UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item ROBERTO FONTANARROSA: HISTORIA Y LITERATURA A CONTRAPELO. INODORO PEREYRA, EL RENEGAU(2022) Battauz, Cecilia Edith; Sosnowski, Saúl; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As a result of Spanish colonization, nation-building in Latin America followed distinctive and diverse processes, and a protracted chronology that spanned an entire century. The new nation-states that emerged from the nineteenth century wars of Independence forged their own symbols, imagery, and foundational narratives to provide a framework to disparate populations. Throughout the continent, literature played a fundamental role in the construction of symbolic narratives, which inexorably intertwined with official national history. In Argentina, one such myth was built around the “gaucho”, the cowboy of the Pampas plains who freely roamed the countryside. Once an actual social type, the “gaucho” disappeared around the end of the 19th Century due to changes introduced by modernization as Argentina transformed and refocused its economy to supply raw materials for European industries. As a literary figure, however, the gaucho survived as the dominant character of poems, novels, and short stories that conform a unique national literary genre: Gauchesca Literature.In my dissertation I study the comics Inodoro Pereyra, el renegau by Roberto Fontanarrosa (1944-2007), which features an atypical gaucho accompanied by his loyal talking dog. I analyze how Fontanarrosa deconstructs the national literary myth of the horse riding “gaucho” unveiling the inherent racism, social injustice, and ideological manipulation it has conveyed for the last two centuries. Fontanarrosa’s creation, which appeared regularly in the Argentine press and in book format for over thirty-four years until the author’s death, not only denounces the unspoken influence this traditional figure has had in shaping Argentine society, but it also highlights the common misrepresentation of indigenous communities and the unfair treatment to which they have been, and continue to be, subjected. Using parody, humor, and caricature, the comics revise national history and canonical literature along with artifacts from contemporary popular culture, such as films and folk songs. In addition, it offers a postmodern approach to the foundational narratives of the nation. My claims are that the comics offer an ex-centric perspective and that its subversive message defies traditional views of identity as fixed forms that could be predetermined. I propose that the narrative genre of comics—still marginalized from the literary canon—constitutes an excellent medium to present an alternative and irreverent approach to the subject, since its literary standing challenges the centrality of the official canon. At the same time, the comics suggest the need to see tradition and identity as concepts under constant change, thus showing a postmodern critique to monolithic grand narratives. Although my study concerns Argentine society, I believe it to be microstructurally significant for its premises may be applied to other societies built upon national myths, such as those created by most nation-states in the Americas after gaining their independence from colonial administration and cultural hegemony.Item Community through Comedy: Cultural Consciousness in the Russian Soviet Anekdot(2013) Smirnova, Michelle Hannah; Kestnbaum, Meyer; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The way by which nationality and citizenship are codified in law or used by political entrepreneurs to mobilize populations is different from how individuals make sense of themselves. Although sharing a particular attribute or physical connection offers some sort of relational identity, it is the product of belonging both to a category and network of individuals in addition to the feeling of belonging which produces a bounded groupness. The Russian Soviet anekdot--a politically subversive joke--provides an intimate view into the perspective of the Russian people living under the Soviet regime. The anekdot serves as a discourse of "cultural consciousness," connecting otherwise atomized people to a homeland, collective culture and memory. Beyond its transgressive properties, politically subversive texts like the anekdot articulate the details of an intimate set of knowledges that insiders "are taught not to know" (Taussig 1999). In this dissertation I look at how the characters and narratives construct (1) the boundaries of "we"--who belongs and who does not by exploring how different groups are "marked" in the anekdoty, (2) how the collectivity negotiates their understanding of leaders, institutions and State propaganda as a means of rejecting or reifying aspects of Soviet power, and (3) what sort of collective memory and identity is conveyed through the expressions of the public secret, nostalgia and/or regret. The anekdot reveals power dynamics at multiple levels: within the family, between ethnic groups and geographical regions, and between people and state. Together these multiple identities and relationships express a form of "cultural consciousness" among Russians uniting this group in a shared identity and network amid the disintegration of the Soviet Union.Item 'Working the Crowd': Enacting Cultural Citizenship Through Charged Humor(2010) Krefting, Rebecca A.; Corbin Sies, Mary; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Like many cultural practices, comic performance is one of a host of weapons in the arsenal of tactics, strategies, and offensive maneuverings available to individuals and communities seeking to redress inequitable distributions of wealth, power, rights, and cultural visibility. This dissertation examines contemporary jesters opting to use humor to develop community, instruct and mobilize audience members, and lobby for political and cultural inclusion. It is a kind of humor that illumines one's position in a specific socio-political, historical matrix; it is humor that creates community and conversely demonstrates the ways in which one does not belong. An examination of the economy--the production, exchange, and consumption--of this humor reveals how and why comics produce charged humor or humor that illumines one's status as second-class citizen and how this kind of humor is consumed in the US. I employ a mixed-methods qualitative approach using ethnography, archival research, and critical discourse analysis to investigate comic performances: stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, and one-woman shows. Throughout, I draw from dozens of contemporary comics performing in the US, but take as case studies: Robin Tyler, a Jewish lesbian comic and activist who is currently spearheading the marriage equality movement in California; Micia Mosely, a Brooklyn-based, Black, queer woman whose one-woman show, Where My Girls At?: A Comedic Look at Black Lesbians, is touring the country; and a group of young people (eighteen and under) participating in Comedy Academy programs (a non-profit arts education organization in Maryland), allowing them to author and perform sketch comedy. My sources for this project include popular culture ephemera such as print and electronic media, public commentary, documentaries about stand-up comedy, interviews with comics and industry entrepreneurs, performance and program evaluations, comic material (jokes), and performance texts. Drawing from nation and citizenship theories, cultural studies, performance studies, and a number of identity-based disciplines, I argue that humor intervenes on behalf of minoritarian subjects and it is part of our task to read these performances for the tactics and approaches they supply for being fully incorporated in the national polity.