Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item MODERNIZATION AND VISUAL ECONOMY: FILM, PHOTOJOURNALISM, AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA, 1955-1980(2010) Halperin, Paula; Weinstein, Barbara; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the relationship among visual culture, nationalism, and modernization in Argentina and Brazil in a period of extreme political instability, marked by an alternation of weak civilian governments and dictatorships. I argue that motion pictures and photojournalism were constitutive elements of a modern public sphere that did not conform to the classic formulation advanced by Jürgen Habermas. Rather than treating the public sphere as progressively degraded by the mass media and cultural industries, I trace how, in postwar Argentina and Brazil, the increased production and circulation of mass media images contributed to active public debate and civic participation. With the progressive internationalization of entertainment markets that began in the 1950s in the modern cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires there was a dramatic growth in the number of film spectators and production, movie theaters and critics, popular magazines and academic journals that focused on film. Through close analysis of images distributed widely in international media circuits I reconstruct and analyze Brazilian and Argentine postwar visual economies from a transnational perspective to understand the constitution of the public sphere and how modernization, Latin American identity, nationhood, and socio-cultural change and conflict were represented and debated in those media. Cinema and the visual after World War II became a worldwide locus of production and circulation of discourses about history, national identity, and social mores, and a space of contention and discussion of modernization. Developments such as the Bandung Conference in 1955, the decolonization of Africa, the Cuban Revolution, together with the uneven impact of modernization, created a "Third Worldism" and "Latin Americanism" that transformed public debate and the cultural field. By researching "peripheral" nations, I add to our understanding of the process of the transnationalization of the cultural field and the emergence of a global mass culture in the 1960s and 1970s.Item Slave Legacies, Ambivalent Modernity: Street Commerce and the Transition to Free Labor in Rio de Janeiro, 1850-1925(2010) Acerbi, Patricia; Weinstein, Barbara; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)"Slave Legacies, Ambivalent Modernity: Street Commerce and the Transition to Free Labor in Rio de Janeiro, 1850-1925" is a history of street vending during the transition from enslaved to free labor in the capital of the most enduring slave society of the Americas. Street vending - long the province of African slaves and free blacks - became in these years a site of expanded (European) immigrant participation and shifting state disciplinary policies. My dissertation contends that during the gradual transition to free labor, urban policing and the judicial system in the city of Rio came to target "criminality" rather than illicit or improper vending practices. Disciplinary measures established by criminal law focused on correcting individuals who were peddlers and not inadequately regulated street commercial activity. Thus, the language of citizenship appeared in court cases to both establish and resist negative characterizations of street vendors while a gradual marginalization of street commerce occurred within the framework of citizenship building. The practice of street commerce during this transitional era reveals a historical process that produced and transformed notions of legitimate work and public order as well as the racial segmentation of the labor force. Street vending, I argue, became a strategy of subsistence among the post-abolition urban poor, who came to their own understandings of freedom, free labor, and citizenship. Elite and popular attitudes toward street vending reflected the post-abolition political economy of exclusion and inclusion, which peddlers did not experience as mutually exclusive but rather as a dialectic of an ambivalent modernity.Item Monsters in Paradise: The Representation of the Natural World in the Historias of Bartolome de Las Casas and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo(2010) Thompson, Katherine A.; Harrison, Regina; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the years following Columbus's landfall, European efforts to describe the physical reality of a hitherto unknown hemisphere led to profound epistemological changes. As recent studies by Canizares Esguerra and Barrera-Osorio have shown, early Spanish accounts of New World nature reflect an unprecedented emphasis on empirical methods of acquiring and systematizing knowledge of the natural world, contributing to the emergence of natural history and ultimately the Scientific Revolution. Sixteenth century texts were not, however, "scientific" in a modern sense. Empirical observation was shaped by scholastic and humanistic philosophy, and mingled with wondrous images derived from classical and medieval sources; these various discourses combined in ways that were colored by the authors' ideological perspectives on the justice of the Spanish conquest. This dissertation examines the interaction between proto-scientific empiricism and inherited epistemologies in descriptions of the natural world in