Reflexiones y representaciones del exilio: de El canto del peregrino (1999) a "El sefardí romántico" (2005)

El exilio es un tema recurrente en la obra de Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, miembro del llamado grupo hispanomexicano. La visión del exilio en su obra incluye no solo el exilio republicano sino también el del pueblo judío. Por eso, diferentes Diásporas históricas se superponen enriqueciendo el significado de la experiencia. En su ensayo El canto del peregrino: hacia una poética del exilio (1999) desarrolla sus pensamientos sobre el exilio y analiza numerosos trabajos de autores exiliados (judíos y republicanos españoles) centrándose en como cada uno reflejó la vivencia del exilio en su trabajo.En mi opinión, las ideas desarrolladas en el ensayo se pueden encontrar en su novela El sefardí romántico: la azarosa vida de Mateo Alemán II (2005). El título de la novela establece una conexión directa con la novela picaresca y la vida judía aludiendo al autor converso de Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604). Siguiendo el patrón establecido por la novela picaresca clásica, el protagonista de Muñiz-Huberman viaja por España y Europa denunciando la intolerancia que llevó a la Guerra Civil española y a la II Guerra Mundial. Las circunstancias lo llevan al exilio en México, como en el caso de Mateo Alemán. Según la teoría de Ulrich Wicks, pícaros y exiliados tienen mucho en común en su búsqueda continua de libertad, libertad que el exiliado puede encontrar solo en el idioma, como expone Muñiz-Huberman en su ensayo.

The "Art" of Criticism: Rubén Darío and his Unknown Chronicles of the 1895 Salon for "La Prensa"

With the impetus that has led recent studies on Latin American Modernism to a reevaluation of the sense of cultural fluxes from the modernity capitals to its peripheries –discarding categories such as “influence”, “exotism” and “ivory tower”, stereotypes that have clouded critical understanding of this aesthetics for decades- the present study intends to investigate a persistent practice of the main writers of the movement. This practice is modernist pictorial criticism, a genre that will be approached through the analysis of an unknown corpus: the seven chronicles Rubén Darío published in the journal La Prensa on occasion of the third art exposition of the Ateneo de Buenos Aires. Our hypothesis is that the rare creators of images portrayed by Darío by the end of 1895 work as a visual counterpoint of the eccentric writers’ biographical sketches that a year later will be part of the fundamental volume Los raros (1896). In this early “salon”, which we reproduce in its entirety, accompanied by explanatory notes, the leader of Modernism rehearses and consolidates his transcultural work with the universal tradition –now applied to the Salons (1845-1860) by Charles Baudelaire and to the monumental project by John Ruskin in Modern painters (1843-1860)- to legitimate, from another subgenre of Modernist criticism, a new figure of the critic, in dissent with the Enlightenment model of the writer.

Rubén Darío's new unpublished and unknown documents: on La "Isla de Oro", the "Poema del Otoño" and the years of "Mundial"

This article studies and reproduces a group of documents that includes some hand-written and typed texts most likely authored by Rubén Darío, along with others where Darío’s authorship can be easily contested. These documents seem to have originated during the years of Mundial Magazine (1912-1914), and besides the interest for their probably unpublished nature, they also show the cooperation between Darío and his collaborators in the preparation of his original manuscripts right before being sent to the publishers.

Sufrimiento y pesimismo en Schopenhauer

El presente artículo investiga de qué forma la centralidad del sufrimiento en la filosofía de Schopenhauer sirve para fundamentar su pesimismo. Tres son los argumentos analizados: el lugar del sufrimiento en el mundo, su lugar en la conciencia humana y su lugar frente a la felicidad. A la luz de estos tres argumentos, se destaca que el vínculo indisoluble entre el sufrimiento y la esencia del mundo, la determinación del sufrimiento en la conciencia, tanto en su génesis como en su intensidad, y su anterioridad ontológica frente a la felicidad hacen del pesimismo una categoría necesaria. Finalmente, se señala una posible contribución del pesimismo schopenhaueriano a la crítica social contemporánea, considerando la idea de mundo que el capitalismo tardío promueve.

Localization in Sardinia and Its Obstacles: A Reply to Hospers’ “Localization in Europe’s Periphery: Tourism Development in Sardinia”

In this reply to Hospers' “Localization in Europe's Periphery: Tourism Development in Sardinia” by Gert-Jan Hospers (2003), we argue that the author's advocacy of localized economic policies as a viable means to the economic development of Sardinia does not take into account current institutional assets that prevent Sardinia from pursuing localized interests effectively. We first discuss the historical background of these institutional assets, highlighting that a top-down approach to decision-making has characterized relations between Sardinia and the central state for most of the modern era. We then discuss the institutional and economic impediments to Sardinian attempts to pursue localized policies in light of recent institutional conflicts between region and central state. Our conclusion is that the localization of economic strategies necessitates entwined localization of decision-making powers in order to be effective.

Imitation and 'theory of mind' competencies in discrimination of autism from other neurodevelopmental disorders

Several studies have reported imitative deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is still debated if imitative deficits are specific to ASD or shared with clinical groups with similar mental impairment and motor difficulties. We investigated whether imitative tasks can be used to discriminate ASD children from typically developing children (TD) and children with general developmental delay (GDD). We applied discriminant function analyses to the performance of these groups on three imitation tasks and tests of dexterity, motor planning, verbal skills, theory of mind (ToM). Analyses revealed two significant dimensions. The first represented impairment of dexterity and verbal ability, and discriminated TD from GDD children. Once these differences were accounted for, differences in ToM and the three imitation tasks accounted for a significant proportion of the remaining intergroup variance and discriminated the ASD group from other groups. Further analyses revealed that inclusion of imitative tasks increased the specificity and sensitivity of ASD classification and that imitative tasks considered alone were able to reliably discriminate ASD, TD and GDD. The results suggest that imitation and theory of mind impairment in autism may stem from a common domain of origin separate from general cognitive and motor skill.

