- Bilbao, Pais Vasco, Spain
Aitor Ibarrola
Universidad de Deusto, Modern Languages, Faculty Member
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In the last five decades, Toni Morrison’s fiction has covered such intricate topics as the impact of the past on the present, the damage produced on bodies and minds by different types of abuses, and the power and perils of small... more
In the last five decades, Toni Morrison’s fiction has covered such intricate topics as the impact of the past on the present, the damage produced on bodies and minds by different types of abuses, and the power and perils of small communities. She revisits some of those themes in her last novel, "God Help the Child" (2015), but this time zooms in more closely on the topics of child abuse and colorism – an internal racism of blacks against those with darker skin shades. "God Help the Child" proves innovative because the story is set in presentday fictional California, where the rate of child molestation – especially against black children – is just overwhelming. This article intends to show that, despite Morrison’s audacious narrative form and storytelling skills, there are some evident shortcomings in the structure and characterization of the novel that are not to be found in her earlier works.
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Research Interests: Humanities and Art
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Research Interests: Humanities and Art
Research Interests: Art and Ethnic Group
The aim of this paper is two-fold. The first part proposes a tentative outline of a new area of research and activity which presents immense potential for anybody versed in literary and film studies, namely, the translation of short story... more
The aim of this paper is two-fold. The first part proposes a tentative outline of a new area of research and activity which presents immense potential for anybody versed in literary and film studies, namely, the translation of short story cycles into film. As becomes clear throughout my discussion, writers of short story sequences tend not to use the kind of unifying conventions that we are familiar with in novels and plays. Instead, elements such as collective identities, the spirit of the place, lines of images or rhythm seem to provide a great deal of the consistency and coherence observable in this genre. As a result, in order to carry out a successful adaptation from literature into film, one needs to be especially aware of the patterns and techniques that are most effective in each. The second part of the paper offers a case study in which Robert Altman’s movie Short Cuts (1993) is analyzed in some detail to elucidate in which regards his adaptation of Raymond Carver’s stories...
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espanolLa famosa frase que la autora afroamericana Zora Neale Hurston eligio como titulo para su novela surge en un momento crucial del argumento cuando, expuestos a la “bestia mos-truopulosa” de un huracan atlantico, muchos de los... more
espanolLa famosa frase que la autora afroamericana Zora Neale Hurston eligio como titulo para su novela surge en un momento crucial del argumento cuando, expuestos a la “bestia mos-truopulosa” de un huracan atlantico, muchos de los personajes clave se dan cuenta de que los codigos sociales empiezan a perder su sentido. La autora aprovecha el huracan que barrio los Everglades de Florida en otono de 1928 para ilustrar los profundos cambios que se produjeron en las estructuras y relaciones sociales que existian entre los diferentes grupos humanos. Varios criticos/as han afirmado que “las cuestiones de clase, genero y raza adquieren una creciente importancia en la parte final del libro, a medida que el huracan se acerca y luego pasa” (Duplessis 1990). Resulta innegable que este desastre natural obliga tanto a colectivos como a personajes concretos a repensar sus relaciones con los demas. EnglishThe famous sentence that African-American novelist Zora Neale Hurston chose as a title for he...
Research Interests: Humanities and Art
Celeste Ng’s novel Everything I Never Told You (2014) has been said to combine some stock ingredients of literary thrillers with other less customary features that complicate its classification in that genre. Although we learn from page... more
Celeste Ng’s novel Everything I Never Told You (2014) has been said to combine some stock ingredients of literary thrillers with other less customary features that complicate its classification in that genre. Although we learn from page one that the protagonist of the novel, sixteen-year-old Lydia Lee, is dead, discovering who is behind the possible murder of this Chinese American girl proves to be one of the lesser mysteries in the story. While the reader remains intrigued by the forces/people that may have driven Lydia to her demise, other enigmas—related to the other members of the Lee family—keep cropping up and turn out to be closely linked to the protagonist’s fate. This article explores the secret-saturated structure of the novel, which moves back and forth between the Lees’ speculations about Lydia’s death, the impact that the event has on their lives and the protagonist’s own version of the story. Ng delves deep into the issues of gender, race and other types of otherness t...