the histories of Bartolome; de Las Casas and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo. While contemporary historians of science acknowledge the importance of these works, they rarely engage in detailed textual analyses. Literary critics, on the other hand, only infrequently concentrate on the role of proto-scientific discourse. Rabasa has studied several natural images in both authors, Myers and Carrillo Castillo have examined the role of empiricism in Oviedo, and Wey Gomez and Padron have studied geographical representations, but few studies have focused exclusively on Las Casas's and Oviedo's portrayals of the natural world in its totality. This dissertation analyzes how the tension between discursive modes produced contrasting images, paradisiacal and stable in the case of Las Casas and liminal or "monstrous" in the case of Oviedo. Chapter One outlines the intellectual formations of both authors; Chapter Two examines spatial and geographical constructs; Chapter Three centers on flora and fauna; Chapter Four concentrates on food and agriculture; and Chapter Five looks at concepts of Nature as active agent. In each of these areas, Las Casas's and Oviedo's attempts to describe unfamiliar and often anomalous New World natural phenomena stretched, altered, and at times subverted existing concepts of the natural world in ways that would have implications for future notions of American nature.Item Microdynamics of Illegitimacy and Complex Urban Violence in Medellin, Colombia(2010) Lamb, Robert Dale; Steinbruner, John D; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)For most of the past 25 years, Medellin, Colombia, has been an extreme case of complex, urban violence, involving not just drug cartels and state security forces, but also street gangs, urban guerrillas, community militias, paramilitaries, and other nonstate armed actors who have controlled micro-territories in the city's densely populated slums in ever-shifting alliances. Before 2002, Medellin's homicide rate was among the highest in the world, but after the guerrillas and militias were defeated in 2003, a major paramilitary alliance disarmed and a period of peace known as the "Medellin Miracle" began. Policy makers facing complex violence elsewhere were interested in finding out how that had happened so quickly. The research presented here is a case study of violence in Medellin over five periods since 1984 and at two levels of analysis: the city as a whole, and a sector called Caicedo La Sierra. The objectives were to describe and explain the patterns of violence, and determine whether legitimacy played any role, as the literature on social stability suggested it might. Multilevel, multidimensional frameworks for violence and legitimacy were developed to organize data collection and analysis. The study found that most decreases in violence at all levels of analysis were explained by increases in territorial control. Increases in collective (organized) violence resulted from a process of "illegitimation," in which an intolerably unpredictable living environment sparked internal opposition to local rulers and raised the costs of territorial control, increasing their vulnerability to rivals. As this violence weakened social order and the rule of law, interpersonal-communal (unorganized) violence increased. Over time, the "true believers" in armed political and social movements became marginalized or corrupted; most organized violence today is motivated by money. These findings imply that state actors, facing resurgent violence, can keep their tenuous control over the hillside slums (and other "ungoverned" areas) if they can avoid illegitimizing themselves. Their priority, therefore, should be to establish a tolerable, predictable daily living environment for local residents and businesses: other anti-violence programs will fail without strong, permanent, and respectful governance structures.Item The Cartooned Revolution: Images and the Revolutionary Citizen in Cuba, 1959-1963(2009) Someillan, Yamile Regalado; Williams, Daryle; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Document: THE CARTOONED REVOLUTION: IMAGES AND THE REVOLUTIONARY CITIZEN IN CUBA, 1959-1963 Yamile Regalado Someillan, Ph.D., 2009 Directed By: Associate Professor, Daryle Williams, Department of History "The Cartooned Revolution: Imagery and Political Culture in Cuba, 1959-1963" traces the relationship between cartooning and citizenship in the early phases of the Cuban Revolution. Through a broad analysis of cartoons and advertisements produced in the Havana press between January 1959 and December 1963, this study analyzes the interplay of state-regulated visual communication that fueled cultural transformation and defined a new revolutionary citizenry. A close reading of an "imagined narrative," drawn by the new revolutionary press and consumed by Havana readers, I argue, casts a new light on the fundamental changes in political culture and society that took place in Cuba following January 1, 1959. My choice to analyze cartoons, advertisements as well as the institutions and personalities responsible for their production, draws upon the powerful interplay of revolutionary vision, reform, politics, and ideology within the imagined narrative. The institutional and functional conversion of these forms of revolutionary imagery into official propaganda occurred as a result of a deconstruction of the pre-revolutionary press and an institutional takeover and re-staffing of newspaper