De La Vega Research Articles

Food Studies in Latin American Literature: Perspectives on the Gastronarrative ed. by Rocío del Águila and Vanesa Miseres

Reviewed by: Food Studies in Latin American Literature: Perspectives on the Gastronarrative ed. by Rocío del Águila and Vanesa Miseres Elvira Sánchez-Blake Águila, Rocío del, and Vanesa Miseres, editors. Food Studies in Latin American Literature: Perspectives on the Gastronarrative. The U of Arkansas P, 2021. Pp. 248. ISBN 978-1-68226-181-1. This book offers an engaging collection of essays about food culture and literature from the pre-Columbian times to the present spanning discussions of class, race, gender, and nationalisms. This volume is part of the University of Arkansas Press Series on foodways exploration in global food studies. The compilation offers a critical lens to examine broader cultural environmental and ethical issues around food as the center of literary criticism. The authors coin the term “gastronarrative” to describe the object of study (food and literature) and to refer to the methodology, which analyzes literary text in the context of culinary expression. They also establish the correlation between what one eats and who one is as the premises of gastronarratives. Thus, the book presents key moments in Latin American traditions in which foodways are central to the shaping of the continent’s identity politics with food at the core of the literary scene. Throughout the essays contained in the book, the authors do not limit the analysis to literature, but rather as they explain, “insert literary topics, metaphors, and strategies to discussions on food within the humanities” (11). The analysis includes manuscripts, magazines articles, cookbooks, menus, etiquette manuals, visual culture, and other resources to allow for narrato-logical and historiographical inquires. This also brings about the analysis of the intersection of race, gender and class, consumption and consumerism, culinary imaginaries, and a cartography of food culture in Latin America. Food Studies in Latin American Literature opens with a compelling introduction to the field of food studies and its intersection to literature. The analysis departs from Terry Eagleton’s concept of “edible écriture” in which “connections between food and literature allow[s] us to analyze power structures, coloniality, the paradoxes of modernity, and our own complexity as humans in terms of exchange” (4). The authors propose the idea of food as a narrative in and of itself as an expression of aesthetic, political and cultural statements. [End Page 139] They subscribe to Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic structure to create their “own gastrolinguistic sign” as a space where meaning is created. The essays also explore the traditions of Latin American food as rituals and cultural marks from pre-Columbian texts to well-known literary pieces of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. An important discussion deals with how food shaped the modern concept of citizenship, as a mark of national identity, social class, and racial distinction. The chapters in the book organize thematically in four different sections. Part I focuses on indigenous heritage and colonialism. One article discusses food and power as a means of resistance in colonial Andes by examining texts by Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in Peru. Another text refers to the importance of potatoes as a subject or earlier chronicles of the seventeen century and its subsequent incorporation in European diets. A third article focuses on the culinary world of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, discussing the Recetario de Sor Juana, a collection of recipes attributed to the famous nun. It showcases the complex mestizaje of food reflecting the cultural diversity of eighteenth-century Mexican society. Part II illustrates the interaction of national identities, regionalisms and transnational food-ways in nineteenth-century Latin America. One chapter explores how the flow of immigrants affected the ways in which food was incorporated in the social fabric of Mexico and Peru. The argument is that in these countries the elites sought to create societies that were modern, progressive, and up to date looking like United States and Europe. Another essay centers on travel literature of the nineteenth century in Colombia to enlighten discussions of coloniality, race, class, and food. Other essays focus on travel journals where food was a symbol of class. One chapter is devoted to Argentine author Eduarda Mansilla’s Recuerdos de viaje, 1882...

Abstract C115: Racial disparities in tumor profiling testing inferred from continental genetic ancestry determination of 100,000 cancer patients

