The Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature is honored to announce that two of our doctoral students, Beatriz Solla Vilas and Jesús Jiménez Valdés, have been awarded the Edward Guiliano ‘78 Fellowship, which supports research for Stony Brook University graduate students.  The fellowships will be used this spring 23 for research travel in South America towards the generation of publishable articles and the advancement of their dissertations.

Beatriz Solla Vilas, a native from Galicia, Spain, presented a research project titled “Becoming Travesti: Self-narrative and activism in transgender Brazilian literature.” Thanks to the Guiliano fellowship, Beatriz will travel to Rio de Janeiro to do research at the National Library and National Archive and to Salvador de Bahia to visit the archives and galleries of the Museu Transgênero de História e Arte (MUTHA).

Jesús Jiménez Valdés, born in Seville, Spain, presented a research plan on “Local archives and imperial Texts: Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa’s scientific writing in the 18^th century,” which will take him to Lima, Perú, to do research at local archives, the National Library and museums, as well to establish contact with city universities and local academics.

The Edward Guiliano ‘78, PhD, Global Fellowship Program, “provides students with the opportunity to broaden their perspectives by engaging with the world beyond Stony Brook University and their local communities.” The ultimate goal of this prestigious fellowship program is to provide graduate students at Stony Brook with the opportunities to have a transformational educational experience.

¡Muchas gracias a todes por esta gran conferencia graduada! Queremos agradecer al @stonybrook_gso, @lacs_sbu, al @sbuhumanities, a les discussants, a nuestre Speaker PJ DiPietro, a lxs participantes y a lxs asistentes.
¡Fue un día maravilloso y esperamos repetir tan buena experiencia el próximo año!

Conference Schedule Friday Nov 4, 2022

Each panel has its own Zoom link.

9:30a-11:00am. Panel 1. Desplazamientos geo-afectivos: raza y territorialidad
Discussant: Prof. Javier Uriarte (HLL). HUM 2036.

O nascimento do rei e a cura do vira-latismo? Pelé, Nelson Rodrigues e a identidade racial brasileira na Copa de 1958.
Paulo Soares (Stony Brook University)

La palabra que se aplaza en gesto. Implicancias intertextuales de los pensadores martiniquenses Frantz Fanon y Édouard Glissant.
Valentina Pucci (Stony Brook University)

(Des)Amores: trayectorias migrantes en el cine de tema andino.
Mario Alexis Hernando Cubas (Johns Hopkins University)

Searching for Grounded Normativity in the Sertão.
Michael Mcmahon (Stony Brook University)

9:30am-11:00am Panel 2. Traslaciones de lo queer: migraciones y cuerpos
Discussant: Prof. Lena Burgos Lafuente (HLL). HUM 1051.

“Un aquelarre de brujas multicolores”. Comunidades de afectos y experiencia suburbana en Las biuty queens de Monalisa Ojeda.
Juan Evaristo Valls Boix (Universidad de Barcelona)

Queer-Cuir Translations and the Affective Holding of Suspicion.
Galia Cozzi (Stony Brook University)

Afecto, disidencia sexual y la política del deseo en La manzana de Adán (Paz Errázuriz y Claudia Donoso, 1990) y Arte social por las trochas, hecho a palo, patá y kunfú (Argelia Bravo, 2011).
Patricia Gonzalez (New York University)

Forced displacement or a voluntary movement? The search for belonging in Futuro Beach/Praia do Futuro.
Simone Calvacante (University of Pennsylvania)

A chilean drama queer. Los límites afectivos de la disidencia sexual en las series de ficción.
Cristeva Alexis Cabello Valenzuela (New York University)

11:10am-12:40pm Panel 3. Escribir los afectos: ¿una cuestión de género?
Discussant: Prof. Kathleen Vernon (HLL). HUM 2036.

Las (im)posibilidades del afecto en el desarrollo de las mujeres en Una holandesa en América e Ifigenia.
José Miguel Fonseca Fuentes (The Pennsylvania State University)

Reclusión y afecto: la construcción de la poética de la mujer escritora en Porqué hacen tanto ruido de Carmen Ollé.
Grober Omar Quichua Ayvar (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú)

El realizador como amante: las estrategias de escucha en el cine de Gustavo Vinagre
Andrés Felipe Ardila Ardila (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

La agencia femenina en el campo del amor en Despertar a quien duerme de Lope de Vega
Sandra Melissa Nathalie Huaringa Niño (Brown University)

11:10am-12:40pm Panel 4. De lo personal a lo público: representaciones sociales del cuerpo
Discussant: Prof. Matías Hermosilla. HUM 1051.

