Browsing by Subject "Spain"
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Item Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Cyborg: Posthuman Feminism and Biopower in Peninsular Women's Science Fiction(2020-08) Hanson, MaritThis study examines works of women’s science fiction literature from Spain produced in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: Lágrimas en la lluvia and El peso del corazón, by Rosa Montero; Consecuencias naturales, by Elia Barceló; “Informe de aprendizaje,” by Sofía Rhei; “La plaga,” by Felicidad Martínez; “Casas Rojas,” by Nieves Delgado; and “Yo, cuqui,” by Laura López Alfranca. Academic study on Spanish science fiction is scant, and even more so in the case of Spanish women’s science fiction. Using theories of the posthuman, feminism, and biopower, this study analyzes how Spanish women’s science fiction actively disrupts hierarchical binaries and boundaries prevalent in the genre (male/female, nature/culture, organic/inorganic, human/nonhuman). In doing so, the narratives destabilize and resist heteropatriarchal structures that rely upon these binaries, such as the masculinist portrayals of female and nonbinary bodies, capitalist neoliberal environmental antagonism, and emphasis of dominance and alterity over solidarity and alliance work with Othered subjects—all of which find direct corollaries in social issues of contemporary Spain. At the same time—and in lieu of these binaries—these texts propose and affirm developing a state of constant becoming and evolution based on a rhizomatic relationality among different subjectivities.Item Degeneration theory in naturalist novels of Benito Pérez Galdós.(2011-04) Stannard, Michael WenleyDegeneration theory was elaborated in the nineteenth century based on the very old belief in human trans-generational decline. After incorporation into social and biological theories in the eighteenth century, it flourished in the fields of medicine and public health in the early nineteenth century and was emphasized, above all, in some fields of psychiatry. Degenerationist beliefs were influential in the professional middle classes of France, England and Spain. The discourse was incorporated by Émile Zola into the aesthetics of his Naturalist novels in the 1870s and 1880s and directly influenced Benito Pérez Galdós in Spain in the 1880s. An analysis of a quartet of Galdós's Naturalist novels shows evidence of degenerationist thinking, under the influence of Spanish and French medicine.Item El Choque de las Creencias: Christian Interactions with Muslims and Jews in Medieval Iberia Through the Lens of Las Cantigas de Santa Maria(2016-05) Solfest, AndrewThis paper seeks to analyze the attitudes of the Christian rulers and communities toward Jewish and Islamic individuals living within Christian Iberian kingdoms during the 'la Convivencia' period of the late middle ages. To do so, its research focuses on selected portrayals from Las Cantigas de Santa Maria, a group of over 400 hymns and stories collected in the 13th century and predominantly associated with the court of Alfonso X (Alfonso el Sabio) of Castile and Léon. Careful study of the perspectives presented in Las Cantigas and the context of Alfonso's government support the notion that there was a significant degree of respect and cooperation between different religious groups, particularly for Western Europe in the given time period. However, the level of tolerance was still limited, sometimes to the bare minimum of what was required for a pragmatic functioning of society, and there were also marked difference in attitudes and treatment toward Jews as compared to Muslims. La Convivencia was a period of great scientific and cultural advancement due to the collaboration of the different religious and ethnic populations, but that is not to say that it was entirely harmonious.Item Evaluation Of Control Strategies For Eradication Of Bovine Tuberculosis In Endemic Settings(2019-05) Picasso-Risso, CatalinaBovine tuberculosis (bTB) is an infectious disease of cattle that has an important impact in animal and public health. In spite of many efforts and resources invested in its eradication, bTB is still endemic in many countries. The intradermal tuberculin test- and- slaughter of bTB positive animals, with the slaughter surveillance, are the basis of bTB-control and eradication programs in place. However, the accuracy of intradermal testing tends to vary broadly with factors inherent to the country and to the individual immunity of the animal. In Uruguay, in spite of many efforts dedicated to bTB eradication, this disease has reached unprecedented prevalence levels in large, intensified dairy systems in the past years (2010-2018). This raised concerns regarding the suitability of the bTB-control strategies to reach eradication in this evolving demographic and management scenarios. In this