Los Perros Research Articles

Assessing the relationship between river water pollution and the LULC composition of a basin in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca, Mexico

Water pollution originating from land use and land cover (LULC) can disrupt river ecosystems, posing a threat to public health, safety, and socioeconomic sustainability. Although the interactions between terrestrial and aquatic systems have been investigated for decades, the scale at which land use practices, whether in the entire basin or separately in parts, significantly impact water quality still needs to be determined. In this research, we used multitemporal data (field measurements, Sentinel 2 images, and elevation data) to investigate how the LULC composition in the catchment area (CA) of each water pollution measurement station located in the river course of the Los Perros Basin affects water pollution indicators (WPIs). We examined whether the CAs form a sequential runoff aggregation system for certain pollutants from the highest to the lowest part of the basin. Our research applied statistical (correlation, time series analysis, and canonical correspondence analysis) and geo-visual analyses to identify relationships at the CA level between satellite-based LULC composition and WPI concentrations. We observed that pollutants such as nitrogen, phosphorus, coliforms, and water temperature form a sequential runoff aggregation system from the highest to the lowest part of the basin. We concluded that the observed decrease in natural cover and increase in built-up and agricultural cover in the upper CAs of the study basin between the study period (2016 to 2020) are related to elevated WPI values for suspended solids and coliforms, which exceeded the allowed limits on all CAs and measured dates.

Knowing Fictions: Picaresque Reading in the Early Modern Hispanic World

Knowing Fictions: Picaresque Reading in the Early Modern Hispanic World

Weary Old Dogs: Ageing Masculinities in Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s Los perros duros no bailan

Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s short novel Los perros duros no bailan (2018) is the first of the prolific Spanish writer’s attempts at animal fable and allegory. This postmodern and highly intertextual novel explores the nature of masculinity and ageing in a hostile world of violence and conflict. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of the motif of the dog, and the way in which the author deploys it as mechanism through which to communicate issues around gender, age, history and Spanish identity.

Simulacra of the Victim “Mythological machine”, Violence and Power in the Testimonies of Alfredo Meza and Nancy Guzmán

This article analyses the testimonies Así mataron a Danilo Anderson by Alfredo Meza and Ingrid Olderock. La mujer de los perros by Nancy Guzmán, stressing facticity, that is the symbiosis between verifiable and imagined elements, which implies a renewal of the character of testimonial literature and enables a reading of these works beyond the format of journalistic investigation. This factitious receptacle allows to evince the common direction of both texts: in dissimilar contexts of politic violence, such as the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Hugo Chávez Frías regime in Venezuela, power sets in motion a “mythological machine of the victim”, with the aim of creating subjectivities related to their ideology and with the its purpose of making eternal a truth that ends up being a simulacrum of it.

Advances in our understanding of canine atopic dermatitis.

Canine atopic dermatitis (cAD) is a genetically inherited clinical syndrome that encompasses a diversity of mechanisms and can have a variety of triggers. Development of clinical disease is the result of genetic factors and environmental conditions, which shape the resulting immunological response. Clinical disease becomes evident once a threshold of inflammatory response is achieved. Skin barrier impairment plays a role in promoting cutaneous dysbiosis and increased allergen penetration. Keratinocytes shape the response of dendritic cells and subsequent lymphocytic response. Thymic stromal lymphopoietin is one of the links between the damaged skin barrier and the modulation of a T-helper (Th)2 response. It is still unclear whether mutations in skin barrier genes exist in atopic dogs, as they do in humans, or whether the observed alterations are purely secondary to inflammation. A dysregulated immune response with increased Th2, Th17 and CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells has been reported. A variety of cytokines [interleukin(IL)-31, IL-34, Macrophage migration inhibitory factor] are proposed as potential biomarkers and treatment targets because they are increased in the serum of atopic dogs when compared to controls, although a correlation between serum levels of these factors and severity of disease is not always present. The main issue with many published studies is that atopic dogs are always only compared to normal controls. Thus, it is unclear whether the changes that we find are truly a signature of cAD or merely a manifestation of nonspecific broad inflammatory responses. Studies considering comparison with other inflammatory diseases different from cAD are urgently needed to correctly identify what is specific to this complicated syndrome.

