This fascinating book examines the particular importance of cities in Spanish and Hispanic-American culture as well as the different meanings that artists and cartographers invested in their depiction of New and Old Wold cities and towns. Kagan maintains that cities are both built human structures and human communities, and that representations of the urban form reflect both points of view. He discusses the peculiar character of Spain's empire of towns; the history and development of the cityscape as an independent artistic genre, both in Europe and the Americas; the interaction between European and native mapping traditions; differences between European maps of urban America and those produced by local residents, whether native or creole; and the urban iconography of four different New World towns. Lavishly illustrated with a variety of maps, pictures, and plans, many reproduced here for the first time, this interdisciplinary study will be of interest to general readers and to specialists in art history, cartography, history, urbanism, and related fields.
Esta obra de colaboración entre un medievalista y un especialista del renacimiento intenta situar a Jeroen van Aken y su obra, con rigor científico, en un período de crisis como el representado por el mundo del Medievo en el "Mundo Moderno".
In May 1868, architect Charles Garnier embarked on a month-long journey through Spain, accompanied by his wife, Louise, and two friends, architect Ambroise Baudry and painter Gustave Boulanger. They traversed the country from San Sebastien to Cádiz, then visited Granada, Valencia, Figueras and Perpignan before finally returning to Paris. Throughout the journey, Garnier and Boulanger absorbed all they saw. Their previously unpublished notebook, in which prosaic itinerary notes (expenses, accommodation and transport) are mixed with perceptive observations, is presented here in a double-volume set that reproduces the original along with a full translation and scholarly texts.
This fascinating book examines the particular importance of cities in Spanish and Hispanic-American culture as well as the different meanings that artists and cartographers invested in their depiction of New and Old Wold cities and towns. Kagan maintains that cities are both built human structures and human communities, and that representations of the urban form reflect both points of view. He discusses the peculiar character of Spain's empire of towns; the history and development of the cityscape as an independent artistic genre, both in Europe and the Americas; the interaction between European and native mapping traditions; differences between European maps of urban America and those produced by local residents, whether native or creole; and the urban iconography of four different New World towns. Lavishly illustrated with a variety of maps, pictures, and plans, many reproduced here for the first time, this interdisciplinary study will be of interest to general readers and to specialists in art history, cartography, history, urbanism, and related fields.
Finally, the Colombian Fernando Vallejo’s masterpiece, The Abyss, is available in English in a stunning translation by Yvette Siegert Winner of the Rómulo Gallego Prize, The Abyss is a caustic masterwork of incredible power and force, an unforgettable autobiographical work of queer fiction. The novel tells about the demise of a crumbling house in Medellín, Colombia. Fernando, a writer, visits his brother Darío, who is dying of AIDS. Recounting their wild philandering and trying to come to terms with his beloved brother’s inevitable death, Fernando rants against the political forces that cause so much suffering. Vallejo is the heir to Céline, Thomas Paine, and Machado de Assis. He hurls vitriolic, savagely funny insults at his country (“I wipe my ass with the new Constitution of Colombia”) and at his mother (“the Crazy Bitch”) who has given birth to him and his many siblings. Within this firestorm of pain, Fernando manages to get across much beauty and truth: that all love is painful and washed in pure sorrow. He loves his sick brother and the family’s Santa Anita farm (the lost paradise of his childhood where azaleas bloomed); and he even loves his country, now torn to shreds. Always, in this savage masterpiece about loss—as if in the eye of Vallejo’s hurricane of talent—we are in the curiously comforting workings of memory and of the writing process itself, as, recollecting time, it offers immortality.
This work will be volume 124 in the Flora Neotropica Monograph book Series, Lawrence M. Kelly (Editor-in-Chief). Flora Neotropica volumes provide taxonomic treatments of plant groups or families growing in the Americas between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. This monograph on Panicum (Poaceae), known as panicgrass, was written by the world-leading authority on this plant group. A total of one genus and 63 species are described. It also includes information on conservation, phylogenetic relationships, taxonomic history, ecology, cytology, and anatomy, among other topics. This is the first comprehensive volume on this topic since the 1920s and is lavishly illustrated with line drawings, black and white photographs, and distribution maps.
