La ciudad, el poeta y su familia melancolica (Poesia Chilena de los ultimos 50 anos)

This dissertation explored the relationship among poets, cities, and the construction of nation-ness. It was an interpretive reading of Chilean poetry and Chilean-ness as a way of inventing the nation from its very origins, starting with the colonial epic poem La Araucana and the founding of Santiago, its capital city. In this dissertation, poetry not only dealt with cities or "city poets" but also with the very conception, drafting, and systematic invention of cities as a "dream of order". The construct of a "community" of Chileans has maintained family ties with "Melancholy" in the collective imagination. This structure of melancholy reinforced the idea of "an order and a community" passed along by poets through generations. This dissertation also explored the moment when this melancholic family was fractured, divided, and Santiago was darkened by the events of September 11, 1973 and the rise of dictatorship, brutality, and censorship. ^ The methodology employed to examine different aspects of the construction of the city-nation included theoretical approaches such as Benedict Anderson's idea of nations as "imagined communities," Ángel Rama's analysis of Latin American urban rationality in his book The Lettered City , and the idea of the poet as an urban seer or visionary, the "flâneur" studied by Walter Benjamin in Charles Baudelaire's poetry. A central finding was that this "imagined community" have been severely transformed since 1950. In Chilean poetry, two works served as major referents: Pablo Neruda's Canto General, a totalizing idea of collective identity carved from the stones of the ruins of Machu Picchu, and Nicanor Parra's Poemas y Antipoemas (1954), which begun to illustrate the slow "decomposition" of the "The Lettered City." Among such conflicting images of (post-)modernity, poet Enrique Lihn became the central counter-figure who put an end to a long tradition of producing canonical nation-building cultural artifacts. His book El paseo Ahumada (1983) impacted the new generations of Chilean poets. The conclusion brought together the five-century history and diverse poetic experiences of the traditional Lettered City with the latest currents of marginalized urban poetry (1987-2003), the so-called "barbarians," flâneurs who were (re)inventing Chilean-ness in the globalized, and anti-Utopian city of "Sanhattan." ^

Poetica de la brevedad en Borges

Although he did not write copious novels, endless essays, or long poems, Jorge Luis Borges is considered one of today's best modern writers. His works have never been more than ten pages long. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the willing use of concise expression in Borges's writings is inscribed in a poetic worldview of great implications. This view is based on the synthesis of philosophical, literary, and cultural issues that Borges interprets, discusses, refutes, and re-elaborates with a new conjectural approach. ^ This dissertation is based on a methodological review of all his current scholarly work and on a thorough examination of the four volumes of his Complete Works, edited by Emece, in 2002. His pantheistic vision, the epiphanic moments, and his love/hate relationship with language, conform an aesthetic of resounding silence that enlightens the hidden aspects of his brief masterpieces. ^ Even though Borgesian studies flood the library he once imagined, they have been presented in an isolated manner. This dissertation establishes a link among the various aforementioned aspects as studied by Borges scholars, and demonstrates the powerful influence of Borges's illuminating and precise vision. ^ Paradoxically, the poetry of brevity in Borges's works is filled with allusions to the things that Borges silences, because, from a panoramic pantheism, his words almost reach an epiphanic enlightenment that flashes between preterit and future nothingness. ^ By replacing extension with intensity, and mastering the art of omission, Borges's laborious work reaches power and concentration that only the very greatest talents can achieve. His delicate verbal conciseness provides his readers with a virtually infinite freedom of imagination because it exposes them to the chaotic world of mythical probabilities, where an instant encompasses eternity. ^

Through the prisms of gender and power: Agency in international courtship between Colombian women and American men

Since 1999 Colombia has experienced dramatic increases in emigration, particularly the emigration of women towards the U.S. as fiancées of U.S. citizens or residents. Parallel to this trend is the increased number of websites facilitating these Colombian-American matches. This dissertation investigates the agency of Colombian women and American men who pursue romantic courtship through the services of International Marriage Brokers (IMBs) from the “Gendered Geographies of Power” (GGP) framework of analysis. It examines how both groups’ social locations, their positioning in multiple axes of differentiation including gender, nationality and social class, affects how and why they exert their agency across and within different geographic scales. Most importantly, it investigates the role the imagination plays (imagination work) in both men and women’s agency, an aspect of the GGP framework that has been under-researched and theorized to date. The research also finds that this imagination work is promoted and cultivated in deeply gendered ways by IMBs seeking to profit off this transnational courtship. ^ Employing data collected via interviews and content analysis of IMBs’ websites, the dissertation analyzes comparatively the expectations each group (women, men and IMBs) bring to their imagination work and experiences of the courtship marketplace. A central question posed and answered in the dissertation is “What do women and men courting each other in cyberspace seek and do they find it?” The dissertation finds that the men seek “traditional” women and the women seek “liberated” less “macho” men. Ironically, the men find Colombian women who are among the most “liberated” women in their homeland but who downplay this aspect of themselves in order to strategically find a more modern man and migrate abroad where they expect to find greater personal and professional opportunities.^

Blotto in the Lifeboat

Blotto in the Lifeboat is a book of poems that investigates natural processes and idiosyncrasies of human societies. Ranging from the absurd to the scientific in tone, the poems in Blotto in the Lifeboat situate themselves on the blurry-line between fact and imagination, employing a style that Thomas Lux describes as “imaginative realism.” The middle of three sections is comprised solely of the long poem, “A Compendium of the True and Wondrous,” which collages remarkable facts and anecdotes to highlight the strange realities of the world and the rapidity of change. The first and third sections contain shorter, narrative poems in which the surreal or comic is often employed. The language of the poems in BLOTTO IN THE LIFEBOAT reflects a similar desire to affix the fantastic to the familiar. Metaphors in the tradition of Elizabeth Bishop and Charles Simic rely on wild leaps of imagination to illuminate the real world.