«Una musa vestida con vaqueros»: El casamiento engañoso (Luis Calvo Teixeira, 1970)

This paper scrutinizes El casamiento engañoso (1970), a television episode for the show Hora 11 (TVE, 1968-1974). Written by Juan Tébar and directed by Luis Calvo Teixeira, this rewriting of the eleventh of the Novelas ejemplares (1613) sets the plot in the twentieth century. First, I will reflect on the linking of this novella to El coloquio de los perros, given that they both share a narrative frame –the dialogue between Campuzano and Peralta– that is absent in the adaptation. Secondly, I will examine the divergences between the two Casamientos and the update of every element of the baroque tale in order to fit the Spain of the seventies.

El discurso humanista y latinizante de Berganza a la luz de dos episodios del Coloquio y de sus posibles reminiscencias

Lo que acotamos como un episodio diferencial del Coloquio de los perros (‘el soborno de Berganza’, o, al decir de Cervantes, “las dádivas de la negra”), puede investigarse desde una doble óptica, a saber: en sus aspectos generales, a propósito del discurso de Berganza y la imagen humanista que arroja, en contraste con el también posible ‘humanismo’ de Cipión; y, a un nivel más concreto, en relación con el usus loquendi ‘berganciano’, en el sentido de que tal dicción pudo haberse elaborado a partir de la influencia de autores latinos, y bajo el filtro mediatizador de las exégesis de paremiólogos renacentistas, como Polidoro Virgilio o Erasmo de Rotterdam (si bien el influjo del primero es nuestra hipótesis prioritaria), puesto que la situación episódica de ‘soborno’ genera la intercalación de un adagio en latín (habet bovem in lingua) que Cervantes pone en boca del can (incluso en romance: “éste tiene el buey en la lengua”).

Corriendo las vallas alrededor del testimonio: reescrituras del género a partir del pacto facticio y la voz medial del periodista/narrador

En el presente artículo, el primero de un proyecto extenso sobre el género testimonial chileno y venezolano contemporáneo, se pretenderá un acercamiento a este formato a partir de cuatro textos que han sido leídos como investigaciones periodísticas: El despertar de los cuervos. Tejas Verdes el origen del exterminio en Chile (2013) de Javier Rebolledo, Ingrid Olderock. La mujer de los perros (2014) de Nancy Guzmán, El grito ignorado (2012) de Ibéyise Pacheco y Abril golpe adentro (2009) de Ernesto Villegas. Para esto se ocuparán dos registros: la presencia del elemento de facción, que alude a la elaboración de una trama narrativa y a la problematización de los personajes testimoniantes en ella, con lo cual se estaría vinculando estructura y contenido; y la intromisión de la voz de un periodista/narrador en el testimonio. Como soportes teóricos se trabajará a partir de las nociones de Albert Chillón, Roland Barthes, Nora Strejilevich y Carolina Pizarro-Cortés, entre otros autores.

Madrigal in Miguel de Cervantes's La gran sultana: An Animal Studies Approach

La gran sultana Doña Catalina de Oviedo (1615) is one of Miguel de Cervantes´s most stimulating short plays. The following article examines Madrigal, the gracioso character in La gran sultana, from an animal studies perspective. It examines how the character Madrigal shares points of contact with Juan Bautista Jamarro's Conocimiento de las diez aves menores de jaula, su canto, enfermedad, cura y cría (1604). Madrigal as court captive in the play inspires a consideration of birds as Habsburg court captives. When making jokes, Madrigal also refers to themes found in Cristóbal Acosta's "Tractado del elefante y sus cualidades" (1578). Cervantes uses Madrigal, a meta-theatrical playwright, to consider the possibility of elephant communication. La gran sultana evokes themes from other works by Cervantes. Like El coloquio de los perros (1613), it questions the assumption that language exclusively belongs to humans. Finally, by naming the character Madrigal after the musical genre of the madrigal, Cervantes introduces a consideration of the aesthetics of actual birdsong versus songs as artifice that imitate nature, a similar tact found from the references to the madrigal in Don Quijote, Part II (1615).

