Consejero de Felipe III en su Real Consejo de Indias: venalidad y corrupción en el servicio a la Monarquía

During the reign of Philip the III, one of the most famous legal proceedings of the 17th century took place. It was conducted against Pedro Franqueza and Alonso Ramírez de Prado, who were charged for taking advantage of the king's trust to obtain personal benefits and in detriment of the Monarchy. Two of the charges were referred to the case of an adviser from Indias: Lic. Francisco Alonso de Villagrá, who might have obtained the position through fraudulent activities with the all-powerful Pedro Franqueza. Based on the analysis of the documents pertaining to this case, the aim of this research is to unravel the events that took place, understand the causes that led Villagrá to become involved and the consequences of the way in which the position was acquired.     

La prudencia de Cortés: teoría política y práctica retórica en la Historia de la conquista de México de Antonio de Solís

The Historia de la conquista de México, published by Antonio de Solís in 1684, and later extensively reissued and translated, has been praised for the ‘elegance’ and ‘sweetness’ of its style. From very early on these qualities made the Historia to be read as a prose model worthy of imitation. Different scholars have studied Solís's sources and the way he manipulated them on the one hand, and, on the other, the extent of the reliability of his account. However, very little has been said about the actual writing practices of the Historia in the context of contemporary historiographical theories, or the author's own ideas about history or politics. This paper analyzes how some of these rhetorical techniques (I particularly focus on the use of oratio figurata, sententia, and epiphoneme) gave shape to Solís's political ideas, in particular the concept of prudence.     

La ejecución de Atahuallpa: Símbolo andino de colapso y resistencia

This article studies Los dramas de Atahuallpa (Atahuallpa's Dramas) as an oral and ritual memory of the Andean natives. In those texts are traces of the resistance of the European domination initiated during the middle of the sixteenth century. They also recall the destruction of the Inca empire. The discussion points out the work done by the panaca, a Tahuantisuyo institution dedicated to preserving the memory of each Incan emperor's public life. During the twentieth century and the present years of the twenty-first, the tradition of representing Atahuallpa's death has been an expression of the political projects built by the native Andean as well as a symbol of the resistance against the conquest and its results.     

La virtud sospechosa: Teresa de Jesús y su condición femenina

ABSTRACT

Teresa de Jesús (1515–1582) lives in a patriarchal society opposed to the intellectual and spiritual development of women, something that she will not only not accept but also fight against, claiming a series of rights (the right to life, to expression, to autonomy, to the free development of her abilities, to have an active role in the Church, to relate to God through prayer, etc.) in spite of the restrictions of censorship and the cloud of suspicion that hung over her for being a mystic, the founder of convents, and the daughter and granddaughter of a converso. Furthermore, Teresa, with her reforms, would present an alternative life for women, as her convents would be spaces for freedom and women's solidarity.     

Mitología e ingenio en el Poema heroico de San Ignacio de Domínguez Camargo

This article examines the mythological motifs in the Poema heroico de San Ignacio, by the Colombian poet Hernando Domínguez Camargo, not only as material extracted from a prestigious culture (i.e., classical culture), but as a starting point for the elaborations of wit, which is the main objective in the aesthetics of the wit.     

“Vivo sin vivir en mí”: YouTube y la poesía de santa Teresa de Jesús

ABSTRACT

The poetry of Saint Teresa of Jesus has not aroused the same interest from the critics as has her prose. There are several reasons for this. However, her poetry has remained in the memory of anyone who has come in contact with it, as well as in public manifestations, one of which is the phenomenon of new media—in particular, YouTube. Consequently, this article presents an analysis of Teresa de Jesus's poem “Vivo sin vivir en mí” (“Live without living in me”) in the context of new media, specifically YouTube, in order to further analyze the oral-auditory impact of her work as a strategy of representation in the reception of her writing and, therefore, expand the communicative possibilities of her writing style close to the spoken language, beyond her time and context.     

Regímenes de memoria misional: formas visuales emergentes en las reducciones jesuٌíticas de América del Sur

Este artículo analiza la formación de regímenes de percepción visual en las misiones jesuíticas de América del sur. La primera parte analiza características generales del proceso de incorporación de imágenes cristianas a los contextos misionales fronterizos en su etapa formativa, asociándolas a una transformación radical de los conceptos nativos de subjetividad. La segunda parte se detiene en la identificación de tres formas visuales emergentes del complejo visual misionero, grabados, cartografía y esgrafiados, los cuales han sido poco estudiados por la literatura especializada hasta el presente. Mi argumento es que dichas formas visuales codifican concepciones negociadas de espacialidad elaboradas en el contexto misionero durante el siglo XVIII. A su vez, constituyen elementos sui generis del proceso más amplio de formación de regímenes de memoria que acompañan y sustentan la nueva administración política y territorial.     

Topoiesis: Procesos de espacialización en la literatura (crítica y metodología)

ABSTRACT

Space in literary texts has been widely studied but poorly systematized. There is no valid method of analysis that gives space a critical meaning. For instance, critics have eluded the fact that time and space cannot be considered separately. On the other hand, they have used concepts or methods from disciplines aside literature such as anthropology, biology, psychology, or geography that do not help clarify the meaning or signification of a literary text. We begin this article by giving a review of the main theoretical and critical positions regarding space in literature from the second half of the twentieth century. We do this in order to evaluate the main results those studies have attained. Later on, we propose a methodology that may clarify the significance of space in a literary text. The concept topoiesis (as far as we know, it has not been used in the humanities) represents for us a key word. It helps us to distinguish one main process where space can turn from a signification practice to the production of meaning in a literary text.