offices and printing presses; the deregulation of the cartooning profession; and the reorganization of pre-revolutionary advertising enterprises into a government-controlled, central clearinghouse. Initially, images portrayed the young Castro state as champion of reform within a longer tradition of Cuban liberalism. But in short time, the resistance of holdovers from the deposed Batista political class in combination with the souring of relations with the United States, engendered an emergent revolutionary visual culture. The early forms of its new visuality were exemplified in images cultivating the bearded rebel. As it matured, especially in visual communication associated with the Literacy Campaign of 1961 and the Socialist Emulation Campaign of 1962-63, the rebel image stood alongside a cast of stock characters representative of the new political regime. If, on the one hand, revolutionary imagery projected a dangerous political landscape filled with subversive plots and looming "enemies of the people," it also gave visual clues to the new forms of political belonging. Cartoons and advertisements communicated vital policies and campaigns in which Cubans with varying levels of commitment to the Revolution might be projected into an imagined, yet official revolutionary narrative. As Cubans increased their level of integration into revolutionary society, they began to redefine themselves into a more ideologically sophisticated citizenry both inside and outside of the image world.Item History, Identity and the Struggle for Land in Northeastern Brazil, 1955-1985(2008-12-11) Sarzynski, Sarah R; Weinstein, Barbara; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Drawing from Edward Said, Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Junior has argued that through a repetition of texts and images, Northeastern Brazil was "nordestinizado," or turned into an imagined area of misery, violence, folklore, fanaticism, and rebellion that became the Other of the modern, urban center-south of Brazil. My research builds on Albuquerque's arguments about the construction of o Nordeste in the twentieth century by situating them in the milieu of political and cultural debates that attempted to redefine Northeastern Brazil during the Cold War. Rural social movements (associated with the Catholic Church, the Communist Party, and the Ligas Camponesas), large landowners, filmmakers and intellectuals, popular poets, U.S. and Brazilian politicians and journalists, and Brazilian military officers proposed projects to change the structures that they saw as perpetuating regional inequalities. To gain support for their political projects, these social, political and cultural movements appropriated regional historical symbols and narratives, imbuing them with new meanings. In doing so, they sought to redefine regional identity, and to a certain extent, also looked to redefine national and Third World identity. During the Cold War, identity expanded to becoming a product of local, national and transnational discussions, facilitated by the expansion of film as a medium of mass culture. The debates over the meaning of regional historical symbols and regional identity in Northeastern Brazil are at once an exaggerated and exemplary microcosm of Cold War political and cultural struggles in Latin America and in the Third World. The characters in the story had counterparts in other countries, and the setting was one of the most socially unequal areas in the world espousing all of the problems and possibilities of impoverished areas during the Cold War. The struggles also occurred at a key moment in Cold War history in Latin America: the era of the Cuban Revolution. But, the Northeast was not a blank slate for Cold War policies; in fact, the region had entrenched cultural symbols and historical narratives that composed the framework for the debates over regional identity.Item A Beautiful Class, An Irresistible Democracy: The Historical Formation of the Middle Class in Bogota, 1955-1965(2008-08-04) Lopez, Abel Ricardo; Weinstein, Barbara; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)"A Beautiful Class, an Irresistible Democracy" historicizes the (transnational) formation of the middle class in Bogotá, Colombia from the 1950s through the 1960s. Specifically, the dissertation asks how certain historical actors--architects, dentists, social workers, agronomists, rural specialists and accountants--not only cultivated a sense of self-understanding as middle class but also campaigned for the materialization of a democratic project of hierarchical rule as middle class. Furthermore, it interrogates how this complex project was critically constructed within a context of U.S. imperial expansion, the advance of international development agencies and foundations, as well as the growth of the Colombia state during the consolidation of the political coalition known as the National Front.Item Musical Integration: The Stylistic Evolution of the Music of Cláudio Santoro as Observed in his Works for Piano(2007-06-03) Maibrada, Heloisa Almeida; Gowen, Bradford; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Brazilian composer Cláudio Santoro (1919-1989) is one of the major figures in twentieth-century Brazilian music. His musical legacy includes nearly five hundred compositions. Among them there are fourteen symphonies, several chamber works, concertos, vocal compositions, one opera, music for films, and seventy-three known works for piano solo. Beginning