Sobre Todo Research Articles

Nursing interventions for the management of preoperative anxiety in the pediatric patient

Introduction: Preoperative anxiety in pediatric patients has a high prevalence, negatively affecting the perioperative process of children, increasing the possibility of complications and causing poor pain control. Objectives: Know the existing interventions to reduce preoperative anxiety in pediatric, to study the effectiveness of them and identify the factors that influence it. Methodology: A literature review was performed in three recognized databases between November and December 2022, using as search equation: (intervention) AND (preoperative anxiety) AND (children OR pediatric). The selected studies passed the appropriate methodological quality scale. Results: paciente y el nivel socioeconómico, sobre todo. También estarían implicados factores como el sexo del menor, la separación de los padres que supone la intervención, el aislamiento del entorno social, experiencias previas del menor con el ambiente sanitario/hospitalario y la falta de información acerca del proceso quirúrgico information through comics do not show clear efficacy. The child´s age, level of development and previous experience with the hospital environment influence the effectiveness of these interventions. Conclusion: Interventions that involve a high level of distraction, that provide information and help the child to become familiar with the environment, are the most effective to reduce anxiety in this type of patients, with virtual reality being the most effective in recent studies. In addition, taking into account the characteristics of each patient is crucial to the choice of these interventions and to achieve the greatest effectiveness.

La gestión de las relaciones con los públicos en los festivales de música durante la pandemia. El caso de Bilbao BBK Live / The management of the relationships with music festivals publics during the pandemic. The case of Bilbao BBK Live

La crisis sanitaria y económica provocada por el coronavirus ha afectado a la totalidad de la población y de las empresas e instituciones, siendo la cultura uno de los sectores en los que esta pandemia está teniendo más impacto, en especial en las artes escénicas y en la música, sobre todo, en directo. En este artículo se ofrece un análisis de cómo la gestión de las relaciones con los públicos puede mejorar la reputación y las perspectivas de supervivencia del Bilbao BBK Live, un festival de música moderna que ha visto cómo su actividad empresarial ha quedado casi totalmente paralizada. A través de un estudio de caso, pretendemos ofrecer un análisis de las principales acciones de relaciones públicas desarrolladas en 2020 y aportar algunas propuestas para el resto del sector de los festivales en el que la actual pandemia ha tenido tanto impacto. Para ello, se ha realizado una entrevista en profundidad con la directora de comunicación de la promotora del evento, Last Tour, y se han estudiado las publicaciones en Instagram de las iniciativas puestas en marcha, a través de un análisis de contenido. Los resultados obtenidos certifican la importancia de la gestión de las relaciones con los públicos como herramienta esencial en la estrategia empresarial, incluso, en época de pandemia y con la actividad casi paralizada. Palabras claves: festivales de música, relaciones con los públicos, comunicación, Covid-19, Instagram, EspañaAbstractThe health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic has affected the totality of the population, companies and institutions. One of the most affected sectors by this crisis is Culture, especially in the performing arts and, above all, in the live music sub-sector, where it is having the greatest impact. During these months of health emergency, restrictions on venues and mobility have caused live music to almost paralyse all its activity completely. Particularly significant, due to the great repercussions of the pandemic, is the music festival sub-sector, mainly large-scale festivals, which have had to postpone their editions to future years. Thus, 17% of the promoters of this type of event cancelled their edition, 56% postponed it, 21% were held on their dates and 6% took place, but the dates were modified, although they did not take place in the traditional way, neither in terms of programming nor in terms of capacity (BIME, 2020).But, despite this situation, the big Spanish festivals - and the smaller ones - have managed to keep some activity, either by organising smaller events, adjusted to health conditions, or through initiatives that are more distant from the live music activity itself. This article, through a case study, offers an analysis of how the management of public relations can enhance the reputation and survival prospects of music festivals. For this reason, we have focused on Bilbao BBK Live, a modern music festival which has seen its business activity almost completely paralysed. In this way, we aim to offer an analysis of the main public relations actions developed in 2020 and provide some proposals for the other festival sector on which the current pandemic has had such an impact. To do so, we conducted an in-depth interview with the communications manager of the promoter of the event, Last Tour, and studied the Instagram posts published and news from the website by the initiatives launched, through a content analysis. These activities have been targeting different audiences, from all kinds of suppliers to general attendees and sponsors.The results confirm the importance of public relations management as an essential tool in business strategy, even in times of pandemic and with business almost at a standstill. Thus, the different campaigns developed during the pandemic have managed to keep and strengthen the relationships with the different stakeholders of the event: attendees, sponsors, city of Bilbao public administrations and the mass media, although it has also focused special attention on suppliers and collaborators, vulnerable communities in its environment and other bodies in the sector that, for the last few months, have been joining forces to exert pressure on the authorities to demand a return to activity.In the same way, and thanks to the work developed by the communication departments of the festival and its promoter, Last Tour, Instagram has become a key tool in the work of marketing these activities, as well as to improve the engagement of its audience, according with the results obtained in previous research (Klara, 2019; Castro-Martínez, Pérez-Ordoñez, y Torres-Martín, 2020).Keywords: music festivals, public relations, communication, Covid-19, Instagram, Spain