Text, body, and the early modern Spanish literary field in three Exemplary Novels of Cervantes

This article examines the relationship between textualized bodies and the early modern Spanish literary field in three of Cervantes’s Novelas ejemplares: La gitanilla, El licenciado vidriera, and the intertwined El casamiento engañoso/El coloquio de los perros. Each novel portrays initially marginalized characters whose textualized bodies are connected to their ultimate achievement of renown for their remarkable talents. Cervantes, moreover, links these tales to each other through the presence of the three licenciates in the collection, each of whom represents a distinct role in the literary field. The names of the three licenciates—Pozo, Rueda, and Peralta—reflect the prophecy at the center of El coloquio de los perros, which in turn represents the tension experienced by the dominant yet dominated author in pursuit of distinction.

Minding Animals in the Old and New Worlds. A Cognitive Historical Analysis

Minding Animals in the Old and New Worlds. A Cognitive Historical Analysis

Canine Epistemology and the Unfettered Imagination: The Maker’s Knowledge Argument in Cervantes’ El coloquio de los perros

abstractAmong the twelve stories that comprise Cervantes’ Novelas ejemplares, El coloquio de los perros is the one that can be most fundamentally linked to issues of epistemology, as it presents a variety of unstable narrative frames that compel the reader to transcend the gap between the real and the imaginary. This analysis focuses on the intersection of two concepts that seem to hold together the epistemic instability evidenced in the Coloquio: scepticism and the imagination. I argue that Cervantes uses multiple narrative frames to assert human creativity and to highlight the unique power of the creator to know his creation, hence invoking the sceptical principal of the maker’s knowledge argument.

Quevedo y los estudios de animales: una lectura de “Consultación de los gatos” (núm. 750)

espanolEste articulo estudia el poema «Consultacion de los gatos» desde la perspectiva de los estudios de animales (Animal Studies). En el analisis, se observa que Quevedo trasciende el empleo antropomorfico que se atribuye a las figuras animales en la literatura de su epoca. Ademas, pone en primer plano el maltrato del gato, otro elemento muy popular en la sociedad, para mostrar compasion hacia este animal, a la vez que critica los vicios de sus amos. Dandole protagonismo al gato y exponiendo el abuso que sufre a diario, Quevedo sigue de cerca el tratamiento narrativo en torno al can que elabora Cervantes en el Coloquio de los perros. De esa forma, el poema sobresale por su originalidad dentro del panorama de la poesia satirico-burlesca que se ocupa de los animales en el Siglo de Oro. EnglishThis article explores the poem «Consultacion de los gatos» following the Animal Studies approach. The analysis reveals that Quevedo goes beyond the anthropomorphist perspective to interpret animal figures that was customary in Golden Age literature. The author also highlights the abuse of the cat, another typical element of his period, to show compassion toward this animal, while criticizing the vices of its masters. Making the cat protagonist of the poem and showing its everyday life sufferings, Quevedo replicates closely the narrative model elaborated by Cervantes in Coloquio de los perros. As a result, Quevedo’s poem stands out among the satiric poetry that deals with animals in Golden Age literature.

Perros contra lobos. Ideología política y ¿sátira antinobiliaria? en una obra de Alonso de Palencia

El presente trabajo profundiza en los contenidos ideológicos de la Batalla campal de los perros contra los lobos, un relato fabulístico de Alonso de Palencia compuesto en torno a 1456. Pondremos especial atención en los aspectos de crítica contra la alta nobleza castellana, que aparecería animalizada, según la interpretación de diversos autores. Más allá de su importancia como ejercicio de estilo, frecuentemente subrayada en otros estudios, mediante el análisis léxico hacemos énfasis en la presencia de intensos discursos políticos. La identificación y el estudio crítico de los mismos nos permitirán ahondar en el pensamiento del autor respecto a la sociedad de la época, plasmado en ideales como la disciplina, el consenso y el mérito, que, al no corresponderse con las actuaciones de parte de la nobleza, reflejarían asimismo la intención satírica de Palencia.