Écfrasis y Lecturas Icono-textuales en las "Leyendas" de Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

The relationship between literature and the visual arts is ancient and it has been studied from different conceptual frames. Scholars agree that both have a descriptive function and therefore share the common goal of portraying a fictional or nonfictional reality. Based on this correspondence between two different modes of artistic expression, the Roman poet Horace coined the well-known simile ut pictura poesis --as is painting so is in poetry-- which in turn functions as the theoretical underpinning of ekphrasis, a rhetorical device through which one medium of art tries to describe the essence and form of another medium of art, with the purpose of enhancing the original work described. Spanish post-romantic poet and writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) mastered this rhetorical strategy by expertly weaving all of his artistic interests into his prose. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how Bécquer makes his readers both see and hear through his prose. My semiotic research encompasses the various forms of ekphrasis used by Bécquer in the “Leyendas”. It shows how both images and symbols produce in readers sensory experiences that enhance their role as active participants in the creation of meaning. Thus, Bécquer´s prose is like a painting which not only tells a story, but also reflects reality through the eyes of the reader’s imagination. By using these ekphrastic strategies in his collection of short stories, Bécquer makes words, paintings, and music converge and collide with iconography, visual culture, and intertextuality. These components must be read, seen, heard, and understood to be more than just complementary to the text, but rather crucial elements, equal in importance to verbal expression. This analysis shows how Bécquer’s “Leyendas” not only tackle notions such as fantasy, figuration, and imagination, but also the importance of the reader´s gaze. Bécquer integrates processes such as imaginative action, iconization and visualization, into a semantic web whereby the reader creates his own particular hermeneutic image.

Through the Prisms of Gender and Power: Agency in International Courtship between Colombian Women and American Men

Since 1999 Colombia has experienced dramatic increases in emigration, particularly the emigration of women towards the U.S. as fiancées of U.S. citizens or residents. Parallel to this trend is the increased number of websites facilitating these Colombian-American matches. This dissertation investigates the agency of Colombian women and American men who pursue romantic courtship through the services of International Marriage Brokers (IMBs) from the “Gendered Geographies of Power” (GGP) framework of analysis. It examines how both groups’ social locations, their positioning in multiple axes of differentiation including gender, nationality and social class, affects how and why they exert their agency across and within different geographic scales. Most importantly, it investigates the role the imagination plays (imagination work) in both men and women’s agency, an aspect of the GGP framework that has been under-researched and theorized to date. The research also finds that this imagination work is promoted and cultivated in deeply gendered ways by IMBs seeking to profit off this transnational courtship. Employing data collected via interviews and content analysis of IMBs’ websites, the dissertation analyzes comparatively the expectations each group (women, men and IMBs) bring to their imagination work and experiences of the courtship marketplace. A central question posed and answered in the dissertation is “What do women and men courting each other in cyberspace seek and do they find it?” The dissertation finds that the men seek “traditional” women and the women seek “liberated” less “macho” men. Ironically, the men find Colombian women who are among the most “liberated” women in their homeland but who downplay this aspect of themselves in order to strategically find a more modern man and migrate abroad where they expect to find greater personal and professional opportunities.

Poetica de la brevedad en Borges

Although he did not write copious novels, endless essays, or long poems, Jorge Luis Borges is considered one of today's best modem writers. His works have never been more than ten pages long. The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the willing use of concise expression in Borges's writings is inscribed in a poetic worldview of great implications. This view is based on the synthesis of philosophical, literary, and cultural issues that Borges interprets, discusses, refutes, and re-elaborates with a new conjectural approach. This dissertation is based on a methodological review of all his current scholarly work and on a thorough examination of the four volumes of his Complete Works, edited by Emece, in 2002. His pantheistic vision, the epiphanic moments, and his love/hate relationship with language, conform an aesthetic of resounding silence that enlightens the hidden aspects of his brief masterpieces. Even though Borgesian studies flood the library he once imagined, they have been presented in an isolated manner. This dissertation establishes a link among the various aforementioned aspects as studied by Borges scholars, and demonstrates the powerful influence of Borges's illuminating and precise vision. Paradoxically, the poetry of brevity in Borges's works is filled with allusions to the things that Borges silences, because, from a panoramic pantheism, his words almost reach an epiphanic enlightenment that flashes between preterit and future nothingness. By replacing extension with intensity, and mastering the art of omission, Borges's laborious work reaches power and concentration that only the very greatest talents can achieve. His delicate verbal conciseness provides his readers with a virtually infinite freedom of imagination because it exposes them to the chaotic world of mythical probabilities, where an instant encompasses etemity.