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Item María Antonia Bolívar and the War for Independence in Venezuela(Latin American Studies Program, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2015-12-01) Cherpak, Evelyn M.This article explores the relationship of María Antonia Bolívar, supporter of the royalist cause during the wars for independence, with her brother, Simón Bolívar, the Liberator of northern South America, during the conflict and in the aftermath. It explores the role of a woman of the elite who accepted and executed responsibility for the protection of the Bolívar family properties and wealth.Item Authoritarian Discourse in García Márquez's La mala hora and Ruy Guerra's O Veneno da Madrugada(Latin American Studies Program, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2015-12-31) Mongor-Lizarrabengoa, DavidThis paper examines Bakhtin’s concept of authoritarian discourse in Gabriel García Márquez’s 1962 novel La mala hora and Ruy Guerra’s 2005 film adaptation of the work, O Veneno da Madrugada. The hostile environment, depicted by García Márquez and Guerra, is the perfect setting to apply Bakhtin’s ideas about authoritarian discourse. In his essay, “Discourse and the Novel”, Bakhtin explains that “there is a struggle constantly being waged to overcome the official line with its tendency to distance itself from the zone of contact, a struggle against various kinds and degrees of authority” (345). In this paper, I will examine the ways in which the characters in the novel and film struggle against the figures of authority in the town: the mayor (the authority figure) and Father Ángel (the priest). Bakhtin affirms that in cases of authoritarian discourse, one must completely accept or reject it. I argue that through the rather grim depiction of Ángel and the church building coupled with the townspeople’s refusal to listen to the mayor, it is clear that the protagonists do not align themselves with the authority figures. Furthermore, I explain that while the protagonists act as if they accept the authoritarian figures in public, they actually resist them in private.Item Panopticism and Monarchical Rule in Miguel Ángel Asturias's El señor presidente(Latin American Studies Program, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2015-12-31) Quintero, JulioRevisions to Michel Foucault’s concept of panopticism have questioned the actual existence of a unique entity located at its center. Roberto Esposito has also criticized Foucault’s ambivalence at defining the limits of panopticism in relation to sovereignty. By employing Esposito’s discussion about the overlapping between panopticism and sovereignty, the author analyzes how power is exerted in Miguel Ángel Asturias’s El señor presidente. First, this paper examines the functioning of utilitarist systems of societal control. Secondly, it focuses on how the character of the President is also described as a sovereign. Finally, it argues that, in the case of Asturias’s novel, panopticism does not exclude sovereignty. Asturias’s novel reveals the nightmarish contradictions of a panopticist organization of power with a sovereign at its center.Item On "Mínima Cuba: Heretical Poetics and Power in Post-Soviet Cuba" by Marta Hernández Salván(Latin American Studies Program, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2015-12-31) Reber, Dierdra