Posporno: del cuerpo deseado al cuerpo politizado.
María Isabel Reverón Peña y Mario Antonio Parra Pérez (Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia)

Archivo anodino. Materia de archivo.
Samuel Espíndola Hernández (Stony Brook University)

Infancia nicaragüense: focalizaciones desde la precariedad en La Yuma (2009) y El Camino (2008).
Eric Barenboim (The City University of New York)

12:45pm-1:30pm Lunch

1:45pm-3:15pm Panel 5. Ese oscuro objeto de lo natural. Miradas desviadas de la naturaleza en el arte y la literatura
Discussant. Prof. Paul Firbas (HLL). HUM 2036.

Límites del posthumanismo queer latinoamericano: La mucama de Omicunlé de Rita Indiana.
Gabriel Rudas (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá)

Sir Gawain y el caballero verde (S.XIV): La perturbación del deseo en el amor cortés y en la representación ética/estética de la naturaleza.
Pilar Espitia (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá)

Dos sexos en un cuerpo; una naturaleza perfecta. El caso de Juana Aguilar, hermafrodita que confirma el binarismo de género.
Mario Henao (Stony Brook University)

Sexilio de las compatriotas: Acústicas, amistades y archivos del performance transgénero y Travesti.
Ignacio Andrés Pastén López (The City University of New York)

3.30pm Keynote Speaker Presentation. Humanities Institute Room

PJ Dipietro (Syracuse University)

5pm Conference closure

See here the full GRADCON 22 PDF brochure (Spanish, English and Portuguese)

Calaveras Literarias, or Literary Skulls, are compositions of verse and rhymes, originally from Mexico. These poems typically circulated in the days leading up to the Day of the Dead. They are fun and  irreverent expressions that usually satirize a well-known person or event by playfully parodying the inevitable death of those involved.

Following the spirit of the calaveritas,  our Hispanic Languages and Literature  undergraduate students (SPN 100 to 300 level) have written 931 poems to compete in what might very well be the largest literary contest on campus! The winners in the three categories will be announced during the Día de los Muertos celebration in the LACS gallery in SBS N-320 on Wed. Nov. 2nd (2022) from 1 to 2.20 pm. Congratulations to all students that participated. Our thanks to all HLL faculty and Teaching Assistants (graduate students) that contributed to this literary event, coordinated by Dr. Lilia Ruiz- Debbe.  The jury was composed of six faculty members in our department: Aura Colón, Elena Davidiak, Lena Burgos-Lafuente, Luis Rodríguez Chávez, Pablo García Gámez and Zaida Corniel.

Our Calaveras Literarias Contest is a fun language exercise in humorous rhymes and verses.  A good Literary Skull is ingenious, ironic, subtle, uses caricatures and has a certain rhyme and rhythm. These can be in English, Spanish or bilingual.

The structure of the calaveritas literarias typically consists of stanzas of four lines in which the second line rhymes with the last, or stanzas of five in which the third line rhymes with the last. The length of the poem varies, but this is often short. However, nowadays people do not follow a particular structure, sometimes these being written in a form of ‘blank verse’ or even free verses. The calaveritas always put an emphasis on musicality.

Though the caleveritas or literary skulls have been around since the colonial era, they were popularized in Mexican newspapers in the nineteenth century. Inspired by long and ostentatious epitaphs of nobles, Mexican literary artists used this format to criticize governing officials. Some literary critics believe that friar Joaquín Bolaños’ “La portentosa vida de la muerte” is a precursor to the Literary Skulls of the 1800s. The first Skull to appear in a newspaper was in 1849, in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), the great Mexican graphic artist and satirist, author of the iconic Calavera Catrina, an etching of 1910-1913 that satirized upper class women before the Mexican Revolution, also wrote satiric poems. Here is one stanza of Guadalupe Posada’s calaverita, an invitation to participate in the joy of writing:

Quien quiera gozar de veras
y divertirse un ratón,
venga con las calaveras
a gozar en el panteón.