the works of three contemporary authors of Francophone islands outside the French Caribbean: Corsican author Marie Ferranti, Réunionese author Jean-François Samlong, and Tahitian author Chantal Spitz. Drawing on different discourses of postmodernity including intertextuality, supermodernity, the hyperreal, the time-image, and violence, I argue that the island becomes an important site from which ethnography, the crisis of time and meaning, and techniques of resistance are negotiated and constructed. In my analysis, I build on various foundational theories of cultural contact from the French Caribbean and Francophone Africa to account for the diversity and difference of the non-French Caribbean island text. Particular attention will be given to the literary text as a tool to reflect upon a colonial past and neo-colonial present in three different contexts of the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the South Pacific.Item (RE)NEGOCIATIONS DES FRONTIERES: PENSEE DU MONDE ET DISCOURS SUR LA MODERNITE CHEZ JEAN D'ORMESSON(2012) Elhaddad, Nermine Shawki; Verdaguer, Pierre M.; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Situated at the crossroads of two dominant discourses, literature and philosophy, the writings of Jean d'Ormesson appear to be constantly negotiating a space for a new way of thinking. He doesn't propose any conceptual models but sees philosophy as an egotistical interpretation deeply rooted in one's life experiences, values, desires, and projects. Thus, philosophical thinking should stray away from subjective speculation to include all the aspects that are usually discarded such as affectivity, morality, and artistic creativity. By breaking away from immanentism, nihilism and relativism, philosophy should be able to contemplate the status of the self in the composition of its discourse. The similarities that can be drawn between d'Ormesson's way of "thinking the world" and the Integralism of Jean Granier are apparent. Both philosophies mull over the role of values in shaping human lives and their aspiration to fulfill their ultimate "human destination". Self-valorization is therefore what determines man's quest for meaning inside the world and beyond. A philosophical anthropology concludes that a "transvaluation" is necessary to avert modern materialist values while preventing post-materialist values from slipping into pure selfishness. Currently considered as the most important writer in France, d'Ormesson offers in his novels an illustration of what can be described as "probable thinking". Through the analysis of existential clues and transcendent evidence, the author constructs a line of argument capable of tying Human Life to a "supreme destination" guaranteeing a meaningful outcome