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Research Interests: Art and movie theater
In eleven novels over four decades, Toni Morrison’s fiction has dealt with such prickly issues as the hold that the past exerts over the present, the power and perils of small communities or the wounds caused on bodies and minds by all... more
In eleven novels over four decades, Toni Morrison’s fiction has dealt with such prickly issues as the hold that the past exerts over the present, the power and perils of small communities or the wounds caused on bodies and minds by all sorts of abuses. Her latest novel, God Help the Child (2015), revisits some of those earlier themes, but it focuses more closely on the topics of child abuse and colorism—the internal racism of blacks against darker skin shades. What is new in God Help the Child is that the story is set in present-day California, where the rate of child violence and victimization—especially among black children—is just overwhelming. The main aim of this paper is to show that, despite Morrison’s unquestionable narrative skill and her audacious form— with constant shifts in point of view and language—one must conclude that the theme
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En este artículo presentamos un marco analítico basado en el concepto de pertenencia, que tiene en consideración las dimensiones personales, sociales y performativas del proceso de integración de la juventud inmigrante. Este concepto de... more
En este artículo presentamos un marco analítico basado en el concepto de pertenencia, que tiene en consideración las dimensiones personales, sociales y performativas del proceso de integración de la juventud inmigrante. Este concepto de pertenencia se perfila como uno de los principales ejes de la investigación actual ya que permite analizar tanto las experiencias subjetivas como el entorno social que afectan a la vida cotidiana y conforman el marco identitario de los jóvenes inmigrantes. Al tiempo que incorpora la dimensión participativa.
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The tragic story of Melquiades Estrada in Tommy Lee Jone’s prize-winning 2005 film could easily be one of the case histories in Oscar Martinez’s already classic Border People (1994), which brings togetherpersonal narratives that deal with... more
The tragic story of Melquiades Estrada in Tommy Lee Jone’s prize-winning 2005 film could easily be one of the case histories in Oscar Martinez’s already classic Border People (1994), which brings togetherpersonal narratives that deal with cross-border migration, transnational interaction, irregular labor, ethnic confrontation and border control. Born and raised on the Texan-Mexican border, Jones is not unfamiliar with these dynamics taking place in border regions, which prove to be a unique human environment deeply marked by transnational processes and, yet, also signs of resistance on both sides to fully embrace or reject the other culture. The Three Burials is a serious attempt at incarnating the spirit of the place, documenting accurately its mixed culture, and describing the pain that most of its inhabitants suffer from. Several reviewers have rightly argued that Jones’ film, like Unforgiven (1992) and Lone Star (1996), “offers another twist on the Western genre, breaking conven...
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The contents of this site is subject to the French law on intellectual property and is the exclusive property of the publisher. The works on this site can be accessed and reproduced on paper or digital media, provided that they are... more
The contents of this site is subject to the French law on intellectual property and is the exclusive property of the publisher. The works on this site can be accessed and reproduced on paper or digital media, provided that they are strictly used for personal, scientific or educational purposes excluding any commercial exploitation. Reproduction must necessarily mention the editor, the journal name, the author and the document reference. Any other reproduction is strictly forbidden without permission of the publisher, except in cases provided by legislation
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EL PRINCIPAL OBJETIVO DE ESTA TESIS ES INCORPORAR LOS RELATOS CORTOS DE AMBROSE BIERCE AL CANON DE LA LITERATURA NORTEAMERICANA DE FINALES DEL SIGLO XIX DEL CUAL HAN SIDO HABITUALMENTE EXCLUIDOS POR SU NATURALEZA EXPERIMENTAL. MI ESTUDIO... more