Reducing the mapping between perception and action facilitates imitation

This study investigated two hypotheses regarding the mapping of perception to action during imitation. The first hypothesis predicted that as children’s cognitive capacities increase the tendency to map one goal and disregard others during imitation should decrease. This hypothesis was tested by comparing the performances of 168 4- to 7-year-olds in a gestural imitation task developed by Bekkering, Wohlschläger, and Gattis. The second hypothesis predicted that reducing the mapping between perception and action should reduce the demands on the cognitive resources of the child. This hypothesis was tested by creating a condition in which perception and action overlapped by sharing objects between experimenter and child. In three experimental conditions, an adult modelled four gestures, directed at either: 1) one of two sets of round stickers (proprietary objects); 2) the same location on the table, without any sticker (no objects); or 3) one set of round stickers, which were shared with the child (shared objects). The results confirmed both hypotheses. Four- and five-year-olds imitated less accurately when imitation involved mapping of both objects and movements (proprietary and shared objects) than when imitation involved mapping movements only (no objects). Seven-year-olds imitated accurately in all three conditions, demonstrating that increased cognitive capacity allowed them to map multiple goals from perception to action. Most importantly, reducing the mapping between perception and action in the shared objects condition facilitated imitation, specifically for the transitional group, 6-year-olds. We conclude that mapping between perception and action is not direct, but resembles mapping relations in analogical reasoning: cognitive processes mediate mapping from perception to action.

An fMRI study of Joint Attention Experience

Although much is now known about eye movement detection, little is known about the higher cognitive processes involved in joint attention. We developed video stimuli which when watched, engender an experience of joint attention in the observer. This allowed us to compare an experience of joint attention to nonjoint attention within an fMRI scanning environment. Joint attention was associated with activity in the ventromedial frontal cortex, the left superior frontal gyrus (BA10), cingulate cortex, and caudate nuclei. The ventromedial frontal cortex has been consistently shown to be activated during mental state attribution tasks. BA10 may serve a cognitive integration function, which in this case seems to utilize a perception–action matching process. The activation we identified in BA10 overlaps with a location of increased grey matter density that we recently found to be associated with autistic spectrum disorder. This study therefore constitutes evidence that the neural substrate of joint attention also serves a mentalizing function. The developmental failure of this substrate in the left anterior frontal lobe may be important in the etiology of autistic spectrum disorder.

Relation of the work of the artist Antonio Lopez with the photography. Methods of a teacher rejected as a professor

In 1966 the artist Antonio Lopez was rejected for the chair in “Preparatorio de colorido” (Preparatory Colouring) by the San Fernando School of Fine Arts where he himself presented his work Nevera de hielo (Ice Box). After 5 years as a “stand in” for this post he left the Institution. This article analyzes the circumstances and proof of a decade where there appears to be evidence of a definite change in his work, more toward Realism, uncomfortable in a system that maintained with difficulty the traditional academic model copy, and incompatible with, in those years was imposed by Spain. At the same time his relation with photography conditioned by the theoretical thoughts of the artist, and his work methods also are analyzed in this article.

The Rhetorical Construction of Corporate Logos

This research is set in the context of today’s societies, in which the corporate visual symbology of a business, corporation or institution constitutes an essential way to transmit its corporate image. Traditional discursive procedures can be discovered in the development of these signs. The rhetorical strategies developed by the great classical authors appear in the logo-symbols expressing the corporate values of today’s companies. Thus, rhetoric is emerging once again in the sense it had many centuries ago: A repertory of rules that, paradoxically, standardizes the deviations of language and whose control is synonymous with power. The main objective of this study is to substantiate the rhetorical construction of logos using as a model of analysis the classical process of creating discourse. This involves understanding logos as persuasive discourses addressed to a modern audience. Our findings show that the rhetorical paradigm can be considered as a creative model for the con­struction of an original logo consistent with a company’s image.

"Cómo pintar el aire". Fundamentos científicos de la perspectiva atmosférica

La perspectiva aérea o atmosférica es juzgada por los pintores como parte esencial de la pintura, una vez establecidos los presupuestos geométricos de la representación naturalista mediante la perspectiva lineal. Leonardo da Vinci fue el primer autor en definir la perspectiva aérea o atmosférica, conocidos ya a través de L. B. Alberti los fundamentos geométricos de la perspectiva lineal en el tratado De Pictura (1435). Doscientos años después, tras la influyente publicación del Optics de Newton, contextualizadas bajo el espíritu racionalista del siglo XVIII, el artículo estudia las recomendaciones que desde la ciencia y los científicos (específicamente a través de tres figuras relevantes: Brook Taylor, J. H. Lambert y Gaspard Monge) se dan a los pintores con la pretensión de arbitrar una medición exacta del color, en confrontación con el tradicional empirismo del mundo artístico. Este tema puede considerarse un capítulo de gran interés en la larga historia de la pintura y la representación de los fenómenos atmosféricos, cuyos antecedentes teóricos tienen su inicio en el Débat sur le Coloris de la Académie Française del siglo XVII y sus resultados, conducirán hacia el nacimiento de la moderna Teoría del color, en respuesta a una cuestión tan compleja sobre cómo pintar el aire.