Como el da del Bautismo, de pronto el cielo cambi de forma, o de profundidad, la noche se trunc en una gran masa de manto negro y temible. Desaparecieron las estrellas, la luna nunca haba salido, ahora estara tragada por la inmensa concavidad de la tormenta que se gesta. No hubo trueno, no hubo relmpago. Se desgarr la oscuridad en un torrente de agua, la lluvia demandada por la escasa fe de Flavinia. Jess que estaba a veinte pasos habra intervenido, despus de todo. Ciertamente no era necesario saberlo. El ruido del agua creci de a poco sobre las piedras colgantes, el agua fue al hoyo en rebanadas de gran fuerza, dilatando el polvo que ya no es. Flavinia se desgarr el manto que se haba aherido a su cuerpo de plomo, se abalanz para abrazar el lodo, y arrancar una raz muerta, una raz que ahora tendra vida, entre el agua, y la tierra que se ha vuelto arcilla; se frot el rostro, el cuello, hundi la cabellera antiguamente quemada, ahora la senta ya resucitar al roce de las rocas, dej que todos sus aos y su cuerpo desnudo se baaran como en Roma, sin perfume, pero con el agua que es ms pura de la que baja del Palatino en Primavera. El Quinto Evangelio establece un nexo entre el primer siglo de la cristiandad y el presente. Se lee en el Captulo de La Ejecucin: "Deodoro Contreras muri a las siete y cuarenta. La cmara qued invisible para Vespasiano y el abogado, y para todos en verdad, cuando se corri una pesada cortina. No les era permitido ver el descenso del cuerpo exnime desde el lecho de lino. Se puede afirmar, sin metforas, que se revivi una vez ms la escena de la muerte en la cruz. No obstante, nadie esper que Contreras pudiera acogerse esta vez a los beneficios de la resurreccin
If there was not so much fiction in News from the Empire, it could be called a work of history. In fact, the focus of this broad work is history itself, as well as the many unrecorded lives and events that history has forgotten from this strange era in Mexico's early nationhood. Using Emperor Maximilian and his wife, Carlota, as a starting point, Fernando Del Paso both considers what Mexico is and the country's place in the larger narrative of world history. The book spans the palaces of Europe and the villages of Mexico, yet despite its broad focus News is a book rich in characters and details, a work that opens up this era of Mexican history to readers without specialized knowledge. Maximilian and Carlota are the focus of the book, and even if they are not explicitly on every page, they are always in the background somewhere, providing the humanizing contradictions that fill it. Del Paso draws a complicated picture of two naïve people placed in a situation they could not manage and a country they did not understand. This innocence is especially inexplicable in the case of Maximilian, who, as brother of Austria's Emperor Franz Josef, should have known something about ruling but is completely unable to govern.
Philosophers and poets in times past tried to figure out why the stainless moon "smoothly polished, like a diamond" in Dante's words, had stains. The agreed solution was that, like a mirror, it reflected the imperfect Earth. Today we smile, but it was a clever way to understand the Moon in a manner that was consistent with the beliefs of their age. The Moon is no longer the "in" thing. We see it as often as the Sun and give it little thought — we've become indifferent. However, the Moon does reflect more than just sunlight. The Moon, or more precisely the nomenclature of lunar craters, still holds up a mirror to an important aspect of human history. Of the 1586 craters that have been named honoring philosophers and scientists, only 28 honor a woman. These 28 women of the Moon present us with an opportunity to meditate on this gap, but perhaps more significantly, they offer us an opportunity to talk about their lives, mostly unknown today.