EL PRINCIPAL OBJETIVO DE ESTA TESIS ES INCORPORAR LOS RELATOS CORTOS DE AMBROSE BIERCE AL CANON DE LA LITERATURA NORTEAMERICANA DE FINALES DEL SIGLO XIX DEL CUAL HAN SIDO HABITUALMENTE EXCLUIDOS POR SU NATURALEZA EXPERIMENTAL. MI ESTUDIO INTENTA DEMOSTRAR QUE, SI SUS OBRAS HAN SIDO CONSIDERADAS EXCESIVAMENTE COMPLEJAS -E INCLUSO "OSCURAS"- ESTO SE HA DEBIDO, SOBRETODO, A LO RESTRINGIDO DE LAS HERRAMIENTAS CRITICAS Y ANALITICAS DE LAS QUE SUS ESTUDIOSOS DISFRUTARON EN EL PASADO. YA EN UNA EPOCA POSTMODERNISTA Y CON LA AYUDA DE TEORIAS ESTRUCTURALISTAS Y DE LA ESTETICA DE LA RECEPCION, RESULTA EVIDENTE QUE LOS RELATOS DE BIERCE NOS OFRECEN MUCHO MAS QUE UNA SERIE DE REFLEJOS DE SU CINICA PERSONALIDAD. LA METODOLOGIA UTILIZADA PARA ALUMBRAR LAS MUCHAS INNOVACIONES QUE LA FICCION DE BIERCE TRAJO A LA POETICA Y LA ESTILISTICA MODERNA HA SIDO EL "READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM" EN SUS VARIEDADES TANTO EUROPEAS COMO NORTEAMERICANAS. ESTA APROXIMACION A SU OBRA HA SIDO PARTIC...
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EnglishAlthough we still think of American Indians as riding horses, paddling canoes or hunting buffalo, the fact is that three out of four Native Americans now live in cities. The migration from the backwoods and reservations to the big... more
EnglishAlthough we still think of American Indians as riding horses, paddling canoes or hunting buffalo, the fact is that three out of four Native Americans now live in cities. The migration from the backwoods and reservations to the big metropolises began late in the 19th century, but only gained great momentum after World War II. While Sherman Alexie’s early fiction focused on the tribulations faced by American Indians on reservations, by the turn of the new millennium he was portraying the experiences of the Native diaspora in urban areas. In the two collections of short stories The Toughest Indian in the World (2000) and Ten Little Indians (2003), Alexie captures the more complex and unpredictable relationships that Native Americans build in diverse and fluid urban spaces. These new relationships are often marked by feelings of loss (of tribal bonds), alienation (from other human groups), nostalgia, ambition, and other psycho-social diseases. Helped by the ideas of experts such ...
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This chapter shows how Louise Erdrich’s The Round House (2012) can be productively analysed to delve into such momentous issues as the common vulnerability of particular human groups (in this case, Native Americans); how these groups... more
This chapter shows how Louise Erdrich’s The Round House (2012) can be productively analysed to delve into such momentous issues as the common vulnerability of particular human groups (in this case, Native Americans); how these groups (despite their marginal(ized) position) have been able to cope with historical trauma; and the kind of strategies they have developed to survive in a hostile socio-political context. Drawing upon concepts and ideas used in studies on traumatic memories and the politics of mourning, Ibarrola-Armendariz explores how Erdrich’s novel articulates a response to a problem—the assaults on Indian women—that has historically plagued her people. The protagonist-narrator of the story, Joe Coutts, is faced with the difficult challenge of recovering from both an individual and a cultural trauma.
A diferencia de sus obras anteriores (Interpreter of Maladies (1999) y The Namesake (2003", que indagaban en los conflictos identitarios y los problemas de incorporacion de inmigrantes indios a otras culturas, la ultima coleccion de... more
A diferencia de sus obras anteriores (Interpreter of Maladies (1999) y The Namesake (2003", que indagaban en los conflictos identitarios y los problemas de incorporacion de inmigrantes indios a otras culturas, la ultima coleccion de relatos de Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth (2008), parece centrarse sobre todo en la representacion del paisaje interior de sus personajes para abordar temas mas complicados y universales como la muerte y el duelo, la soledad, las relaciones hombre-mujer o las que se producen en el entorno familiar. Si bien asuntos relativos a las migraciones y al proceso de integracion aun ocupan cierto espacio en este libro, resulta claro que el enfasis se ve desplazado de los choques interculturales a otros de caracter intergeneracional o de genero. Este trabajo estudia los cambios que este desplazamiento en los intereses de la autora produce tanto en su eleccion de los temas como en el tratamiento que estos reciben.