BACHATA AS A DANCE FORM: PERFORMANCE AND PECULIARITIES OF ARTISTIC IMAGE

The purpose of the article is to identify the features of the bachata social dance as a popular modern dance form; to analyse the stylistic features and the specifics of the technique of performance. Through the research, the historical method is to study the origin and popularisation of the dance; the typological approach is to identify the factors of dance formation and evolution, the features of transformative processes. In order to provide the background to the leading recent trends in social dance forms, the method of artistic and stylistic analysis is used; the method of artistic analysis is aimed at identifying the specific stylistic elements of bachata as a social and competitive dance. In Ukrainian art studies, the bachata dance is studied as a social, cultural and artistic phenomenon for the first time ever; the process of formation and development of this dance form in retrospect is considered; the stylistic features of Dominican bachata, Western “traditional” bachata, modern bachata, sensual bachata and the specifics of its performance technique in the world-class competitions (“Sobre Todo 2019”, “BachataStars Italy 2019”, “Paris Bachata Festival Contest 2019”, Bachatastars International Champions, etc.) are defined. Specific features of bachata as a social dance form are shown in the specifics of the dance symbolism, the extreme flexibility and plasticity of performance. The study revealed the characteristic features of modern bachata styles: the quick tempos of performance, number of footwork, lack of lifts and rotations (authentic style); closed position, a close tie between dance couple, soft hip movements, wise set of turns and figures, borrowing movements and elements of ballroom dance styling (Western style); a combination of elements of Western bachata, salsa, tango and ballroom dancing, the dominance of body and hip movements (modern style); improvisation, a large variety of figures, the presence of lifts and elements of the show, elegant dress (sensual style).

El cosmopolitismo urbano: la ciudad ante el orden postliberal

El artículo estudia la sucesión de cambios en la estructura política internacional ante la reconfiguración de las fuentes de poder. Establece tres vertientes en las bases teóricas del cosmopolitismo urbano. La primera indica cuáles deberían ser los fundamentos de una elaboración teórica. La ciudad internacional contribuye a la reconfiguración de la estructura y el ejercicio del poder interestatal ocupando o creando nuevos espacios que contribuyen a la pluralidad de las Relaciones Internacionales. El segundo aspecto que se analiza es el crecimiento de la ciudad como unidad de medida en la economía global. Los flujos de capital circulan y operan sobre una base local con destinos globales. Son las ciudades y sus extensiones metropolitanas quienes se benefician del sistema económico. Aparecen grandes bolsas de desigualdad interna y, sobre todo, con una ruptura entre ciudades dentro y fuera del orden económico, incluyendo aquí la desigualdad relacional que se genera en los territorios menos poblados. Por último, se incide en la razón antropocénica, esto es, el impacto de la acción humana en las condiciones naturales y sus consecuencias en el orden mundial. El cambio climático cambia el sustrato principal de las Relaciones Internacionales, que es el medio físico y la geografía. Sobre estas dos dimensiones tangibles, se ordenan las bases del poder y la teoría básica de los estudios internacionales. Al cambiar el tablero estratégico, la ciudad conquista posiciones de poder no coercitivo, lo que facilita la colaboración mediante redes y estructuras. El aspecto militar y de seguridad no es relevante para la diplomacia urbana, que se centra en aspectos de poder económico y social. Los resultados indican que el nuevo cosmopolitismo tiene bases urbanas y ofrece un marco de interpretación de las tensiones entre centro y periferia de la acción exterior, la globalización económica y las nuevas políticas públicas en la lucha contra el cambio climático. El cosmopolitismo urbano emerge como referencia teórica en el orden postliberal.