Abstract There are well documented disparities in the incidence of cancer and outcomes of treatment across patients of different races and ethnicities. This is credited to a variety of factors which include social, structural, and access to care inequities, as well as biological differences that may correlate with race/ethnicity. We aimed to measure racial differences in testing for cancer therapy decision support using real-world data (RWD) from 100,000 de-identified patients who underwent tumor genomic profiling with the Tempus xT next-generation sequencing assay (targeting 648 genes). A challenge for this analysis is that in RWD race/ethnicity is frequently missing from patients’ records. Instead, we used ancestry-informative markers overlapping assay capture regions to infer continental ancestry proportions: Africa, Americas, Europe, East Asia, and South Asia. Our data show that despite a majority of patients being of European descent (72%), our cohort includes 8 to 12-fold more patients with substantial (>50%) non-European ancestry when compared to The Cancer Genome Atlas. Recognizing the complexity of ancestry and race relationships, we imputed several race/ethnicity categories using ancestry admixture thresholds based on literature and our own analysis, demonstrating less than 2% error with available race/ethnicity labels. With imputation, 85% more Black patients were identified within our cohort. Furthermore, Hispanics/Latinos were substantially overrepresented among those missing ethnicity metadata; using imputed ethnicity labels increased the numbers of this patient population by 150%. Patient subpopulation disparities were estimated through comparison of imputed race/ethnicity distributions with the expected overall cohort-level distributions. We observed significantly lower than expected percentages of Black patients with pancreatic (-18%) and urinary tract cancers (-42%), and White patients with breast (-7%) and colorectal (-5%) cancers, whereas higher than expected numbers of Hispanic/Latino patients with colorectal (+22%) and thyroid (+48%), and Asian patients with gallbladder cancer (+32%) were present (p<0.05, chi-squared test). These disparities are unexpected as compared to the ranking of incidence rates in the SEER database by race/ethnicity. Our results show that genetic ancestry inference on genomic data from tumor profiling can partially compensate for the lack of race/ethnicity information in RWD and allow research on disparities and biological race differences in cancer etiology and outcomes. Citation Format: Francisco M. De La Vega, Yannick Pouliot, Brooke Rhead, Justin Guinney. Racial disparities in tumor profiling testing inferred from continental genetic ancestry determination of 100,000 cancer patients [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr C115.

The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora by Felipe Valencia

Reviewed by: The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora by Felipe Valencia María Cristina Quintero Keywords Melancholy, Lyric Vs. Epic Poetry, Lyric Theory, Poetic Self Fashioning, Lyric Victimization Of Women, Garcilaso De La Vega, Alonso De Ercilla, La Auracauna, Fernando De Herrera, Miguel De Cervantes, La Galatea, Juan De Arguijo, Luis De Góngora, Fabula De Polifemo Y Galatea, Soledades, Felipe Valencia, María Cristina Quintero valencia, felipe. The Melancholy Void: Lyric and Masculinity in the Age of Góngora. U of Nebraska P, 2021, 352 pp. In this lucidly written book, Felipe Valencia examines poetic practice in early modern Spain through the prism of what we might call gender and genre trouble. He is concerned with articulating a theory of the lyric by contesting the binary view of lyric and epic as opposing practices: the first associated with effeminacy, and the second with manly pursuits. He explores the intrinsic connection of melancholy, masculinity, and the depiction of victimized women in works by Garcilaso de la Vega, Fernando de Herrera, Juan de Ercilla, Miguel de Cervantes, Juan de Arguijo, and Luis de Góngora. The extensive introduction immediately displays the author’s impressive erudition and interpretive skills, as Valencia traces the philosophical and medical views of melancholy from Classical times to the present. Other topics include the impact of the print market on the production of poetry, the prestige and availability of certain genres and traditions, and the professionalization of poetry. The better part of the introduction is dedicated to new readings of poems by Garcilaso, including “A Boscán, desde la Goleta,” “Ode ad florem Gnidi,”and the first Eclogue. He analyzes the central function of myth (especially that of Apollo and Daphne) in the depiction of physical and psychological violence against women as a prerequisite for the fashioning of a lyric self; this is the theme that will be repeated throughout the book. While not a new topic—feminist critics since Nancy Vickers have exposed the need for a subjugated woman in the construction of male lyric subjectivity— Valencia goes beyond the usual psychoanalytical approach to undertake a more ambitious project, one that traces a chronological trajectory in the development of lyric practice and theory during the “age of Góngora.” [End Page 140] Chapter One, on Alonso de Ercilla, offers an original reading of the Araucana, a work that ostensibly addresses the heroic, masculine exploits associated with the epic. Valencia demonstrates that, in fact, Ercilla is repeatedly “tempted” by the lyric. This paradigmatic epic poem, written by a man who embodied the ideal of armas y letras, contains numerous tropes associated with the lyric: the praise of the beloved, the avowal of sincerity on the part of the poet, and songs of longing and grief. The latter are voiced by the Araucanian women who mourn the absence and death of their lovers during the Spanish conquest of Chile. There is, then, a displacement of the male poetic “I” associated with amatory poetry onto female voices. This gendered ventriloquism, in Valencia’s words, “constitutes a virile mastery of the feminine and thus suppresses the specter of effeminacy that haunted the lyric poet in the Renaissance” (80). Furthermore, Valencia offers the intriguing insight that the ventriloquism of the female voice embodied by the “barbaric” Araucanian women constitutes a form of colonial violence. The second chapter builds on Leah Middlebrook’s notion that Fernando de Herrera’s work represents a poetics of masculinity. According to Valencia, Herrera wants to restore virility to lyric by composing verse that is heroic (manifested in Icharian osadía), despite depicting the “lighter” themes of love and desire. Algunas obras and the Anotaciones on Garcilaso develop a theory of the lyric in dialectic with the epic. Through allusions to both Orpheus and Apollo, Herrera fashions a forceful lyric persona that subtly subverts Garcilaso in order to place himself “at the summit of the canon” (110). After a careful overview of the Orpheus myth in Classical and Renaissance texts, Valencia maintains that Herrera accentuates the psychological violence inflicted on Euridyce in order to mitigate the association of effeminacy found in some homosexual versions of the myth. Finally, through close and...