with his very first compositions, his intense and extremely idealistic personality, always searching for new ideas and new musical expressions, led him to explore diverse idioms in his music. His musical path began with an early twelve-tone period in the 1940s, defying the traditional nationalistic musical environment in the country. From there came a drastic turn to a nationalistic idiom, motivated by his social ideals. A more subjective nationalistic idiom in the late 1950s gradually led him to search for new musical paths. A period of experimentation with avant-garde techniques, including aleatory and electro-acoustic music brought him new resources and different colors to his music. In his late years Santoro integrated in his music all his personal searches into a deep and passionate idiom. The many prizes and international recognition he collected in all of his aesthetic periods are evidence of his great success as a Brazilian composer. The purpose of this study is to trace the musical evolution of Cláudio Santoro as may be seen in his piano works. Among his legacy for this instrument are included six sonatas, two sonatinas, thirty-four preludes, groups of short pieces and some individual works. As a basis for understanding the importance of Santoro's contributions to the Brazilian piano repertoire, a general historical account of the main developments in the music composed for this instrument in Brazil prior to Santoro's time is presented in the first section. Santoro's innovative personality and his characteristic compositional style deserve to be better known and studied, and his music, to be appreciated as one of the most powerful artistic expressions in Brazil.Item Historias que regresan: Topología y renarración en la segunda mitad del siglo XX mexicano(2007-05-15) Ruisánchez, José Ramón; Aguilar Mora, Jorge; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation attempts to re-read the crucial texts of seven Mexican narrators of the second half of the twentieth century --Juan Rulfo´s Pedro Páramo, Carlos Fuentes´ La muerte de Artemio Cruz, José Agustín´s De perfil, Elena Poniatowska´s La noche de Tlatelolco, Carlos Monsiváis´ Entrada libre and Juan Villoro´s El disparo de argón-- in their intersection with historical events of the same time period. It explores the question of how did these books create a counterhegemonic historiography that successfully displaced the official and massmediatic versions, shedding light into the areas that privileged by them, and unsilencing what these dominant narratives muted. Basically this entails thinking the density of the intrinsically literary as a way to create topological spaces, i.e. texts that include both the I of the narrator(s) and of the reader, thus presenting far more complex versions of historical events. This kind of textuality forces, instead of a linear narrations that explains away, a work of re-narration that involves a plurivocity of senses that never cease to emanate from the texts. In each chapter I concentrate on what makes each book different from the rest, thus, creating book-specific theories that tense the overarching topological-renarrative general conceptualization.Item "...bajo el tumulto no hay nada": Formas para el mal en las literaturas hispanoamericanas del siglo XIX.(2007-03-28) Ponce-Ortiz, Esteban; Aguilar Mora, Jorge; Sosnoswski, Saúl; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The idea of evil is a cornerstone where different discourses have come into contact. This idea has touched philosophic discourses as well as medical and psychiatric ones, and it is part of the every day speech of ordinary people. The general opinion is that human beings are a defined species whose conscience has the power to more or less locate without difficulty where evil and good exist. Therefore, there is a social need to locate the place of evil, and this need allows the fixation of "that place" within the political and religious discourses. In this sense, evil, one of the most complex concepts, became one of the most manipulated categories at the service of power and the authoritative order. This dissertation deconstructs the fabrication process of evil's images, and the manipulative Latin America's fabric of morals trapped on the dialectic process among liberal and conservative political factions. The bipolarities Church - State, individuality - society, or rationality - instinct, among others, are reviewed as a complex set of tensions. Such tensions appeared peculiarly exposed in poetic works despite their cryptic nature. Poetry is used as a tool to unveil the same phenomenon in non-poetic texts that construct an apparently coherent political discourse. Multiple poetic and literary representations of evil have replicated the foundational narrative that centers on a dilemma for human beings: to choose between individual impulse and the restraint of public morals. Literature in Latin America shows diverse poetic notions of evil, from the orthodox Catholic idea to the materialist denial of the existence of evil. Between these two poles, other approaches arose usually in agreement with political affiliations that nevertheless proved inconsistent allowing for the proliferation of unorthodox positions. The study focuses on selected poetry works by Andrés Bello ("Las fantasmas"), Esteban Echeverría ("El ángel caído"), José Eusebio Caro (selection), Juan León Mera (selection), Rubén Darío ("El coloquio de los centauros") and José Martí (Versos libres).