Manucho y yo: "Cecil" (1972) o cómo se autobiografía una metanovela

El presente artículo se cifra en el estudio de Cecil (1972), novela corta del argentino Manuel Mujica Lainez, autor de títulos tan destacados como Bomarzo (1962) o El Unicornio (1965). Con el objeto de revalorizar y dar a conocer este libro, considerado hasta el momento como una obra menor dentro de su narrativa, se presta atención al examen del relato desde dos laderas: la forma autobiográfica y la metaficción, por una parte; y el análisis narratológico del relato, por otra, incidiendo en los ecos y homenajes del Coloquio de los perros de Cervantes.

Ética animal en Coloquio de los Perros

La sensibilidad contemporánea contra el maltrato animal conforma un horizonte de expectativas en el que descuellan detalles de Coloquio de los perros capaces de transformar el relato de Berganza en un texto en defensa de los derechos de los animales, tan dulce y útil como antaño, si bien ahora la poética horaciana acordada con la ética animalista y con la sensibilidad ecologista de los tiempos que corren. Nada es evidente, parece decir Cervantes, ni la inteligencia y la racionalidad del animal humano, ni la inconsciencia y mecanicismo autómata del animal no humano. En el contexto del Antropoceno, Coloquio de los perros se revela como una lectura crítica de los fundamentos de la excepcionalidad humana y como una reflexión descarnada sobre las relaciones de poder entre seres humanos y entre éstos y la naturaleza y los animales que la habitan.

Noticias sobre los judíos de Candelario (Salamanca)

En el siglo XV se establecen comunidades hebreas en el señorío de Béjar: Hervás (Cáceres), Candelario y La Calzada (Salamanca). Poco tiempo antes de la expulsión, el duque de Béjar impone ligeras restricciones comerciales a los judíos de Candelario. Es posible que tras el edicto de expulsión los conversos de Candelario habitasen en el «barrio de los Perros».

Anxieties of Interiority and Dissection in Early Modern Spain by Enrique Fernández

Reviewed by: Anxieties of Interiority and Dissection in Early Modern Spain by Enrique Fernández Holly Sims Fernández, Enrique. Anxieties of Interiority and Dissection in Early Modern Spain. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2015. 273 pp. ISBN: 978-14-4264-886-9. In Anxieties of Interiority and Dissection in Early Modern Spain, Enrique Fernández analyzes descriptions of interiority in the works of Fray Luis de Granada, Francisco de Quevedo, Miguel de Cervantes, and María de Zayas. He uses the language of dissection to uncover the association between anxiety and the internal spaces of the body, such as the heart, head, and other organs, as well as human psychology. The author characterizes these works as "dissective narratives" because they probe the interiors of sacrificial figures and expose the cultural anxiety surrounding internal spaces that are in some way uncontrollable (3). Chapter 1 of the study discusses how perceptions of interiority changed as a result of improved knowledge of human anatomy, especially following the publication of a fully illustrated version of Andreas Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica in 1534. These images, as well as explanations from contemporary medical texts, demonstrate that the practice of dissection was similar in purpose to the works Fernández analyzes because both reveal the complex and potentially dangerous nature [End Page 188] of the human interior. The author also explains that this practice was met with fear and distrust in Spain due to the pervasiveness of religious orthodoxy in an absolutist state. Consequently, the texts considered in this study are not accounts of enlightened self-discovery through introspection, but rather descriptions of sacrificial victims whose interiority is dangerously exposed. In Chapters 2 and 3, the author analyzes works by Granada and Quevedo, respectively, as examples of dissective narratives that demonstrate the complexity of interiority through anatomical references. He attributes Granada's works to an interest in a more private form of religion introduced by the devotio moderna but which conformed to Catholic doctrine. Granada's publications reflect the belief that the interior of the human body reveals God's work in creation and depict the dissected victim as a compliant martyr whose self-sacrifice makes known the presence of God. However, Granada's positive depiction of interiority differs from Quevedo's representation of the human interior as a source of the illnesses that plague the body politic. Quevedo's satirical works expose the interiority of grotesque figures, which function allegorically to represent individuals who threatened the divinely inspired social order. This contrast between Quevedo's representation of society as a fragmented body and Granada's view of the body as a microcosm of creation emphasizes that efforts to expose embodied interiority – whether of the individual Christian or the body politic – produced anxiety about its potentially dangerous contents. In Chapter 4, the author expands this discussion to psychological interiority by examining Cervantes' El coloquio de los perros and El licenciado Vidriera and Zayas' Desengaños. These works, unlike those by Granada and Quevedo considered in previous chapters, do not include allusions to anatomical dissection. Nevertheless, they can be considered dissective narratives because they expose the risks inherent in cultivating private, autonomous spaces. For example, the character Cañizares in El coloquio de los perros demonstrates the peril of separating oneself from society in a misguided attempt at autonomy because Cañizares' self-imposed isolation allows her to modify her own nature through witchcraft. The author connects Cañizares' deceptive behavior to negative aspects of machines such as clocks, which he also explores in relation to anxiety about autonomy and interiority in El licenciado Vidriera, because Tomás Rodaja's excessive pursuit of knowledge contributes to his dehumanization. However, the analysis of the Desengaños focuses on female anatomy as it relates to an interior anxiety caused by honor and violence in Zayas' texts. To emphasize the various anxieties of interiority present in the works of Cervantes and Zayas, Fernández contrasts them with contemporary publications by Baltasar Gracián. While Gracián also employed anatomical references in his works, they are not considered dissective narratives because the anxiety of interiority has been replaced by an anxiety of performance. This epilogue helps to clarify the author...