British Enlightenment Theatre: Dramatizing Difference

British Enlightenment Theatre: Dramatizing Difference

CHARACTERIZATION OF LIME MORTAR AND PLASTERS OF FORTRESS CONCEPCION DE LA VEGA

The arrival of Christopher Columbus in America stimulated the creation of new settlements in which the materials and construction methods coming from Spain and those existing in the area were used. The first village built was La Isabela (1494) where the Spaniards found good limestone for ashlars and were able to make lime as well as good clay for earth walls, masonry walls, etc. After La Isabela, the cities of La Vega (1495) and Santo Domingo (1498) were established. These villas still include vestiges of these building materials that are a source of information about their composition. The study is focused on the ruins of the fortress of Concepcion de La Vega that survived the earthquake in 1562 that destroyed the city. The aim of this research was to characterize the mortar and plasters of the fortress of Concepcion de La Vega on the Hispaniola Island. To determine their chemical and mineralogical composition optical microscopy (OM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy and a thermogravimetric differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) were used. The results showed that the major component of the mortars was CaCO3 (95 %), indicating that there is lime mortar. The plaster is lime based with iron oxide.

Spanish Thinking about Animals

This book gathers the work of 15 Spanish scholars working in the field of animal studies. It presents an interdisciplinary overview of humans’ abusive relationship with animals in Spanish art (in a chapter by Verónica Perales Blanco), literature (in chapters by Carmen Flys-Junquera, José Marchena Domínguez, José Manuel Marrero Henríquez, and Diana Villanueva-Romero), film (in a chapter by Claudia Alonso-Recarte and Ignacio Ramos-Gay), philosophy (in chapters by Lydia de Tienda, Jesús Mosterín, Alicia Puleo, and Marta Tafalla), and law (in a chapter by Nuria Menéndez de Llano). It also contains a chapter discussing the rise of the antispeciesist movement (by Estela Díaz and Oscar Horta) and an annotated bibliography on speciesism (by Daniel Dorado). The book aims to challenge human exceptionalism in Spain by examining ethical and aesthetic arguments, as well as cultural representations of animals (p. xxvii).A significant part of the book is devoted to bullfighting. This focus is justified: Spain as a whole has a bad reputation for animal cruelty because of this practice, even though only a small minority of Spaniards support bullfighting.1 Bullfighting is a national fiesta and seen as an important part of Spain's cultural heritage. It has, moreover, been promoted by iconic artists such as Federico García Lorca and Pablo Picasso (p. xxi), as well as celebrated contemporary authors like Mario Vargas Llosa and Fernando Savater (p. 130).2Around 60,000 animals are annually tortured in popular festivals in Spain. This includes not only bulls and cows, but also horses, geese, goats, lambs, and various other animals (p. xxi).3In her chapter “Animals as Ornaments: On the Aesthetic Instrumentalization of Animals,” Marta Tafalla argues that one form of animal exploitation is aesthetic instrumentalization, that is, using animals as ornamental objects to provide humans with aesthetic pleasure (p. 54). Bullfighting is a legally protected example of aesthetic instrumentalization, as the law treats this activity as a form of art (p. 55), comparable to flamenco. In fact, bullfighters go as far as declaring bullfighting “the art of arts” (ABC, 2017).Jesús Mosterín's chapter “Failed Arguments in Defense of Bullfighting” provides a concise list of counterarguments against common arguments in favor of bullfighting, useful for politicians, policymakers, and animal rights activists working on banning this activity. For example, Mosterín argues that there have been many cruel traditions that society has censured and abolished, such as burning heretics and the Chinese custom of binding women's feet. He accordingly argues that “culture is not static; it is a dynamic reality, constantly changing, subject to diverse influences, one of which is rational criticism” (p. 131).4The exact origin of the famous idiom “take the bull by the horns,” meaning to decisively deal with a difficult or dangerous situation, is unknown. Some ascribe this idiom to bullfighting, others to the American Old West, and yet others to farmers’ practice of controlling bulls by holding their horns. In any case, Spanish scholars and animal rights advocates are currently taking bullfighting “by the horns,” campaigning to ban this cruel practice in Spain. In fact, the Canary Islands banned bullfighting in 1991 and Catalonia followed suit in 2010 (p. xxii).5 Unfortunately, other cruel festivals involving animals, such as cockfighting and correbous, are still celebrated in those regions.6 In 2016, one of the cruelest festivals in Spain, the Toro de la Vega in Tordesillas (Valladolid), involving spearing a bull to death, was finally banned after relentless opposition from the animal rights movement (p. xxii).7Despite these important advances, bullfighting is still protected and promoted by Spanish law and financed by the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy Programme (Eurogroup for Animals, 2020). The special attention this volume gives to bullfighting is justified because understanding bullfighting is essential to understanding why animals do not receive greater legal protection in Spain. The law must be consistent with bullfighting. In bullfighting, a bull is painfully and repeatedly stabbed and finally killed with a sword, as the crowd applauds. A law that permits bullfighting is a law that permits animals to be tortured and killed. Thus, the existence of bullfighting is bad not only for bulls but for all animals, since other animals are left without adequate legal protection in order for bullfighting to continue.This and other interesting topics can be found in this wide-ranging and up-to-date collection. The volume will be of interest to anybody following the latest research in the field of animal studies in Spain as well as anyone interested in understanding and ending cruel uses of animals and cruel traditions involving animals.The author wishes to thank Paula Casal, Carlos Contreras, John Horden, and the editors of the Journal of Animal Ethics for their editorial support.