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This essay takes up the relationship between ethnic autobiography and the teaching of American Literature and writing. The author argues that ethnic self-narratives, represented here by Richard Rodriguez's "Hunger of... more
This essay takes up the relationship between ethnic autobiography and the teaching of American Literature and writing. The author argues that ethnic self-narratives, represented here by Richard Rodriguez's "Hunger of Memory," prove an invaluable asset to teach foreign students the codes and rituals of the American culture, and to speak of their own cultural identity in productive ways. Underlying the whole discussion of Rodriguez's autobiography, there is the conviction that this text can be an excellent resource to elicit significant intellectual and emotional responses from students to such crucial issues as the development of a personal identity or the search of an adequate discourse to portray it. The article moves from a consideration of the major achievements in this literary work (affective temperature, hybric nature or genre indeterminacy) to the discussion of the central question raised in the paper: "what is it that makes of "Hunger of Memory&qu...
The famous sentence that African-American novelist Zora Neale Hurston chose as a title for her novel comes up at a very critical moment of the story when, confronted with the “monstropolous beast” of a Caribbean hurricane, many of the key... more
The famous sentence that African-American novelist Zora Neale Hurston chose as a title for her novel comes up at a very critical moment of the story when, confronted with the “monstropolous beast” of a Caribbean hurricane, many of the key characters realize that social codes and norms begin to lose their weight and functionality. The author uses the example of the 1928 hurricane that struck the Everglades in Florida to illustrate all kinds of intriguing shifts in the human relations and social structures that had developed among different groups throughout the novel. Some scholars have argued that “questions of gender, class, and race rise in structural and figural importance in the latter part of the book, building toward, and away from, the hurricane” (Duplessis 1990). It is indeed undeniable that this natural disaster compels socio-racial collectivities and specific individuals to rethink their positions regarding others.
This research briefing includes some preliminary results of a European Research Project under the title of GEITONIES, which was funded by the 7th Framework Program of the EU between 2008 and 2011. “Geitonies” is the Greek term for... more
This research briefing includes some preliminary results of a European Research Project under the title of GEITONIES, which was funded by the 7th Framework Program of the EU between 2008 and 2011. “Geitonies” is the Greek term for neighborhood, and the multinational research team involved in this Project departed from the assumption that shared urban spaces prove vital in the creation of tolerance, mutual trust, inclusion, participation and social cohesion. In this sense, choosing the neighborhood as the main unit of analysis has allowed these researchers to explore some of the age-old sociological dilemmas related to interethnic relations and social cohesion from a new vantage point; furthermore, integration issues have also been reformulated by dealing with them from a relational perspective. The fieldwork was carried out in 18 neighborhoods of six different European cities (Lisbon, Rotterdam, Bilbao, Thessaloniki, Vienna and Warsaw). These neighborhoods served as a laboratory whe...
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The teaching of writing has been central to U.S. universities from the time of the first institutions to the present. What might justify the considerable investment of resources required to promote and manage the work of hundreds of... more
The teaching of writing has been central to U.S. universities from the time of the first institutions to the present. What might justify the considerable investment of resources required to promote and manage the work of hundreds of thousands of student writers, semester to semester, year to year, generation to generation? Whose desires and needs are represented in these courses? This essay will present a representative student essay and use it to think about the issues and concerns, pedagogical and political, that converge in the composition classroom.
