Martin Gaspar | Bryn Mawr College (original) (raw)

Papers by Martin Gaspar

Ediciones Uniandes eBooks, Aug 1, 2018

Revista de estudios hispánicos, 2019

[ Research paper thumbnail of Sentimientos encontrados: los epistolarios ficcionales de La novela semanaly sus flirteos cosmopolitas [Contradictory Feelings: the Fictional Epistolary Narratives in La novela semanal and their Cosmopolitan Flirtations](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/109461279/thumbnails/1.jpg)

I volumi e i saggi pubblicati nella collana scientifica Pliegos Hispánicos sono sottoposti a un p... more I volumi e i saggi pubblicati nella collana scientifica Pliegos Hispánicos sono sottoposti a un processo di peer review

Resumen Ambientada en el Renacimiento italiano, con un sádico aristócrata como protagonista y rec... more Resumen Ambientada en el Renacimiento italiano, con un sádico aristócrata como protagonista y recargada de oscuras referencias a la alta cultura, Bomarzo (1962) parece incompatible con los urgentes asuntos de la política lationamericana que asoman en las novelas del boom. Sin embargo, leída desde el género y los estudios de la discapacidad, la novela ostensiblemente remota y conservadora de Manuel Mujica Lainez dialoga oblicuamente con sus contemporáneas. Este ensayo indaga las maneras en que Bomarzo responde a una serie de preocupaciones que circulaban por la literatura de la época: la-creación de conciencia‖, los mecanismos del poder imperialista y, en particular, la renovación de modelos de masculinidad. En definitiva, este ensayo propone que, insospechadamente, el protagonista dandy y queer, físicamente-monstruoso‖ de la novela, revela eficaz las crueldades del sistema imperialista que pareciera celebrar. Palabras claves Bomarzo; monstruosidad; hombre nuevo; novelas del boom; dandismo Before the "new man": dandyism and monstrosity in Manuel Mujica Lainez's Bomarzo Abstract Set in the Italian Renaissance, with a sadic nobleman as protagonist, and bedizened with obscure references to high culture, Bomarzo (1962) seems incompatible with the urgent Latin American political matters that haunt the boom novels of the time. Read through the lens of gender and disability studies, however, Manuel Mujica Lainez's ostensibly remote and conservative fiction addresses preoccupations that are not dissimilar to the Ante el-hombre nuevo‖: dandismo y monstruosidad en Bomarzo, de Manuel Mujica Lainez 135 CeLeHis ones that preoccupied contemporary fictions. This article explores how Bomarzo delves into a series of topics that characterized the literature of the sixties-consciousness raising,‖ imperialist power structures and, especially, the renewal of models of masculinity. Paradoxically, the queer dandy, physically-monstruous‖ protagonist of the novel enables an effective critique of the cruelty of the imperialist system that it seems to celebrate.

Literatura, Jul 1, 2017

The article addresses the following questions from the perspective of history: Is there a Latin A... more The article addresses the following questions from the perspective of history: Is there a Latin American translation theory? What are its contents? First, it identifies the "Latin American need" for translation resulting from the emergence of nation states, and describes its specificities through a comparison with the initial debate on modern Western translation theory carried out in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It then traces the subsequent diverse uses of translation as a procedure in the search for identity. Finally, it discusses the debate between Arguedas and Cortázar at the end of the 1960s, which reveals the tension underlying a Latin American theory of translation. On the basis of the debate and of history itself, the article concludes that one of the main roles of translation in Latin America has been to designate markers of foreignness as a cultural self-definition mechanism.