dissertation we aimed to assess current and alternative control strategies for bTB in high-prevalence endemic settings, considering the identified demographic and management risk factors, to guide the design and implementation of optimal control and eradication procedures through mathematical modeling. Overall, we demonstrate that JD has an effect in bTB-diagnostic results at the herd and individual level in high prevalence bTB and JD coinfected populations studied, which needs to be addressed in the planning of bTB-control programs, specifically in regards of the performance of the bTB-diagnostic tools used. Still, in this co-infected scenario, the use of IGRA notably improved the sensitivity of detection in these herds, which can be beneficial in declining initial high bTB-prevalence levels. However, it is crucial to incorporate bTB-testing in young animals (<12 months) to break disease transmission and achieve eradication. Further studies would be required in order to determine the best bTB-control strategy resulting from the interaction between bTB- and JD- epidemiology, test performance, and economic costs, while acknowledging the country logistics and socio-cultural perceptions. Nevertheless, this research represents the first attempt to integrate field risk factors for the diagnosis of bTB, and JD-coinfection in the design of control strategies for heavily infected herds that can be the foundation of optimal bTB-control strategies to reach eradication when depopulation is not suitable.Item Remembering the thirteen roses: thinking between history and memory.(2010-05) Larson, Kajsa C.Remembering the Thirteen Roses: Thinking between History and Memory examines the execution of thirteen young, communist women, named the Thirteen Roses, on August 5, 1939, to show how Spaniards in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have assigned meaning to and represented the memories of those who opposed Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Through the analysis of poetry, fiction, journalism, theater, and film, my dissertation documents the ways the Roses’ memory has been recycled and transformed over time from the remembrance of a historical event to a polysemic literary and cultural trope. This trope, in the postwar years, embodied communist political ideals but, with the passing of time, was converted into a symbol for democracy and, later, into a depoliticized tale of human suffering. The development of the Roses trope alerts us to the mechanics of collective memory, a concept coined by Maurice Halbwachs to explain how ‘memory’ is a socially constructed notion that is experienced within a group. The recollection of the women’s execution serves as a case study for how society manipulates and assigns different meanings to collective memories over time, highlighting the manner in which collective memory is both a cultural and discursive construct. Memories, like that of the Roses, intersect and negotiate specific political, historical, social, and cultural objectives in a social context. Remembering the Thirteen Roses combines history, memory studies, and literary scholarship to deepen our understanding of Spain’s recent social and political movements in favor of the recuperation of historical memory of the Spanish Civil War, as it is reflected in the ever-evolving representations of one tragic event.Item Saudade, Duende, and Feedback: the hybrid voices of twenty-first-century Neoflamenco and Neofado(2013-06) Arnold, Michael DavisThe focus of this comparative, pan-Iberian study is on the negotiation of identity and hybrid cultural production in early twenty-first-century Spain and Portugal. I identify here two subgenres of indie and electronic music scenes and analyze how the handful of musicians that comprise these burgeoning movements are fighting to keep their respective national cultural traditions alive in the face of iTunes, mp3s, and P2P filesharing that have universalized a certain form of pop music which cuts across languages and cultures. The hybrid musicians I interviewed for this project combine flamenco or fado with a variety of indie sounds: rock, pop, power pop, hip hop, trip hop, post punk, spaghetti western, shoegaze, or experimental electronic. The end result is a musical production which simultaneously attempts to voice their nationality as well as their generation. They are the torchbearers of tradition for an Iberian generation raised on The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, The Clash, The Replacements, Nirvana, and The Strokes. Their music references these and other global indie bands alongside those of twentieth century Iberian urban folk icons--Bambino, Camarón de la Isla, Enrique Morente, Amália Rodrigues, Alfredo Marceneiro, and Carlos do Carmo. I have developed a framework with which to contextualize and conceptualize the various issues addressed by these bands: authenticity, globalization, nostalgia, cultural capital, national-gender identity, and the economic crisis plaguing contemporary Europe.Item Spain - Sustainable horticulture crop production(2010-11-28) Lott, StevenItem Spain Interrupted: Examining Spanish Representations of Mass Violence in the Former Yugoslavia(2017-06) Nezirevic, ErmaSituated within contemporary discussions of Hispanism and Iberian Studies, this dissertation explores timely issues such as memory, migration, and the links between violence and democracy in contemporary Spain. More specifically, my dissertation studies Iberian cultural representations of war violence in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s that reflect parallel experiences between the two countries during the twentieth century including dictatorships, civil wars, and their peripheral statuses vis-à-vis Europe. I show how Iberian novelists, journalists, and photographers approach the Balkan atrocity as a symbolic reliving of old Spanish traumas as this war becomes an interruption of a “modern, European” identity built on avoiding the wounds of the past. Through this research I develop a theory of hospitality to show how representations of the Balkan war can be read through the concepts of host and guest, whose interplay interrupts subjectivities in an already established Spanish national framework. Studies of memory and mass violence in Spain tend to restrict their analyses to the framework of the nation-state. In an effort to shift this insular approach, Spain Interrupted employs an innovative comparative paradigm by looking at Spain through the lens of the former Yugoslavia. The interrelatedness of these two national contexts unfolds aspects of memory and mass violence that would otherwise be less perceptible. My comparative approach breaks new ground in the way we understand the interconnectedness of relations in these fields by looking at Spain through the lens of the former Yugoslavia.Item Why the earth shakes: pre-modern understandings and modern earthquake science.(2010-12) Bluestone, Jamie RaeUsing historical sources comprised of earthquake stories of multiple genres - personal anecdotes, prayers, sermons, natural histories, philosophical treatises, poems - as well as texts about modern scientific theories, this project demonstrates how unpredictable and incompletely understood phenomena like earthquakes both expose and challenge the boundaries of knowledge. The process of European expansion to the Americas in the early modern period provides some geographical and temporal structure to the broad scope of this project, which discusses stories that come from across the globe and cover the period from roughly the eighth century BCE to the present. Special attention is paid to scientific or natural philosophical views of earthquakes, and to religious and mythological stories about the phenomenon, in order to show how a fuller understanding of earthquakes requires expanding beyond traditional limits of knowledge. So far, no individual explanation for why the earth shakes - whether ancient or modern, religious or scientific - has proven to be complete. Until such time as we have complete knowledge--if that time ever comes--a diversity of perspectives can help us to frame our understanding of earthquakes and their impact on human history.Item Wine, Wicked Problems, and Ways of Life: Untangling Cultural Discourses of Climate Adaptation in Andalucía, Spain(2024) Bruns, CatherineThe Spanish wine region of Andalucía is world renowned, with the region perhaps best known as the birthplace of the iconic Sherry wine. Unfortunately, global climatic changes have placed Andalusian winemaking in a perilous position, forcing members of this community to confront how, if at all, to adapt their cultural practices for a new climate reality. To understand the dynamics of this adaptation decision-making, I spent nearly three years learning from wine producers, wine regulators, tour guides, bartenders, professors, and countless others who each have a unique perspective on where the Andalusian climate is currently, where it’s headed, and what must be done if Andalusian wine is to survive. As part of this pursuit, I also toured wineries, strolled city streets, walked museum hallways, and hiked through grape fields to gain a deeper understanding of what makes the cultural practice of winemaking meaningful to this community. This dissertation interprets the many conversations, experiences, and types of knowledge I encountered during this research journey through five “radiants of cultural meaning”: Place, Practice, Feeling, Identity, and Relating. Although the final product represents only one version of one community's climate adaptation story, I hope that it will show how addressing climate change is about more than just identifying degree differences—it’s about adapting ways of life.