Maria Sanchez y Fray Francisco Nunez de la Vega. Una India y su Obispo: Inquisicion y Confesion

In 1685, recently arrived to his diocese, Bishop Núñez de la Vega confronted a complex case brought against a group of “hechiceros, brujos, nagualistas y supersticiosos” from the Zoque town of Jiquipilas. In this article, I examine the interrogation of the only woman implicated, the Indian María Sánchez, daughter of the best known sorcerer of the region. Forming part of the more extensive judicial record, the three pages analyzed here uncover a dialogue rarely found in relationships between an inquisitor and an accused and suggest important methodological reflections about an issue with great heuristic potential: the intimate bond that unites inquisition and confession, and its specificities in the American Church. The text also offers questions for future research on the pastoral attitude and the doctrinal position of Núñez in regard to the coexistence of an unknown element –the nagual– and the familiar figure of the devil, that the inquiries in the process revealed.

Usos de la voz “maya” y reivindicación identitaria en una carta inédita en lengua maya yucateca del siglo XVI

At the beginning of the 1580s, some Maya caciques of Yucatan sent to King Philip II a letter asking him the future bishop of the province to be Franciscan and a group of religious from the same Order to be sent to the peninsula in order to consolidate the evangelization of Native people. The letter was written in Yucatec maya and was translated into Castilian by the interpreter Juan Ruiz de la Vega. The record, which remains unpublished until today, completes the restricted corpus of sixteenth century texts written in Yucatec maya and, for that same reason, it has an exceptional historical value. The present article offers a linguistic and philological analysis of both the maya text and its translation. It aims at highlighting that the term “maya” was used in the letter to emphasize the native linguistic and cultural identity. We also demonstrate that the interpreter intended to minimize the expression of this revendication in its translation.

Review: Cuzco: Incas, Spaniards, and the Making of a Colonial City

Review: <i>Cuzco: Incas, Spaniards, and the Making of a Colonial City</i>

VOLUME 52 (2022)

VOLUME 52 (2022)

Abstract 766: Genomic and transcriptomic comparison between breast cancers from patients of African and European genetically determined ancestries demonstrates potential for ancestry specific biomarker-informed therapies

Abstract Background: Therapeutic approaches for breast cancer (BC) are informed by tumor subtypes and molecular heterogeneity, both of which may be associated with particular patient ancestries. While patients of African ancestry (AA) exhibit a relatively high mortality rate compared with patients of European ancestry (EA), the biological underpinnings of this disparity are not entirely understood. Here, we present a genomic and transcriptomic comparison between BC tumors from AA and EA patients stratified by clinical features in a real-world cohort. Methods: De-identified records from AA (n=629) and EA (n=2832) patients with BC were selected from the Tempus Oncology Database. All tumors underwent sequencing with the Tempus|xT assay, including targeted-panel DNA and full-transcriptome RNA-seq. Race metadata was obtained from abstracted records. Genetic ancestry was estimated using a set of ancestry-informative markers and a supervised version of the ADMIXTURE algorithm. Mutational prevalence, gene expression, and transcriptional signatures were compared between EA and AA groups, and stratified by stage and subtype. Statistical significance was assessed with Bonferroni correction applied to adjust for multiple testing. Results: Genetic ancestry estimates and race metadata had strong concordance, with 97% and 91% of race data matching genetic ancestry categories in AA and EA, respectively. Compared to EA patients, AA patients were slightly younger (median age 53.8 years vs. 56.1 years) and more likely to have stage IV disease (59.0% vs. 56.5%). The percentage of triple-negative BC (TNBC) patients was much higher among AA (23.5%) compared to EA (14.3%), while the proportion of HR+/HER2− patients was higher in EA (46.4%) compared to AA (36.5%). In HR+/HER2- patients, AA patients had a higher prevalence of KMT2C (24% vs. 14%), GATA3 (21% vs. 14%), and FGFR1 (18% vs. 12%) mutations, and a lower prevalence of PIK3CA (33% vs. 42%) and PTEN (6% vs. 13%) mutations. PRSS23 expression and estrogen response late signaling were significantly downregulated in late-stage HR+/HER2- AA patients, while PTEN signaling was downregulated in stages I-III. Among TNBC, AA patients had a higher prevalence of KMT2C (23% vs. 12%) mutations. LILRA6 and PTEN were significantly downregulated in early-stage TNBC patients of AA. Conclusions: After controlling for stage at diagnosis and subtype, we observed significant differences in BC mutational spectrums, gene expression, and relevant pathway activities between patients with genetically determined AA and EA, particularly within the TNBC and HR+/HER2- subtypes. These findings may guide future development of treatment strategies by providing data for biomarker-informed research and precision cancer care. Citation Format: Minoru Miyashita, Joshua S. Bell, Ezgi Karaesmen, Brooke Rhead, Stephane Wenric, Kristiyana Kaneva, Francisco M. De La Vega, Yonglan Zheng, Toshio Yoshimatsu, Galina Khramtsova, Elisabeth Sveen, Fang Liu, Fangyuan Zhao, Frederick Howard, Nora T. Jaskowiak, Rita Nanda, Dezheng Huo, Olufunmilayo I. Olopade. Genomic and transcriptomic comparison between breast cancers from patients of African and European genetically determined ancestries demonstrates potential for ancestry specific biomarker-informed therapies [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 766.