‘The Kindness of Strangers’: Kinship and Intertextuality inTodo sobre mi madreandUna suerte pequeña

In Pedro Almodovar’s 1999 film Todo sobre mi madre and Claudia Pineiro’s 2015 novel Una suerte pequena, female Argentine protagonists encounter strangers who quote to them, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’ from Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire. The line serves to offer new forms of kinship and solidarity to Almodovar’s Manuela and Pineiro’s Marile/ Mary, two mothers whose lives are nearly destroyed by the tragic loss of their sons. In both cases, the reading, discussion and/or performance of Streetcar and other texts helps these women to heal from their loss and to create new families of their choosing, less constrained by accidents of birth. Almodovar’s and Pineiro’s uses of intertextuality thus serve to explore what it means to be a woman beyond the heteronormative limits of conventional motherhood.

O tratamento dos referentes culturais e a intertextualidade na tradução audiovisual

O objetivo do presente trabalho é estudar o tratamento das referências culturais na tradução de textos audiovisuais (TAV), mais precisamente na legendagem de filmes. Para isso, escolhemos como corpus de trabalho a versão do filme Todo sobre mi madre do diretor espanhol Pedro Almodóvar

Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español by María Elvira Roca Barea, and: Imperiofilia y el populismo nacional-católico by José Luis Villacañas

Reviewed by: Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español by María Elvira Roca Barea, and: Imperiofilia y el populismo nacional-católico by José Luis Villacañas Duncan Wheeler María Elvira Roca Barea. Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español. SIRUELA, 2016. 460 PP. José Luis Villacañas Imperiofilia y el populismo nacional-católico. LENGUA DE TRAPO, 2019. 264 PP. AS RECENTLY AS 2014, I argued that the dictatorship's co-option of the Golden Age had been rejected to an extent that it was seen as even more politically suspect for Spanish cinema to present life in early modern Spain in a positive light than to cast any approving glance at Francoist Spain (Duncan Wheeler, "Back to the future: repackaging Spain's troublesome past for local and global audiences," (Re)Viewing Creative, Critical and Commercial Practices in Contemporary Spanish Cinema, edited by Duncan Wheeler and Fernando Canet, Intellect, 2014, pp. 205–33, p. 227). Spain was long thought to be an outlier in relation to its European neighbors for not having a party of the extreme right. Progressive Spaniards were (too) quick to mock Vox as a kitsch anachronism, a refuge for oddballs nostalgic for Francoism. Establishing initial strongholds in Andalusia and Murcia, promotional videos featured party leader, Santiago Abascal, riding horseback and announcing a new Reconquest. Islamophobia was further promoted through Trump-like promises to build walls to prevent Moroccans and sub-Saharan Africans from crossing the frontier. Spurred on by a resurgent nationalism in the face of the [End Page 183] Catalan secessionist movement, the aggressively nationalist Vox was the third most voted-for party in the 2019 general elections. Abascal has described the Black Legend as "obra de los enemigos de España" (Fernando Sánchez Dragó and Santiago Abascal, España vertebrada, Planeta, 2019, p. 124) and cites María Elvira Roca Barea's Imperiofobia approvingly (254). This surprise best seller (over one hundred thousand copies sold in Spain) by a secondary-school teacher from Murcia with a doctorate (and a nebulous connection to Harvard University) has also been championed by the Instituto Cervantes, a Madrid-based government agency created in 1991 in the buildup to the quincentenary celebrations of Columbus's voyage to the Americas, with the aim of promoting the study and teaching of Spanish language and culture. The reception of Roca Barea's polemic, described in José Luis Villacañas's rebuttal as "populismo intelectual reaccionario" (14), warrants attention, even and perhaps especially for those unsympathetic to its claims. Roca Barea has opted not to respond to the arguments made in Villacañas's book—"Agradezco al autor que se haya tomado tantas molestias con mi trabajo, pero lamento decir que no voy a hacer lo mismo con el suyo" (cited in El País, 4 Jun 2019, p. 28)—but putting the publications into dialogue serves to cast light on the privileged role the early modern period occupies in the cultural wars of contemporary Spain. With a plethora of footnotes and references to literature and philosophy, Imperiofobia constitutes a (pseudo-)erudite correlative to the rhetoric rehearsed as early as 2008 by Santiago Abascal and Gustavo Bueno, long before they and their party Vox became major political players: "España es, sobre todo, la realización de esa gran empresa imperial por lo que, y como corolario suyo, se llega a comprobar que el planeta es una esfera, un globo circunvalado por primera vez precisamente por España: 'tú me diste la vuelta', tal es la divisa que regala Carlos I al vasco Elcano" (En defensa de España. Razones para el patriotismo español, Fundación para la defensa de la nación española y Ediciones Encuentro, 2008, pp. 33–34). The resurrection of such neo-Francoist rhetoric has been facilitated by Spanish democracy's selective memory. It was under the PSOE government in the 1980s that 12 October—the date that Columbus first set foot on American soil—was declared a national bank holiday, the "día de la raza" (baptized thus by King Alfonso XIII in 1918 and subsequently celebrated with fanfare throughout...

