College of Arts & Humanities
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item Archives in the Attic: Exile, Activism, and Memory in the Washington Committee for Human Rights in Argentina(2019) Pyle, Perri; Rosemblatt, Karin; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Spurred by the human rights violations committed by the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983), exiled Argentines in Washington, D.C. formed the Washington Committee for Human Rights in Argentina (WCHRA) to facilitate the transnational exchange of information between those under threat in Argentina and political actors in the United States. This thesis outlines the story of the WCHRA through the records they created - kept for nearly forty years in an attic - and oral interviews with former members. The collection consists of letters, testimonies, petitions, and notes that reflect the group’s extensive network and provide insight into how Argentine exile groups inserted themselves into the larger human rights movement. By critically examining how one small group of activists came together, I explore how archival records enhance, challenge, and reveal new insights into the politics of exile, activism, and memory, as seen through the lens of the records they kept.Item Compañeros del exilio: Una cartografía de resistencia después de la Guerra Civil española(2017) Taylor, Kathryn; Naharro-Calderón, José María; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation studies the cultural production of three intellectual couples following the Spanish Civil War. Using a variety of genres, my project explores and problematizes traditional approaches to the study of literary and artistic productions in the Post-Civil War period. While previous studies of women’s texts have often been limited to describing feminine difference and noting the oblivion and exclusion of female voices from the canon, I argue that women’s voices need to be considered as part of a larger cultural discourse. By establishing a dialogue among texts created by literary couples, we see the variety and complexity of experiences and responses both during and after the war. Also, while traditional approaches have studied the texts produced in exile separately from those created in Spain, I include texts written in both territorial Spain and exile. Through an examination of responses and strategies of resistance utilized in both spaces, I challenge both the idea that Inner Spain was left with a cultural void after the exodus of 1939, and the myth that there was no communication between the interior and exterior of Spain. The first chapter reconsiders the works of María Teresa León in relation to her husband, Rafael Alberti. León’s literary persona has long been overshadowed by the very public voice of Alberti, and most studies of her work have focused on this fact rather than on her extensive literary production. By looking at a number of texts by León, some of them completely overlooked by the canon, we see themes similar to Alberti’s, particularly a dedication to their political ideals and the future of Spain. In the second chapter, I question the claim that the exodus of Spanish intellectuals at the end of the Civil War left the country devoid of cultural values by studying the works of Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio and Carmen Martín Gaite. The case of Martín Gaite is notable because she achieved more fame and recognition for her work than her spouse. Although she was writing in a very conservative Spain for women, she used strategies of the fantastic to undermine patriarchal domination that clearly influenced her husband’s works. In the final chapter, I examine the work of Jomí García Ascot and María Luisa Elío, who accompanied their parents into exile in Mexico as children. While a common assumption is that they should have adapted perfectly to their new country, the uprootedness of living in exile and a phantom Spain become central themes in both of their works. Their collaboration in the mythical film on exile, En el balcón vacío, portrays the decisive influence of Juan Ramón Jiménez, an exile and inner Spain icon of his own.Item Ethique de l'irréparable. Lecture de l'exil cioranien(2013) Romaniuc, Raluca; Brami, Joseph; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation examines the experience of exile in relation to the transplanted writer. Cioran (1911-1995), a Romanian-born writer and philosopher, moved from his native Romania to Paris in 1937 and started writing in his adopted country's language in 1947. His experience of exile was multifaceted. The experience of exile proper and the drastic linguistic changes to which he was submitted complemented, in his case, an acute awareness of the quintessential, metaphysical exile. A brief encounter with fascist ideology in his youth prompted him, once he understood the extent of his error, to banish himself from any political and ideological involvement for the rest of his life. Trying to adapt to his new French environment while being torn between the Romanian and French languages, Cioran expresses, through his writings, his keen perception of displacement, and translates it into a paradoxical, fragmentary style. His existential approach to exile as the ultimate human alienation warrants a perpetual shifting between solidarity with his fellow human beings and a desire to dissociate himself from them. My analysis of Cioran's philosophical, self-reflective essays suggests that his experience of exile determines his personal code of ethics, which draws its strength from the notion of the "irreparable", a concept central to Cioran's thought. Thus, exile evolves from the external, contingent experience, and takes on the characteristics of a literary topos: the experience of writing becomes the very illustration of exile itself. This experience reaches its cathartic potential when it entails, as is the case in Cioran's meditations, a realization of the tragic human existence.