Abstract 3893: Rare FGFR oncogenic alterations in sequenced pediatric solid and brain tumors suggest FGFR is a relevant molecular target in childhood cancer

Abstract Oncogenic FGFR alterations in the form of activating mutations, amplifications, and fusions are detected in a variety of solid tumors, including those in children. Major advances in FGFR-targeted drug development have led to investigation of multiple generations of FGFR inhibitors in adult clinical trials. In contrast, there are few clinical trials of FGFR inhibitors enrolling children. There is a need to identify and characterize molecular targets including oncogenic FGFR alterations in pediatric cancers so that drug development can occur in accordance with the RACE (Research to Accelerate Cures and Equity) for Children Act. The goal of this study was to determine the frequency and types of FGFR alterations in pediatric cancers to inform future clinical trial design. Tumors with FGFR alterations were identified from two large cohorts of pediatric solid tumors subjected to targeted DNA sequencing: The Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Profile Study (n=888) and the multi-institution GAIN/iCAT2 (Genomic Assessment Improves Novel Therapy) Study (n=571). Data from the combined patient population of 1,395 cases (64 patients were enrolled in both studies) were reviewed and cases in which an FGFR alteration was identified by OncoPanel sequencing were further assessed. We identified 42 patients with tumors harboring an oncogenic or possibly oncogenic FGFR alteration (FGFR1 in 22; FGFR2 in 4; FGFR3 in 5; FGR4 in 11). Median age at diagnosis was 8 years (range 6 months-26 years old). Diagnoses included 11 rhabdomyosarcomas, 8 low-grade gliomas, 3 high-grade gliomas, and 16 other tumor types. We identified 20 patients with a gain-of-function (GoF) mutation, 10 patients with amplifications (copy number ≥7), 7 patients with fusions, 4 patients with a variant of uncertain significance (VUS) assessed and determined to be possibly oncogenic, and 1 patient with an amplification and VUS. Four of the fusion cases had oncogenic FGFR3-TACC3 (n=3) and FGFR1-TACC1 (n=1) fusions previously reported in the literature. Three cases had novel fusions (FGFR1-EBF2, FGFR1-CLIP2, FGFR2-CTNNA3) found in a spindle cell sarcoma and two low-grade gliomas. Tumors with an FGFR missense mutation were primarily those with oncogenic hotspot mutations in FGFR1 [N546K (n= 5); K656E (n=4)] and FGFR4 [N535K/D (n=2); V550L/E (n=5)]. In summary, this study identified oncogenic FGFR alterations in 42 of 1395 patients (3%) with solid and brain tumors sequenced through the Profile and GAIN/iCAT2 studies who would potentially be eligible for clinical trials evaluating FGFR-targeted therapy. Citation Format: Lorena Lazo De La Vega, Alanna J. Church, Hannah Comeau, Wenjun Kang, AeRang Kim, Navin R. Pinto, Margaret E. Macy, Luke D. Maese, Steven G. DuBois, Bruce E. Johnson, Katherine A. Janeway, Suzanne J. Forrest. Rare FGFR oncogenic alterations in sequenced pediatric solid and brain tumors suggest FGFR is a relevant molecular target in childhood cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 3893.