Exemplary Novels by Miguel de Cervantes

Reviewed by: Exemplary Novels by Miguel de Cervantes Steven B. Wenz Miguel de Cervantes. Exemplary Novels. Trans. Edith Grossman. Ed. Roberto González Echevarría. New Haven: Yale UP, 2016. 448 pp. ISBN (Hardback): 978-0-300-12586-3; ISBN (eBook): 978-0-300-22482-5. Edith Grossman’s translation of the Novelas ejemplares strikes an effective balance between scholarship and art, preserving the salient features of Cervantes’s text while drawing upon the aesthetic potential of English. This edition contains an engaging introduction by Roberto González Echevarría, which provides background information on Cervantes and his work, as well as critical commentary on some of the novelas. Brief yet useful footnotes, usually fewer than ten per story, accompany the translation. Most of the notes are intended for a general audience and explain mythological references or aspects of Golden Age Spanish culture, while others appear intended for specialists, pointing out very specific historical allusions or discrepancies between Cervantes’s citations of Ovid and the original Latin. The book concludes with a short “Translator’s Note,” in which Grossman compares the Novelas ejemplares with Don Quijote and shares her experiences as a reader. This translation is successful in multiple ways, but Grossman’s diction is her greatest achievement. Throughout the volume, Grossman seems always to choose the correct word, using language as a powerful means of establishing tone and depicting characters. In a superb reflection of Cervantes’s original, language calls attention to itself only when it should. An insolent remark in “La ilustre fregona,” for example, appears as “Oh yeah, sure” (256), while Grossman finds a phonetic equivalent of affected gypsy speech in “La [End Page 232] gitanilla”: “Do you, Theñoreth, with to give me a tip?” (18; my italics). Word choice is essential to characterization in “Rinconete y Cortadillo,” where malapropisms reveal the gaps among members of society, and Grossman offers humorous parallels in English. When the crime boss Monipodio mentions a celebration “con la mayor popa y solenidad,” an error that Rinconete later mocks, Grossman introduces “pop and circus-dance” (119), a particularly admirable solution because it imagines a mispronunciation of a common English phrase. A similar innovation appears in “El coloquio de los perros,” when the Latin formula Deum de Deo, comically misunderstood in Spanish as “dé donde diere,” appears in English as “Dare do derring-do” (373). Grossman’s creativity and sense of humor also allow her to translate many of Cervantes’s puns and maintain the light tone of certain novelas. At the beginning of “El casamiento engañoso,” Campuzano uses a play on words to express his disappointment with marriage, calling his “casamiento” a “cansamiento.” This quip is based on the one-letter difference between the terms in Spanish, and translators to English face a difficult task, as “marriage” in no way resembles “tiredness.” A pun on “married” and “wearied” would be possible yet stilted. Grossman’s insight is to change the expression and apply an appropriate variation: “when I took my wife, or should I say my life” (355). With this translation, Campuzano considers his matrimonial deception a form of suicide. The phrasing here is stronger than in the original, to be sure, but Grossman follows Cervantes in evoking the character’s suffering as a result of venereal disease. Grossman reflects the tone of another ribald pun in “El licenciado Vidriera,” in which Tomás Rodaja describes “cortesanas” as having “más de corteses que de sanas,” and his English counterpart defines courtesans as “more courteous than sanitary” (193). Grossman’s translation is at its best when it manages to convey not only the humor but also the cultural context of Cervantes’s work. In the original, Rodaja witnesses an argument in which a Portuguese speaker swears by his beard, shouting “Por istas barbas que teño no rostro!” Rodaja, a bitter enemy of men who dye their beards, accosts the Portuguese man in the same language with a marvelous bilingual pun: “não digáis teño, sino tiño!” Grossman closely approximates this exchange, capturing the foreignness of the first utterance (“By dis beard dat covers my face!”) and the ingenuity of Rodaja’s reply: “don’t say covers...