(Dis)locating Spain: Performance Intertextualities in Pedro Almodóvar’s Todo sobre mi madre

Building on Tim Bergfelder’s distinction between reputedly “open” Hollywood films and “culturally specific” European fare, this article focuses on the production and reception of Pedro Almodovar’s Todo sobre mi madre (All about My Mother, 1999). Critics have pinpointed intertextual references but have assumed that the Spanish filmmaker draws on “universal” texts to make a “culturally specific” vision legible for international audiences. The binaries on which such a model is predicated do not withstand close cinematic or sociohistorical scrutiny. Todo sobre mi madre conveys distinct meanings in Spain as compared to the international arena; this is not exclusively, or even necessarily predominantly, the result of autochthonous reference points; it is also due to the contingencies of reception when Hollywood films are translated out of their domestic habitat. Tracing some of these journeys and identifying various interpretive communities will develop understanding of Almodovar’s craft and commercial success, and also help contextualize and potentially reconcile some of the frequently embittered battles between Spanish and Anglo-American critics over the right to define and describe his cinematic output.

A “New Irish Woman” Emerges: Subverting Femininity in Maeve Kelly’s A Life of Her Own

Abstract. Women in Irish fiction have been largely the creation of male writers, and the embodiment of religious virtues such as purity and passivity, conventionally regarded as feminine. Not only the Roman Catholic Church but also the State progressively contributed to the social construct of Irish womanhood as inferior and, above all, domestic. From the 1960s onwards many women writers have tried relentlessly to reimage women in their fiction. Feminist activist Maeve Kelly is an outstanding example of such writers whose work remains virtually unexplored. Very often Kelly's protagonists are women in their conventional roles as wives and mothers who struggle for happiness and independence. This essay focuses on her collected stories A Life of Her Own (1976), and particularly on her short story vain woman, in which Kelly presents us with a new Irish who is no longer the personification of the Virgin Mary, and who actively rebels against her environment. Key Words. Irish Feminism, Irish Short Story, Maeve Kelly, Empowerment, Rebellious Women Resumen. Las mujeres en la ficcion han sido en gran medida creadas por escritores varones, encarnando virtudes religiosas tales como la pureza y la pasividad, convencionalmente consideradas como femeninas. No solo la Iglesia catolica sino tambien el Estado contribuyeron progresivamente a la construction social de la feminidad como inferior y, sobre todo, domestica. Desde la decada de 1960 en adelante muchas escritoras han intentado implacablemente cambiar esta imagen de la mujer en su ficcion. La activista feminista Maeve Kelly es un ejemplo sobresaliente de estas escritoras cuya obra se encuentra practicamente inexplorada. Normalmente, las protagonistas de las historia de Kelly son mujeres que desempenan su rol tradicional como esposas y madres y que luchan por la felicidad y la independencia. Este ensayo se centra en su coleccion de relatos A Life of Her Own (1976), y en particular vain woman, en el que Kelly nos presenta una nueva mujer irlandesa que se aleja de la personification de la Virgen Maria y que se rebela activamente contra su entorno. Palabras clave. Feminismo irlandes, relato corto irlandes, Maeve Kelly, empoderamiento, mujeres rebeldes Introduction: Constructing and De-constructing Irish Womanhood Women in Ireland have been traditionally associated with frailty and passivity, qualities that have been also linked to the nation itself. Ireland has often been represented as a woman in both song and literature, following a tradition that can be traced back to eighteenth-century Gaelic poetry. In colonial times, Ireland was portrayed as a woman victimised by the colonising English male, leading womanhood to be associated with inferiority and weakness. (1) Throughout the 19th century, Irish nationalists continued to identify their country as feminine. Ireland became Kathleen Ni Houlihan, Mother Ireland, Sean-Bhean Bhocht, Dark Rosaleen, or the Poor old Woman; a woman who needed the help of young Irish men willing to fight and sacrifice themselves to free Ireland from colonial rule. Besides, the Devotional Revolution of the mid-19th-century added the cult of the Virgin Mary, and Ireland and Irish women became the embodiment of purity (Igman 2007: 7). The construction of Catholic womanhood drew on the Bible as well as on a series of Papal encyclicals--as noticed by Beaumont (1997), or Tighe-Mooney (2011). Encyclicals such as Rerum Novarum (1891), Quadragesimo Anno (1931) or Casti Connubii (1930) elaborated on the natural role of women. They posited that women should be confined to the domestic sphere and stressed the sanctity of marriage and the prohibition of artificial birth control and of abortion. The Church's glorification of women's domesticity permeated the legislation of the Irish Free State. The State intruded into private family life with the banning of divorce and artificial birth control, and consolidated the public image of Irish femininity as wife and mother in the 1937 De Valera's Constitution. …

