Challenging the Quimera (Sirena) Negra: Unamuno Reads Pardo Bazán

This article examines the literary relationship of Emilia Pardo Bazán and Miguel de Unamuno by analyzing Unamuno's 1905 review of La Quimera, as well as his tribute to Pardo Bazán on the occasion of her death in 1921. These two critical pieces, together with Unamuno's Dos madres and La tía Tula, reveal that while Unamuno dismisses Pardo Bazán's realism in his discussion of her works, he develops in his own fiction alter egos who struggle with dominant female figures, just as he competes with Pardo Bazán's model of authorship.     

Bernardo del Carpio en el Poema de Fernán González

The focus of the Poema de Fernán González falls squarely on its protagonist, the tenth-century Castilian warrior lord known to us today as Count Fernán González. Nevertheless, a third of the poem is devoted to the narration of events and prominent figures who preceded the Count. Most notable among these is Bernardo del Carpio, a fully fictitious epic hero who prefigures the Count in his willingness to fight for the independence of the Castilian nation. This analysis of the narration of Bernardo's heroic deeds against the invading army of Charlemagne is meant to clarify lingering doubts about the sources of the poem and their mode of transmission.     

Epistemologías transculturales: prácticas y producción de conocimientos en zonas de contacto colonial en los Andes y Paraguay

It is proposed that there is an iconographic and epistemological relationship between some drawings in Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Nueva corónica y buen gobierno and the images recorded in several colonial wood vessels (qeros) which circulated widely during the time that Guaman Poma was writing his letter to the King of Spain. This connection shows that the work of Guaman Poma was not an isolated or singular act in the colonial context and that both communicative and creative processes, that of the Nueva corónica and that of the qeros, formed part of a process of shared colonial semiosis through which Andean societies maintained a certain autonomy in the production and circulation of their own discourses. Secondly, the article discusses the epistemological tension that results from the coexistence of different narratives (European and Andean) that used their own temporal and spatial categories to account for new colonial conditions.     

Conflicto político en el Poema de Fernán González

This article deals with the ways in which different political conflicts surrounding the emergence, independence, and consolidation of Castile as a political agent are managed and solved in the Poema de Fernán González. It shows how internal conflicts within the Castilian community are settled by favoring an authoritarian vision of leadership, discouraging consensus and shared decision making. Regarding conflicts with other political domains, the poem legitimizes Castilian independence by means of a narrative that makes natural Castilian claims on Visigothic heritage, while at the same time presenting Castile as following legal procedures and as a victim of external aggression.     

Conciencia nacional y devoción jacobea en el Poema de Fernán González

Jacobean devotion and national awareness are closely related in the Poema de Fernán González (PFG). The great advance of the Reconquest in the thirteenth century and the reevaluation of the past that it caused enabled the broad Hispanic perspective of the PFG. Spain is not only a distant and longed-for reality (“regnum Gothorum”) but a current political concept. This is the frame of the PFG's intense Castilian sentiment. Castile is the bastion of the Visigothic monarchy, which did not yield to the Muslims and was the foundation for the recovery of Spain. The territorial diversity becomes the outstanding feature of this country, in which the “Montaña” takes an important role. Confronting the proposal of the cult of Saint Millán by the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, the author of the PFG, aware of the damages that such a cult was causing to his monastery, clings to the Jacobean devotion that achieved a broad Hispanic scope.     

Jerusalén celestial en los Andes: apropiación iconográfica y autorrepresentación en la pintura mural tardo-colonial

Este artículo estudia la pintura mural de finales del período colonial como fenómeno de un cristianismo andino transcultural y agente. La investigación rastrea y analiza la representación de iglesias locales (en tanto autorrepresentadas en sus propios muros), observando en el motivo iconográfico la apropiación comunitaria del arte de la evangelización y la configuración de identidades locales en nuevas formas visuales. Se destacan las redes de referencia visual de estas imágenes con representaciones coetáneas, así como también su contraste con las técnicas del control doctrinario y con los registros documentales, con el objetivo de comprender la epistemología del espacio religioso forjada en los poblados indígenas de los siglos XVIII y XIX.     

El grutesco en el arte Novohispano: imágenes profanas en los muros conventuales

El propósito de este estudio, además de analizar la forma y significado de la decoración al grutesco en los conventos novohispanos del siglo XVI, es mostrar que hasta ahora en la iconografía conventual no se ha dado la debida importancia a este tipo de decoración para determinar su origen prehispánico o europeo. Los investigadores que han querido interpretar el simbolismo de esta decoración no han ahondado lo suficiente tanto en el estudio de los elementos europeos como en las aportaciones de los pintores indígenas.     

Una relectura de la cronología de los incas de la Miscelánea antártica de Miguel Cabello Valboa (1586)

El presente artículo propone una lectura de la cronología de los incas presente en la Miscelánea antártica (1586) de Miguel Cabello Valboa a la luz de nueva evidencia histórica y textual. La crónica de Cabello ofrece años concretos asociados a la duración y expansión del Tawantinsuyu, razón por la cual fue utilizada por John Rowe (1945) para construir una cronología absoluta para el incario. No obstante el trabajo de Rowe ha sido cuestionado en las últimas décadas por la arqueología, la cronología de Cabello nunca ha sido abandonada del todo. El presente artículo postula que la comparación de fechas entre el registro arqueológico y etnohistórico no es correcta, puesto que parten de premisas distintas. Proponemos que los cálculos de Cabello se basaron en supuestos no empíricos los cuales, más que retratar el pasado verdadero de los incas, buscaban posicionar su historia dentro del providencial esquema que Dios había trazado para la Monarquía hispánica.     

Identidad,pasaportes y vigilancia política: la expulsión de los extranjeros de Buenos Aires en 1809–1810

Due to the crisis caused by the Napoleonic occupation of Spain in 1808 and the general fear of independence movements fostered by French and Portuguese agents, the government of the last viceroy of Buenos Aires, Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, by the end of 1809 decided on the expulsion of foreigners from the Viceroyalty of the River Plate. In order to control and expel the foreigners in an efficient way, the government introduced new measures and institutions of surveillance. While, thus far, a foreigner had been accepted as a neighbour (vecino) by integration, and the marriage to a local woman protected him from expulsion, this social practice now lost its significance. Instead, the political conduct and notably the foreigner's nation of origin now became crucial to his acceptance. This process can be understood in the wider sense of the framework of Atlantic history as an attempt by the Spanish Metropolis to regain control over a region were transimperial networks were very active. This article is based on original documents mainly from the Argentinean National Archive in Buenos Aires and on edited sources.