Crossing the threshold: exile and literature in "El Canto del peregrino" (1999) by Angelina Muñiz-Huberman

This paper analyses the relation between exile and literature in Angelina Muñiz-Huberman’s work El canto del peregrino. In this collection of essays, the Spanish-Mexican writer, member of the second generation of Spanish Republican exiles in Mexico, outlines a poetics of exile. From the outset, the relation between exile and literature is presented in terms of identity: while defining exile as “literary form”, the book tends to prefer a metaphorical concept of exile over ‘merely’ historical or referential approaches to it. More in particular, this paper will examine how the author constructs an identity of ‘exiled writer’ based on the close association between exile and literature on the one hand, and on the view of exile as ‘home’ or ‘dwelling’, on the other hand. A second point of interest concerns the discursive impact of this literary and metaphorical concept of exile and the author’s personal experience. A brief analysis of the essayist’s discursive voice and her writing practice shows how Muñiz-Huberman gives shape to an intrinsically complex and paradoxical view on exile.

Motivation and Vocabulary Breadth in CLIL and EFL Contexts. Different age, Same Time of Exposure

Numerous studies have found a positive connection between learners’ motivation towards foreign language and foreign language achievement. The present study examines the role of motivation in receptive vocabulary breadth (size) of two groups of Spanish learners of different ages, but all with 734 hours of instruction in English as a Foreign Language (EFL): a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) group in primary education and a non-CLIL (or EFL) group in secondary education. Most students in both groups were found to be highly motivated. The primary CLIL group slightly overcame the secondary non-CLIL group with respect to the mean general motivation but this is a non-significant difference. The secondary group surpass significantly the primary group in receptive vocabulary size. No relationship between the receptive vocabulary knowledge and general motivation is found in the primary CLIL group. On the other hand, a positive significant connection, although a very small one, is identified for the secondary non-CLIL group. We will discuss on the type of test, the age of students and the type of instruction as variables that could be influencing the results.

David Hume and contractualism

David Hume belonged to the consecuencialist philosophical tendency, in which is included utilitarianism. This tendency was opposed to the normativism philosophy, in which is enrolled contractualism. This article analyzes the critique made by David Hume, from the utilitarianism perspective, against contractualism. The major philosophers of contractualism are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Hume implemented three arguments in opposition to them: 1) historic: the social contract does not have any practical testing. Therefore it could not be presented as the foundation of the state; 2) philosophical: it is not the duty, but the interest that moves men to seek the formation of the political authority; 3) social: in the consciousness of the people, there is no trace of the social contract.Utilitarianism was one of the philosophical tendencies that finished the theoretical hegemony that contractualism had during the XVII and the XVIII centuries. Nonetheless from the historical and social point of view, the liberalization movements in many parts of the world, at that time, were inspired by contractualism. It means that from the theoretical point of view, utilitarianism, certainly, stressed the empirical origins of the state but not the rational justification of the political Authority. Hume was unable to understand the normative force that contractualism owns, which inspires human action.

Illness and Fall in Albert Camus

This article focuses on the theme of illness in Albert Camus. Special emphasis is placed on his last published novel, La Chute. The issue of disease is usually focused in relation to death and finitude both in literature and philosophy. This article focuses on the relation between the existential experience of illness and the decay of the plenitude of life. The case of Albert Camus is especially significant for his chronical illness and because disease has a prominent place in his literary works. Here La Chute is chosen because it offers a great richness of interpretative levels unparalleled in other camusian works. Two different reading levels are proposed. The distinction and the analysis of these two levels will allow for more nuanced view of the relationship of the author to his work and of the controversy about the social role of the intellectual. The conclusion of this article differs both from the critics who only consider the novel in relation to the polemic with Jean-Paul Sartre, and those who interpret it as a disguised confession.