“Against the Dog Only a Dog”. Talking Canines Civilizing Cynicism in Cervantes’ “coloquio de los perros” (With Tentative Remarks on the Discourse and Method of Animal Studies)

Deriving its designation from the Greek word for ‘dog’, cynicism is likely the only philosophical ‘interest group’ with a diachronically dependable affinity for various animals—particularly those of the canine kind. While dogs have met with differing value judgments, chiefly along a perceived human–animal divide, it is specifically discourses with cynical affinities that render problematic this transitional field. The Cervantine “coloquio de los perros” has received scholarly attention for its (caninely) picaresque themes, its “cynomorphic” (Ziolkowski) narratological technique, its socio-historically informative accounts relating to Early Modern Europe and the Iberian peninsula, including its ‘zoopoetically’ (Derrida) relevant portrayal of dogs (see e.g., Alves, Beusterien, Martin); nor did the dialog’s mention of cynical snarling go unnoticed. The essay at hand commences with a chapter on questions of method pertaining to ‘animal narration’: with recourse to Montaigne, Descartes, and Derrida, this first part serves to situate the ensuing close readings with respect to the field of Animal Studies. The analysis of the Cervantine texts synergizes thematic and narratological aspects at the discourse historical level; it commences with a brief synopsis of the respective novellas in part 2; Section 3, Section 4 and Section 5 supply a description of the rhetorical modes of crafting plausibility in the framework narrative (“The Deceitful Marriage”), of pertinent (Scriptural) intertexts for the “Colloquy”. Parts 6–7 demonstrate that the choice of canine interlocutors as narrating agencies—and specifically in their capacity as dogs—is discursively motivated: no other animal than this animal, and precisely as animal, would here serve the discursive purpose that is concurrently present with the literal plane; for this dialogic novella partakes of a (predominantly Stoicizing) tradition attempting to resocialize the Cynics, which commences already with the appearance of the Ancient arch-Cynic ‘Diogenes’ on the scene. At the discursive level, a diachronic contextualization evinces that the Cervantine text takes up and outperforms those rhetorical techniques of reintegration by melding Christian, Platonic, Stoicizing elements with such as are reminiscent of Diogenical ones. Reallocating Blumenberg’s reading of a notorious Goethean dictum, this essay submits the formula ‘against the Dog only a dog’ as a concise precis of the Cervantine method at the discursive level, attained to via a decidedly pluralized rhetorical sermocination featuring, at a literal level, specifically canine narrators in a dialogic setting.