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The journey back home to Lotus, Georgia, that the protagonist of Morrison�s latest novel, Frank Money, undertakes is planted with too many obstacles to turn it into the kind of �reconnecting experience� that would help him to recover from... more
The journey back home to Lotus, Georgia, that the protagonist of Morrison�s latest novel, Frank Money, undertakes is planted with too many obstacles to turn it into the kind of �reconnecting experience� that would help him to recover from the traumas he suffers from. Frank�s sense of alienation is exacerbated by some hateful childhood memories, his participation in the Korean War and his painful losses there, the failure to support the woman he loves, and the racism that he still experiences in the U.S. of the 1950s. Home (2012) offers ample grounds to discuss topics such as acts of remembrance, memory traces, the politics of mourning, and direct (and indirect) representations of trauma and sorrow. Yet, the main question the novel poses is to what extent Frank�s journey to rescue his younger sister, Cee, helps him to achieve some kind of redemption and whether that redemption is fully materialized at the end of the novel
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Although in appearance a hilarious literary work about border crossing and cultural interaction, Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water also proves to be an effective narrative of resistance in which a severe critique of the... more
Although in appearance a hilarious literary work about border crossing and cultural interaction, Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water also proves to be an effective narrative of resistance in which a severe critique of the socio-surgical incisions that the Western colonial paradigm has inflicted on the indigenous peoples is articulated. By means of a Native brand of humor, which combines techniques such as subversive intertextual references, plays on words, anachronistic elements, the inclusion of trickster figures or the satiric treatment of stereotypes, King manages to undo the white man’s performance of epistemological and spiritual domination. This article shows how the comic sign that Vizenor, Allen, Arteaga, and others have studied in the oral storytelling and the literature of the oppressed can in fact be turned into a successful weapon to disarm the oppressor in unequal power relations. A close reading of King’s text reveals that humor can be productively used to challen...
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The journey back home to Lotus, Georgia, that the protagonist of Morrison’s latest novel, Frank Money, undertakes is planted with too many obstacles to turn it into the kind of “reconnecting experience” that would help him to recover from... more
The journey back home to Lotus, Georgia, that the protagonist of Morrison’s latest novel, Frank Money, undertakes is planted with too many obstacles to turn it into the kind of “reconnecting experience” that would help him to recover from the traumas he suffers from. Frank’s sense of alienation is exacerbated by some hateful childhood memories, his participation in the Korean War and his painful losses there, the failure to support the woman he loves, and the racism that he still experiences in the U.S. of the 1950s. Home (2012) offers amplegrounds to discuss topics such as acts of remembrance, memory traces, the politics of mourning, and direct (and indirect) representations of trauma and sorrow. Yet, the main question the novel poses is to what extent Frank’s journey to rescue his younger sister, Cee, helps him to achieve some kind of redemption and whether that redemption is fully materialized at the end of the novel.
It is not easy to come across individuals who enjoy the advantage of having been the actors of certain historical processes by having actively participated in the evolution and transformation of particular human groups and,... more
It is not easy to come across individuals who enjoy the advantage of having been the actors of certain historical processes by having actively participated in the evolution and transformation of particular human groups and, simultaneously, of being among the key analysts of those processes by having mastered the skills necessary to interpret them in the most appropriate light. But such is the case examined here, of a Cuban-born scholar has been one of the most prominent scholars in the field of Migration and Refugee Studies in the U.S. over the past several decades, yet who has never lost sight of the sociopolitical events taking place on the island nor the metamorphoses that the Cuban diaspora has undergone over time. The body of this article has been divided into two sections in which we hope to get a fairly in-depth knowledge of Professor Rumbaut’s experiences and impressions as both a subject and privileged observer of the path followed by Cuban migrants/exiles in the U.S. The queries in the first section delve into more personal recollections, since we are primarily interested here in learning what the experience of becoming an exile at a relatively young age was like and what key factors had an incidence on the process of adaptation to the host country. There will be aspects of Rumbaut’s condition as a Cuban-American exile that may sound familiar and comparable to those of other migrants; however, there will presumably be others more specific to the experience of his compatriots and his own family. One aim of this first set of questions would be to ascertain which elements of the migratory passage have helped/hindered the integration in the receiving country and which others have contributed to maintaining some ties with the motherland. In the second section, our attention will turn to collective issues regarding the Cuban diaspora in the U.S.