Lascasianismo (y lucha de clases) en Tungsteno de César Vallejo

Tungsteno (1931) de César Vallejo es un texto “puente” entre el indigenismo tradicional y la novela proletaria emergente en la zona andina. El “problema del indio” y la “lucha de clases” están ligadas por una perspectiva “lascasiana” que reduce a los personajes a comportamientos binarios que se excluyen mutuamente: buenos o malos, víctimas o explotadores. Tungsteno es eficaz cuando – siguiendo el esquema lascasiano – muestra cuadros aislados de explotación e injusticia. Pero su ideología y estrategia textual tienen limitaciones para ser considerada la obra revolucionaria que muchos pretenden. Por un lado, porque el indio sólo es “indio,” falla en la construcción de una identidad indígena contestataria y alternativa basada en diferencias culturales y étnicas. Y, en el caso de la representación de los mineros, al resaltar la figura de Servando Huanca subsume la lucha de clases al comportamiento de un individuo ejemplar. Este sesgo narrativo determina la ausencia de la acción colectiva de los obreros de la Mining Society construidos como una mera “presencia” y, sobre todo, sin una conciencia de clase, la agenda privilegiada del marxismo ortodoxo de la época.

Fallo en el rescate: un indicador de calidad necesario sobre todo para evaluar los resultados de los servicios quirúrgicos

Fallo en el rescate: un indicador de calidad necesario sobre todo para evaluar los resultados de los servicios quirúrgicos

From ‘What Can be Seen and Heard’ to ‘What Can be Sensed and Thought’: Almodovar’s moving textuality in the screenplay of Todo sobre mi madre/All about my Mother (1999)

Abstract A screenplay is a text in transit and in constant tension between the written and the audio-visual dimensions, resulting in a process of a great potentiality. Such a phenomenon can be perceived in Pedro Almodóvar’s screenwriting, in which a distinct idea of style and creative process emerges. The screenwriting of objectivity and exteriority gives way to a generous, dynamic and expressive text. This study highlights how the screenplay can be shaped within a peculiar and poetic textuality, mixing technical references with insight and more abstract comments, i.e. presenting itself simultaneously as a perceptual and as a conceptual text. What if the effects resulting from the audio-visual metaphors of Almodóvar’s screenplay for Todo sobre mi madre/All about my Mother (1999) were ‘present’ only in the screenplay? What if such deviation from classical rules engenders an experimental space within screenwriting that eventually expands the very idea of ‘screenplay’ itself?

Reconsidering Social Movement Unionism in Postcrisis Argentina

The Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina, established in 1992, worked to expand its base, especially among nonunion organizations, to construct an anti-neoliberal front. Driven by the threat of neoliberalism rather than by political opportunities, it was initially outstanding among social movement unions in its reach and its unity. It excelled not only in building alliances with the community but in organizing the community itself. However, the structural weakness resulting from its not being located in a key industrial sector and its lack of legal privileges, which was originally compensated for by its alliances, eventually made it unable to take advantage of changing political opportunities.La Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina, fundada en 1992, trabajó para ampliar su base, sobre todo entre las organizaciones no sindicales, para construir un frente anti-neoliberal. Impulsada por la amenaza del neoliberalismo más que por las oportunidades políticas, inicialmente se destacaba entre los sindicatos de los movimientos sociales en su alcance y su unidad. Se destacó no sólo en la construcción de alianzas con la comunidad, sino en la organización de la propia comunidad. Sin embargo, la debilidad structural que resulta de su no estar ubicado en un sector industrial clave y su falta de privilegios legales, lo que se compensó originalmente por sus alianzas, finalmente lo hizo incapaz de aprovechar de las cambiantes oportunidades políticas.

