Department of World Languages & Cultures
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11875/2566
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Browsing Department of World Languages & Cultures by Department "World Languages & Cultures"
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Item Feminist Theories of Development in Farida Benlyazid’s Double-Bildung story, La vida perra de Juanita Narboni (2005)(Taylor & Francis, 2019-08) Frelier, Jocelyn A.Farida Benlyazid’s film, La vida perra de Juanita Narboni (2005), offers viewers a novel iteration of the classic coming-of-age genre. As a film, it lies outside the preferred medium of expression for the genre and it features not one, but two distinct protagonists: Juanita (for whom the story is named) and her city, Tangier. Each half of this double narrative provides a feminist critique of the masculine projects traditionally associated with the Bildung genre. When read as a narrative of development, both the form and content of the film open up the possibility of gendering theories of development. The film’s feminist interventions destabilize the aims of Enlightenment thinking, which produced the Bildung genre, along a three-pronged axis: the film questions the processes that lead to the solidification of national boundaries; it challenges progress-oriented ideals as they relate to time and development; and it dissolves the construct of linguistic purity.Item Surrogacy: Temporary Familial Bonds and the Bondage of Origins in Fouad Laroui’s Une année chez les Français(Journal of North Afican, 2019-03) Frelier, Jocelyn A.This article examines Fouad Laroui’s 2010 novel, Une année chez les Français, and charts the protagonist’s development to argue that it offers a new model for Moroccan coming-of-age in a postcolonial context. While Une année is a Bildungsroman, it breaks away from patterns seen in the genre before it to illustrate the possibilities of creating ‘Third Spaces’ (Bhabha 1990). The protagonist, Mehdi, arrives at his moment of ‘apprentissage’ thanks to his pseudo-adoption by a French family and French boarding school, where he experiences what I have termed a pull-push sensation. I outline the sources and effects of the pull-push Mehdi perceives and then turn to argue that these experiences allow him to destabilise the relationship between the concepts of family and familiarity. It is through his newly found understanding that what is familiar is not always family and what is family does not always feel familiar that Mehdi is able to articulate the third space he desires for himself and come of age. While this article focuses on the experiences of a single, fictional character, Une année chez les Francais introduces readers with a framework for imagining the identity-formation of a multiplicity of individuals who have grown up at the intersection of postcolonial North Africa and continental France.Item "Transatlantic Trenches" in Spanish Civil War Journalism: Félix Martí Ibáñez and the Exile Newspaper España Libre (Free Spain, New York City 1939–1977)(Michigan State University Press, 2016) Feu Lopez, Maria MontserratItem “Transformation Was Definitely Her Specialty": Teaching Representation with Roberta Fernandez's "Amanda."(Humanities Education and Research Association, 2014) Feu Lopez, Maria MontserratThis essay examines critical analysis of literature, collaborative dialogue, and reflective writing as pedagogical strategies successfully employed to teach the concept of representation. All were designed for students to draw connections among interdisciplinary sources: historical, literary and theoretical. Roberta Fernandez’s short story “Amanda” (2002), whose protagonist is believed to be a witch, was read in connection with Tillie Olsen’s poem “I Want You Women Up North to Know” (1934), and Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s novels Desert Blood (2005) and Calligraphy of the Witch (2012). The analysis of the literary texts helped students to understand the misrepresentation and underrepresentation of women in mainstream culture, as well as to value the historical legacies of working-class women as leaders and role models for their communities.Item The US Hispanic Flapper: Pelonas and Flapperismo in US Spanish-Language Newspapers 1920-1929(American Humor Studies Association, 2015-07) Feu Lopez, Maria MontserratMexican exile journalist Julio Arce’s chronicles “Todo se arregla con money” (1924), “Cosas del Exhibition Day” (1924), and “La estenógrafa” (1925) are analyzed for their farcical portrayal of the 1920s Modern Girl, who symbolized immoral and consumerist modernity for Arce’s readers. The article considers the context of previously unstudied journalistic genres from the era’s leading U.S. Spanish-language newspapers, which display a range of comic forms that negatively represent the flapper’s appearance and lifestyle. Beyond derisive entertainment, humor is aimed at influencing readers’ opinions about U.S. Hispanic women’s gender and ethnic restrictions. The pelona was a popular topic in Spanish-language newspapers, and references to other entertainment industries from that era show that critical responses to flapperismo traveled across media, not only in the United States but also throughout the Americas.