La “Descripción de la Bahía de Santa María de Galve” (1693) de Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora y la puesta en escena del archivo colonial

This article addresses the way in which Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, through the manuscript “Descripción de la Bahía de Santa María de Galve” (1693), shows a series of textual relationships with discursive forms such as Relaciones Geográficas, with other texts mentioned in the manuscript (La Florida by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Naufragios by Al­var Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Historia de la fundación y discurso de la provincia de Santiago de México de la orden de Predicadores by Agustín Dávila Padilla), and with the rest of the work of the Mexican polygraph. Through these intertextualities, we consider that the “Descripción de la Bahía de Santa María de Galve” is shown as a text that reflects, on the one hand, Sigüenza and Góngora’s mastery of the colonial archive and, on the other hand, the maturity and assimilation of the cultural practices that he cultivated and put at the service of the aforementioned exploratory project at the end of the 17th century.

Two Newly Discovered Poems by Garcilaso de la Vega

Until now, only three Latin poems by Garcilaso de la Vega have been extant. In this study, I present two newly discovered odes by Garcilaso: one addressed to Pietro Bembo, and another addressed to Johann Alexander Brassicanus. I also present new critical editions of the three previously known poems in the light of the new witness. I argue that the poems constitute sophisticated meditations on the purpose of encomiastic literature and the nature of lyric poetry. In this way I aim to provide a better understanding of Garcilaso’s Latin odes and restore his reputation as a consummate Latin poet.

Quality of Life in Older Patients after a Heart Failure Hospitalization: Results from the SENECOR Study.

Background: Information about health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in heart failure (HF) in older adults is scarce. Methods: We aimed to describe the HRQoL of the SENECOR study cohort, a single-center, randomized trial comparing the effects of multidisciplinary intervention by a geriatrician and a cardiologist (intervention group) to that of a cardiologist alone (control group) in older patients with a recent HF hospitalization. Results: HRQoL was assessed by the short version of the disease-specific Kansas Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ-12) in 141 patients at baseline and was impaired (KCCQ-12 < 75) in almost half of the cohort. Women comprised 50% of the population, the mean age was 82.2 years, and two-thirds of patients had preserved ejection fraction. Comorbidities were highly prevalent. Patients with impaired HRQoL had a worse NYHA functional class, a lower NT-proBNP, a lower Barthel index, and a higher Clinical Frailty Scale. One-year all-cause mortality was 22.7%, significantly lower in the group with good-to-excellent HRQoL (14.5% vs. 30.6%; hazard ratio 0.28; 95% confidence interval 0.10–0.78; p = 0.014). In the group with better HRQoL, all-cause hospitalization was lower, and there was a trend towards lower HF hospitalization. Conclusions: The KCCQ-12 questionnaire can provide inexpensive prognostic information even in older patients with HF. (Funded by grant Primitivo de la Vega, Fundación MAPFRE. ClinicalTrials number, NCT03555318).

Protocolo de fisioterapia y educación para la salud en dolor crónico de hombro de origen musculoesquelético. Experiencia en atención primaria

ObjectiveTo evaluate the experiencie with a health education program in Primary Care in patients with chronic shoulder pain of musculoskeletal origin, on pain and disability and establish the protocol in primary care. DesignQuasi-experimental longitudinal descriptive observational study.Location: Arroyo de la Vega Health Center, Alcobendas, Madrid. ParticipantsPatients referred by their Primary Care Physician to the Primary Care Physiotherapy Unit for shoulder pain of musculoskeletal origin. Intervention7 group sessions of health education and therapeutic exercise. Main measurementsPain intensity was assessed through the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the disability of the upper limb with the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire and the level of disability and shoulder pain with the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) questionnaire. ResultsStatistically significant differences were found in the reduction of pain and disability (P<.01), in addition, drug use and recurrences were reduced. ConclusionsThe shoulder physiotherapy protocol with health education was effective in reducing pain and disability in patients with chronic shoulder pain of musculoskeletal origin in Primary Care.

Stylistic Change in Early Modern Spanish Poetry Through Network Analysis (with an Especial Focus on Fernando de Herrera’s Role)

Early Modern Spanish literature, also known as Golden Age Spanish literature, is a well-established period in the History of Spanish literary tradition, covering from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century, from Renaissance to Baroque works. In the case of poetry, the stylistic change from one aesthetic to the other has been examined from a historical point of view, with some scholars considering a transitional group of poets between both stylistic movements, and many pointing to the writer Fernando de Herrera (1534–1597) as a bridge between the Renaissance style of Garcilaso de la Vega (1501–1536) and the Baroque of Luis de Góngora (1561–1627). This paper examines the stylistic change from Renaissance to Baroque in Spanish poetry and Herrera’s place on it from a quantitative, computational point of view, applying a methodology which combines Stylometry and Network Analysis to a big corpus of poems and authors writing in this period. The resulting stylometric network for Renaissance and Baroque poetry proves there is a computationally measurable chronological evolution in the texts of this period, as well as a change of style from Renaissance to Baroque, and supports the existence of a transitional group of poets between these two literary movements, one of which is Fernando de Herrera.