Gaudí Gehry Barcelona

Gaudí Gehry Barcelona Edgar Illas (bio) Antoni Gaudí and Frank Gehry have one main thing in common: they have designed imaginative and sophisticated buildings that constitute valuable assets in our economy of the spectacle. Even though Gaudí’s modernista architecture is mostly located in Barcelona, whereas Gehry’s postmodern works are distributed throughout many countries, their unique pieces function as free-floating icons that serve the advertising and tourist industries of cities, corporations, and all types of institutions. And yet in the late work of these architects there is a more fundamental and subversive questioning of certain spatial conditions of our system. This questioning unfolds as an opening of architecture to the natural world. Nature here does not refer to the ecological aspects of green or bio-architecture, nor does it relate to Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture or to Kenneth Frampton’s critical regionalism.1 Rather than searching for a harmonious integration of architecture into the natural surroundings, Gaudí and Gehry approach nature as the other of architecture itself, as a type of deconstruction of the very act of building. This essential questioning might help us rescue the works of these architects from their economic uses and the subsequent denunciations of them as "sites of spectacular spectatorship," as Hal Foster has said of Gehry (Foster, 41). Barcelona holds Gaudí’s most celebrated works and is also the city that witnessed the emergence of the late, or "second," Gehry in 1992. Gehry’s Fish sculpture for Barcelona’s Olympic Village represented the first computer-aided design of his career and also his first piece embodying natural forms. This essay establishes a link between Gaudí’s most organic piece, the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Família, and Gehry’s late works. I also rely on Heidegger’s thinking on being and time to draw a parallel between the two architects and read their attempt to imagine an other to architecture as a critique of the ontological closure [End Page 144] of space, a critique that is not unlike Heidegger’s own reflection on the spatio-temporal imperial logic of our world. I finally argue that these architectural and theoretical critiques compel us to open ourselves to the radical outside of historical time and space. GAUDÍ’S ANTI-GREEK TEMPLE In 1992 the TV broadcasting of the Olympic Games launched the Sagrada Família as a distinctive feature of Barcelona’s skyline. The unique silhouette of Gaudí’s temple became a key synecdochical element of the global image of the city and, since then, it has largely been exploited by the tourist and film industries, as we can see in movies such as Pedro Almodóvar’s Todo sobre mi madre (All about My Mother) or Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But Gaudí did not undertake the construction of his temple in order to supply a tourist attraction and an appealing silhouette for the city. In fact, Gaudí’s goal was exactly the opposite: he deliberately designed a temple against modern Barcelona. The construction of the Sagrada Família began in 1882 under the direction of architect Francisco de Paula del Villar, but Gaudí took over the commission in 1884, when he was only thirty-two. He worked intermittently on the temple until he decided, in 1912, to devote himself exclusively to this project, which he did until the end of his life in 1926. The temple was located in one of the developing areas of the Eixample, the perfect grid that engineer and urban planner Idelfons Cerdà had designed in 1863 to expand the city beyond its medieval walls. Cerdà devised the new Barcelona as a balanced combination of wide avenues, houses, green areas, inside patios, and passageways, in an attempt to reconcile the modern needs of circulation with the comfort of living in a garden city. At the same time, the Eixample represented the urban materialization of the political and cultural renaissance of the Catalan nation; as historian Jaume Vicens i Vives put it, the Eixample was "the tool of a reviving people" (qtd. in Bohigas, 129).2 But, predictably, real estate speculation and the multiple economic interests of the fast-growing industrial city thwarted the full...

All that Almodóvar Allows

The links between Almodóvar and Sirk have been noted by many. Reference is made to the career of Douglas Sirk (1897–1987), the emigré German film director whose 1950s melodramas are striking landmarks of the Hollywood cinema. Following general comments on the overlaps of form by two of the cinema’s greatest stylists, attention is paid to one of the pivotal mechanisms in the narrative structures of their films, the sacrifice of one character as the price of survival for another. This key element of some of Sirk’s melodramas, raising questions about irony, circularity, gender and selfhood, also features in various Almodóvar films such as Todo sobre mi madre, Hable con ella, Los abrazos rotos, and La piel que habito.