Routledge eBooks, Feb 3, 2023

Journal of Lusophone Studies, Jun 1, 2018

This article proposes translation as an alternative framework to Brazilian literary history. Firs... more This article proposes translation as an alternative framework to Brazilian literary history. First, it offers a rereading of Pêro Vaz de Caminha's Carta do achamento as a text that narrates attempts at intercultural communication through scenes that stage different attitudes and politics towards translation. Then, it traces the recurring presence of these attitudes (labeled "translation regimes") in major literary events in Brazilian literature. In particular, it focuses on twenty-first century fictions by João Gilberto Noll and Chico Buarque that, like Caminha's text, narrate encounters with unknown languages as intimate episodes that affect individuals' bodies and identities. Through this example, I show how translation enables finding diachronic affinities and unexpectedly recurrent obsessions in Brazilian literary history.

Vulgarity is a recurring theme in Bioy Casares's memoir of his conversations with Borges. 1 Time ... more Vulgarity is a recurring theme in Bioy Casares's memoir of his conversations with Borges. 1 Time and again in the voluminous 2007 book Borges, we find the friends poking fun at the "vulgar" writing of certain authors (Manuel Mujica Lainez, for example, is a favorite target, but Ernesto Sábato, Góngora and Balzac can be vulgar too), or pointing out that Macedonio Fernández and Samuel Butler could produce, on the other hand, "buena vulgaridad." 2 Coarse jokes-like Guillermo Juan Borges's invention of 1 Since Borges constitutes a selection-a controversial one, to boot-the actual presence of this theme in these friends' exchanges may be overrepresented in the book. This does not disprove the fact that vulgarity stands out as a sustained topic in their conversations. Alan Pauls sketched a list of targets of Borges and Bioy Casares's disdain and creative abuse in this volume, and listed vulgarity was among them: "[Borges] practicaba tiro al blanco con sus enemigos (en primer lugar el peronismo, bête noire que no cesa de desafiar al tiempo cambiando de forma; después los comunistas, el psicoanálisis, la literatura de vanguardia, la vulgaridad, etc.)" ("Fiesta"). In Pauls's list, "vulgaridad" appears suggestively as an umbrella term that feeds off and expounds on the previous ones.

Anclajes, 2021

The presence of late 19th century scientific positivism is evident in novels by Roque Larraquy (e... more The presence of late 19th century scientific positivism is evident in novels by Roque Larraquy (especially La comemadre, 2010) and Iosi Havilio (Opendoor, 2006 and Paraísos, 2011), set in part or entirely in the 21st century. I argue that Larraquy finds a narrative tone and character type in turn-of-the-century institutions and archives, whereas Havilio procures a motivation for a protagonist otherwise devoid of passions. For both novelists, the archive functions more as a narrative device than as a search for knowledge or meaning (as it does in boom novels). In this way, both the institutions created in the late 19th century (a psychiatric residence, a hospital, a zoo) and the textual remnants of the time (a botanical encyclopedia, an inaugural speech in a fin-de-siècle ward, a travel narrative, the magazine Caras y Caretas) are retrieved in these contemporary novels through light affective responses, such as curiosity and interest, and spaces of serendipity and abandonment, like t...

Ambientada en el Renacimiento italiano, con un sadico aristocrata como protagonista y recargada d... more Ambientada en el Renacimiento italiano, con un sadico aristocrata como protagonista y recargada de oscuras referencias a la alta cultura, Bomarzo (1962) parece incompatible con los urgentes asuntos de la politica lationamericana que asoman en las novelas del boom . Sin embargo, leida desde el genero y los estudios de la discapacidad, la novela ostensiblemente remota y conservadora de Manuel Mujica Lainez dialoga oblicuamente con sus contemporaneas. Este ensayo indaga las maneras en que Bomarzo responde a una serie de preocupaciones que circulaban por la literatura de la epoca: la “creacion de conciencia”, los mecanismos del poder imperialista y, en particular, la renovacion de modelos de masculinidad. En definitiva, este ensayo propone que, insospechadamente, el protagonista dandy y queer, fisicamente “monstruoso” de la novela, revela eficaz las crueldades del sistema imperialista que pareciera celebrar.

Translation and World Literature, 2018

Voces Femeninas de Hispanoamerica