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in Early Modern Festivals. These spectacles articulated the self-image of ruling elites and played out the tensions of the diverse social strata. Responding to the growing academic interest in festivals this volume focuses on the early modern Iberian world, in particular the spectacles staged by and for the Spanish Habsburgs. The study of early modern Iberian festival culture in Europe and the wider world is surprisingly limited compared to the published works devoted to other kingdoms at the time. There is a clear need for scholarly publications to examine festivals as a vehicle for the presence of Spanish culture beyond territorial boundaries. The present books responds to this shortcoming. Festivals and ceremonials played a major role in the Spanish world; through them local identities as well as a common Spanish culture made their presence manifest within and beyond the peninsula through ephemeral displays, music and print. Local communities often conflated their symbols of identity with religious images and representations of the Spanish monarchy. The festivals (fiestas in Spanish) materialized the presence of the Spanish diaspora in other European realms. Royal funerals and proclamations served to establish kingly presence in distant and not so distant lands. The socio-political, religious and cultural nuances that were an intrinsic part of the territories of the empire were magnified and celebrated in the Spanish festivals in Europe, Iberia and overseas viceroyalties. Following a foreword and an introduction the remaining 12 chapters are divided up into four sections. The first explores Habsburg Visual culture at court and its relationship with the creation of a language of triumph and the use of tapestries in festivals. The second part examines triumphal entries in Madrid, Lisbon, Cremona, Milan, Pavia and the New World; the third deals with the relationship between religion and the empire through the examination of royal funerals, hagiography and calendric celebrations. The fourth part of the book explores cultural, artistic and musical exchange in Naples and Rome. Taken together these essays contribute further to our growing appreciation of the importance of early-modern festival culture in general, and their significance in the world of the Spanish Habsburgs in particular.
Students of Spanish language and culture can now benefit from a text that provides them with an understanding of contemporary Spanish history and society while refining their knowledge of the language and expanding their vocabulary. La España que sobrevive (originally published in Madrid in 1987) explores the aftermath of the Franco era in Spain. It presents an objective and nonpartisan, yet humorous and affectionate, view of the important aspects of contemporary Spanish history and society. Topics include the transition to democracy; regionalism and nationalism; key players in current affairs; important institutions such as the monarchy, military, and the church; sexual mores; culture; the media; and politicized approaches to Spanish history. For this edition, William W. Cressey has edited Fernando Díaz-Plaja's text to make it accessible to English-speaking students at an advanced level of Spanish reading skills. Cressey has also added study aids to the book—vocabulary and footnotes, glosses on proper names, questions for discussion, notes on grammar and rhetoric, and exercises. The study aids are gradually phased out, so that the final chapter is presented as stand-alone reading without any supplementary materials. Cressey's adaptation of Díaz-Plaja's highly respected work provides an alternative to literary sources for foreign language instruction—a new resource for teaching foreign languages across the curriculum and instruction through content. Bridging the gap between the fairly simple intermediate readers and texts written for adult native speakers, this book can serve as either a supplementary or main text in the advanced study of language or history, or in preparation for study abroad. La España que sobrevive is a practical tool for teaching not only the language but also the many facets of modern Spanish culture.
In part the story of its own writing, this quasi-autobiographical, postmodern novel weaves a tale of jealousy, sex, dope and alcoholism around the theme of the narrator’s so-far frustrated literary ambitions. The integral and inalienable setting is the urban Mexico of the mid-1980s, with the Cold War still the international political backdrop to everyday life. Wending his way through angst-ridden erotic entanglements and a session with his Freudian analyst (an anti-Lacanian, we learn), the narrator, who goes by the author’s real name, finally arrives at his dream encounter — and ‘dream’ may well be doubly apt, because the episode’s relation to everyday reality is left undefined — with famed Latin-American author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, Gabriel García Márquez. Perhaps the laureate will write a preface to his latest novel. “It’s about a guy stuck in traffic; he wants to be a writer, to be famous, and Mike, one of the characters, tells him he should write the A Hundred Years of Solitude of the eighties. The guy feels happy at first but then in the middle of the traffic and the smog he realizes that there aren’t any Amarantas and Aurelianos Buendías there, there aren’t any José Arcadios, that all there are are drunks, gangs, poor people trampled by the yuppies — that after all, the jungle is gone.”
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.