Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry
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02/15/2019
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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
Publication Deconstructing Cultural Food Borders: The Creation of New Latinidades in Latina Literature through Consumption(2019-02-19) Vigil, ElizabethThis research explores contemporary Latinx literature to examine the way discourse about food is presented as a form of socio-cultural control through the demand for culturally regulated forms of consumption. Judgmental discourse in what is said about food, how it is said, and expected behaviors of consumption are tied to the creation of a collective Latinx cultural identity. This cultural identity and its expected authenticity revolve around eating foods that are considered static segments of Puerto Rican cultural tradition. It works to assess expectations of identity which are forced upon individuals. This investigation looks at how the refusal of cultural foods and the consumption of cross-cultural foods is linked to the crossing of cultural food borders and thereby physical borders. It examines the concept of cultural loyalty through food and the creation of new Latinidades through consumption in Esmeralda Santiago’s, When I Was Puerto Rican.Publication On Being as Passage and Plurality of Self: Postcolonial Caribbean Identity in Merle Hodge's Crick Crack, Monkey(2019-02-15) González Izquierdo, AmandaThis essay examines questions of home and identity in a postcolonial Caribbean context. Situating itself in the dialogue between continental philosophy and postcolonial theory, this research explores how identity formations are processes which negotiate fragmentary demands of being as well as the various ruptures and dislocations that are resultants of colonization. This paper proposes that in thinking of postcolonial identities, we must explicitly and necessarily consider multiplicity, alterity, diaspora, and interstitial spaces. Focusing on Merle Hodge's novel Crick Crack, Monkey, this essay thinks through protagonist Tee's process of becoming, a process which is fluid, dynamic, and never complete. In doing so, this research explores questions about race, enslavement, bearing witness, language, space and place, and (literal and metaphoric) diasporic movements.Publication Curando La Herida: Shamanic Healing and Language in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera(2019-02-15) Lopez, EstefanyThis paper explores the influence of shamanic tropes and philosophy in Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Shamanic philosophy holds that language can materially transform realities, and Anzaldúa applies this framework in her aesthetics. Anzaldúa uses metaphor to reimagine the border not as a partition but as a wound to be healed; this metaphor seeks to transform the U.S/Mexico relationship and undermine the oppressive discourse of US hegemony and white supremacy. Moreover, the intertextual and bilingual nature of the text performs the healing of the wound by generating a new language of mestizaje. These aesthetic tactics are likened to traditional shamanic practices such as the removal of harmful intrusions and glossolalia. Lastly, shamanic philosophy is evaluated relative to two dominant western philosophies of language, logocentrism, and poststructuralism. The value in revisiting shamanic philosophy lies in its radically affective understanding of language, and its potential to empower the marginalized to participate in the formation of mestiza consciousness and more equitable realities.Publication Ritratto di un uomo con simboli: Lorenzo Lotto on Vice and Virtue(2019-02-15) Hurtado, VictorThe art of Lorenzo de Tomasso Lotto (1480-1557) has until recently gained critical attention. Lotto, born in Venice to Tomasso Lotto, lived and traveled throughout Italy. The Portrait of Man with Allegorical Symbols on display at the El Paso Museum of Art is one of Lotto’s most elusive paintings. A man of about thirty years of age is portrayed on a neutral background and divides a set of six allegorical symbols in axially. He gestures toward a set of three symbols hanging from a festoon of laurel leaves: an armillary sphere, intertwined palm branches, and a full-blown bladder. A number of scholars have attempted to identify Lotto’s Ritratto as a self-portrait, a portrait of Marcello Framberti, or an Italian alchemist. These interpretations, however, are not supported by the available evidence. Confining the sitter to a particular identity limits interpretive possibilities and ignores historical and cultural contexts. Thus, this piece examines the portrait as a whole, situating it within its historical, cultural, and artistic contexts, and proposes that Lotto’s Ritratto alludes to a meaning that is philosophical, open-ended, and universal rather than specific and particular.Publication Just War Theory: A Shift in Perspective(2019-02-15) Rocha, HermesWar is an extreme human activity—not only because of the horror of war, but because of the severe emotional, physical, psychological, and moral strain it has on its combatants. Understanding war from the combatant’s point of view is hard enough without personally experiencing war. Without the direct experience of combat, an epistemic gap lies between one who knows what it is like and those lucky enough not to experience it. Consequently, the theoretical propositions of just and unjust conduct in war become difficult to support. I argue that just war theory and its tenets such as jus in bello, or just conduct in war, needs a thorough examination of combat experiences to define the principle with the reality of war in mind. For example, as a precept of moral responsibility in war, jus in bello is an abstract principle which can be supported by concrete historical examples if and only if the epistemic gap between the experience of combat and abstraction is bridged by a consideration of the reality of war.Publication Voices of Duranguito: A Barrio Under Siege(2019-02-15) Lopez Velador, Johanna MDuranguito, the historic first neighborhood of El Paso, Texas, is on the verge of being destroyed. Through the use of oral histories, the experiences of the people who currently live there and those who protect it are captured to tell the unique history of a low income and mostly immigrant elderly community. At this time of turmoil, it is important to capture oral histories in order to highlight the sense of community felt among the residents before those memories are lost. Over one-third of the residents have been displaced already and many others are under threat of being displaced over the next few years. The city government voted to demolish the neighborhood for an arena in 2016. Since then, resistance from the residents and community supporters has further strengthened.Publication Women Being Groomed as Objects of Desire in Romantic Comedies(2019-02-15) Janania, Stephanie MThe films His Girl Friday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Annie Hall are dominated by the male gaze and the men’s expectations of their women partners. In “Women Being Groomed as Objects of Desire in Romantic Comedies,” there is a shift in focus on how the women in these films are perceived and how they are much more like objects for their partner’s pleasure.Publication Gendering of Home and Homelessness in Latinx Literature(2019-02-15) Ahumada, Maria PThis research interrogates the gendering of notions of home and homelessness using the theoretical framing of Anzaldúa in a critical analysis of the works of Sandra Cisneros in The House on Mango Street, and Helena Maria Viramontes' The Moths and Other Stories. The women in these narrative struggle with the societal expectations that are imposed on them through patriarchal ideals, which invade the spaces of their home. This framework can lead to a sense of outsiderness and feelings of homelessness within the home for women when they realize that they are being oppressed by a dominant culture.