Love in the Poetry of Francisco de Aldana: Beyond Neoplatonism by Paul Joseph Lennon

Reviewed by: Love in the Poetry of Francisco de Aldana: Beyond Neoplatonism by Paul Joseph Lennon Imogen Choi Love in the Poetry of Francisco de Aldana: Beyond Neoplatonism. By Paul Joseph Lennon. Woodbridge: Tamesis. 2019. xii+203 pp. £60. ISBN 978-1-85566-336-7. Paul Joseph Lennon's monograph is an important new study of the love lyric of the Spanish Neapolitan soldier poet Francisco de Aldana (c. 1540–1578). The central argument is that Aldana presents a 'hybrid approach to love', both physical and spiritual, based on a 'synthesis of competing elements' (p. 175), thus acknowledging both the complexities and imperfections of sexual relationships and their capacity to bring about fleeting moments of transcendence. The mainstay of the analysis is a series of illustrative close readings of selected poems, which are set in rigorous context. Neoplatonism and Petrarchism loom large, as might be expected, but there is also consideration of imitation of classical and contemporary models, notably Ovid, Lucretius, Garcilaso de la Vega, and Ariosto, erotic and burlesque poetry, intersections with the plastic arts, and philosophical influences such as Epicureanism. A brief Introduction gives a thumbnail sketch of Aldana's life and work, with an illuminating examination of the early modern reception of his poetry through Cosme de Aldana's posthumous editorial interventions. Chapter 1 ('The Complexities of Love') provides a synoptic overview of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century ideas about love and sexuality as shown through a series of Italian Neoplatonic and Petrarchan treatises, followed by their application to some of Aldana's lyric poetry. The discussion stresses the distortions inherent in the syncretic readings of both Plato and Petrarch, which resulted in conceptual strain, as well as the fact that the treatists' approach to sexuality varied. Bembo, Nifo, and Ebreo are singled out for their greater tolerance of physical as well as spiritual manifestations of intimacy between lovers. Throughout the book there are occasional misreadings of Aldana's religious language: here, for instance, the understanding of 'inteligencias' (p. 32) as meaning human souls rather than angels (Aquinas's 'intellectual creatures'), or 'vestir hábito estrecho de religión' as referring to a desire for Neoplatonic union with the beloved rather than entering a religious order (pp. 39–41). Chapter 2 ('The Temerity to Love') assesses in detail a persuasion poem addressed to the lyric voice's beloved, 'Pues tan piadosa luz', via several shorter poems. The central moment is the envisaged union of the two lovers through the metaphor of a storm-tossed ship, a rare depiction of the power of reciprocal love. Chapter 3 ('The Nature of Love') is a masterful analysis of four of Aldana's 'bucolic' dialogue sonnets, two of which, the Damón-Galatea pairing, are among his best-known pieces. Taken together, the poems showcase the frustrations and pleasures of a non-idealized love, with an unusually proactive female persona. Chapter 4 ('(De)Mythologising Love') discusses two varieties of mythological poems: 'Medoro y Angélica', which expands on the consummation of the two characters' marriage in the Orlando furioso, and a sonnet and incomplete poem in octaves on the affair of Venus and Mars. The contextual preamble is perhaps overly [End Page 305] rigid in suggesting that Graeco-Roman mythology was primarily approached in an 'overtly moral' allegorical vein in this period (p. 125), but the real highlight is the close reading of the 'Angélica'. The poem is experimental both in its use of voyeurism, which goes beyond the bounds of decorum in its description of the female body while preserving a 'faux-Petrarchan appearance' (p. 138), and in its indirect portrayal of female sexual awakening. The discussion of Venus and Mars might have benefited from a consideration of Aldana's dialogue with epic and lyric beyond Ovid (the lexis seems heavily inflected with Garcilaso and Ercilla), but is another cogent exploration of the poems' gendered and intertextual dimensions. Finally, a conclusion or 'Coda' analyses a gloss of Garcilaso's 'Pasando el mar Leandro el animoso' to show how Aldana's reinvention of the myth acts as a final 'testament to the intrepid nature of human love' (p. 174). This book will be indispensable to future scholars of...

Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing a Multidisciplinary Intervention by a Geriatrician and a Cardiologist to Usual Care after a Heart Failure Hospitalization in Older Patients: The SENECOR Study.

Background: The prognosis of older patients after a heart failure (HF) hospitalization is poor. Methods: In this randomized trial, we consecutively assigned 150 patients 75 years old or older with a recent heart failure hospitalization to follow-up by a cardiologist (control) or follow-up by a cardiologist and a geriatrician (intervention). The primary outcome was all-cause hospitalization at a one-year follow-up. Results: All-cause hospitalization occurred in 47 of 75 patients (62.7%) in the intervention group and in 58 of 75 patients (77.3%) in the control group (hazard ratio, 0.67; 95% confidence interval, 0.46 to 0.99; p = 0.046). The number of patients with at least one HF hospitalization was similar in both groups (34.7% in the intervention group vs. 40% in the control group, p = 0.5). There were a total of 236 hospitalizations during the study period. The main reasons for hospitalization were heart failure (38.1%) and infection (14.8%). Mortality was 24.7%. Heart failure was the leading cause of mortality (54.1% of all deaths), without differences between groups. Conclusions: A follow-up by a cardiologist and geriatrician in older patients after an HF hospitalization was superior to a cardiologist’s follow-up in reducing all-cause hospitalization in older patients. (Funded by Beca Primitivo de la Vega, Fundación MAPFRE. ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03555318).

A Troubled Marriage: Indigenous Elites of the Colonial Americas by Sean F. McEnroe

Reviewed by: A Troubled Marriage: Indigenous Elites of the Colonial Americas by Sean F. McEnroe Mark W. Lentz A Troubled Marriage: Indigenous Elites of the Colonial Americas. By Sean F. McEnroe. [Diálogos Series.] (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 2020. Pp. xxviii, 319. $95.00 hardcover: ISBN 978-0-8263-6118-9; $34.95 paperback: ISBN 978-0-8263-6119-6.) A Troubled Marriage takes a hemispheric approach to the strategies, successes, and setbacks faced by the upper echelons of indigenous society under Spanish, French, and English rule. Geographically, the book’s protagonists’ origins range from South America to Canada in the Americas. The tactics of military support, marriage alliances, services as intermediaries, conversion to Christianity, and adoption of European-introduced literacy and crafts lent themselves to overall positive outcomes for the indigenous and mestizo figures studied by McEnroe. The author depicts these alliances as a two-way street, emphasizing the Europeans’ dependence on indigenous allies, especially in the early contact period. McEnroe’s monograph spans the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. The book’s organization balances a chronological arrangement with a thematic approach, with the first chapter dealing with early contacts and the last chapter examining independence. In between, chapters are arranged topically, covering dynastic alliances, religious adaptation, adoption of writing and the arts, urban coexistence with colonizers, and military alliances during and after the conquest. The flexible timeframe for each chapter takes into account the divergent trajectories of contact and colonization of indigenous spaces by separate states and empires. The regions and indigenous leaders examined in this book depend on historical circumstances. Due to the nature of A Troubled Marriage’s subject matter, the book focuses on areas in which an indigenous elite persisted after initial contact and in zones where European colonists had sustained interactions with the indigenous population, which resulted in a documentary record to reconstruct such relationships. Cuzco, Lima, Mexico City, and Tlaxcala figure prominently in the book partly as a result of these sites’ well-preserved original sources and the persistence of a largely literate native elite that left a long paper trail in those locations. To complete a work so sweeping in scope, McEnroe’s archival itinerary included stops in over twenty repositories in six different nations, namely the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and Spain. His expansive bibliography demonstrates engagement with the leading works on the native populations of English and Francophone Canada, the English North American colonies and the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Paraguay. Such extensive research did not result in a dense book, however. McEnroe’s serial biographical organization and his narrative style make A Troubled Marriage easily accessible to the Diálogos Series’ main audience, university classrooms. Individually, most chapters would work as standalone sections to introduce readers to themes for specialized topics classes. [End Page 616] Despite its accessibility, a few editing issues may give some readers pause. Any work so panoramic in its scope covering contact to the nineteenth century from South America to Canada may include a few errors. However, copy editors should have noticed a few glaring ones, such as identifying July 16 as Mexico’s Independence Day (p. 202) or “Lake Eerie” instead of “Lake Erie” (p. 210). Other errors seem to reflect an overall unfamiliarity with Central America, such as his reference to the “Mexico-Honduras border” (p. 7) or describing the indigenous population of Honduras as “neighbors” to the Kaqchikel Mayas of highland Guatemala (p. 180). Indigenous Elites of the Colonial Americas, the book’s subtitle, suggests that the book’s focus will be on indigenous elites. However, while the book covers the “uneasy marriage” between indigenous Americans and Europeans, its subject matter does not exclusively examine the autochthonous population. Many of the biographical sketches include mestizos such as Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Diego Muñoz Camargo, Diego Valadés, and “the Inca” Garcilaso de la Vega. While these figures played an important role in recording the indigenous past and acting as intermediaries, their European heritage and influences are downplayed, even though some, such as Garcilaso de la Vega, spent much of their lives among Europeans in Europe. Some character studies even focus on Europeans who adopted aspects of...