Plumbing the Depths of Galdos’s View of Spain: The Confounding Accomplishment of José Bergamín

Plumbing the Depths of Galdos’s View of Spain: The Confounding Accomplishment of José Bergamín1 Peter Bly In Memoriam Nigel Dennis (1949–2013) The name of José Bergamín (1895–1983), generally ranked as a minor poet of the Generation of 1927, is not one that contemporary scholars would automatically and firmly associate with Galdós criticism, yet barely two months ago, during the X Congreso Internacional Galdosiano, the novelist and writer, Juan José Armas Marcelo, pointedly did so in his plenary paper, as was reported on-line: Relató cómo José Bergamín le dijo en los años 70 que las novelas de Galdós y los Episodios Nacionales “le parecieron rancios, viejos, y sobre todo, mal escritos.” “Pasados los años, volvió a releer a Galdós y quedó deslumbrado y, sobre todo, sorprendido porque en la primera lectura no había visto con ojos objetivos la grandeza literaria que significaba,” rememoró. (Álamo) In fact, Armas Marcelo was repeating a “tópico” or common place in the history of Galdós criticism, however insignificant it may seem, to wit, that Bergamín—like a number of other members of the Generation of 1927—changed over time his evaluation of Galdós’s work. Equally representative of this “tradition” were the vagueness and confusion generated by Armas Marcelo’s words: it is not clear whether Bergamín revised his opinions in the 1970s or earlier, although, if the latter, the exact time is not indicated. Furthermore, the reasons Armas Marcelo gives for the revision merely relate to the perceived greatness of Galdós’s work on a second reading, whatever that may mean. None the less, his comments have the merit of being the reported words of Bergamín himself. It was J. E. Varey (1), in his 1970 review of post-1920 views of Galdós, who first called attention to the initial—negative—phase in Bergamín’s opinions, as displayed in a 1933 article (see below), but without referring to the later ones, an omission that Stephen Gilman (249, note 4) subsequently followed. In his mammoth critical review of Galdosian criticism, Anthony Percival (86) did highlight Bergamín’s 1957 essay on Galdós and Goya as one of only a few on the topic, but failed to identify his 1933 dismissal of Galdós, merely noting that like other writers between 1920–35, he tended to ignore Galdós’s work (205). Percival then identifies (209) Bergamín as one of the many exiled Spaniards who wrote in 1943 centenary studies on Galdós in South American journals, but without ranking his contribution amongst the more interesting ones that he cites. Even those scholars who have treated, for example, the topic of “Tolstoy and Galdós” that Bergamín had treated before them, either fail to acknowledge his work (Arnáiz Amigo, Colin) or ignore it as too general (Turner “Metaphor” 895). For their part, Bergamín scholars have been equally remiss in providing concrete data about their author’s [End Page 11] writings on Galdós, likewise preferring to make general statements. Diego Martínez Torrón includes—albeit with qualifications—the name of Galdós in his chapter on Bergamín’s literary mentors: También hay otros autores del XIX, si bien no muchos, a que se refiere Bergamín, por ejemplo, a Galdós, que podría parecer muy lejano de la estética de nuestro poeta. Le interesa la España de Galdós y el tema religioso en su novela, siguiendo los criterios de Menéndez Pelayo y Azorín. Y en otro sitio se refiere a Galdós y al pueblo español. Obviamente la influencia galdosiana incide más como guía populista y sentimental que de eficacia en el modo de expresión poética. (44) Even the recently departed and sadly missed doyen of Bergamín scholars, Nigel Dennis, committed the same error, albeit with his customary wryness, in a footnote to his edition of the writer’s collection of essays, El pasajero: Es curioso constatar en los escritos de Bergamín anteriores a 1935, aproximadamente, una notable indiferencia o incluso hostilidad...

Illness, Authenticity and Tolerance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Todo sobre mi madre

PEDRO Almodovar's interest in the medical world can be traced to the beginning of his filmography. (1) However, the themes of illness and disability (as well as hospitals or clinics as a principal locations) are not the primary focus in his films until the end of the 1990's, culminating with Hable con ella (2002). (2) A clear example of this increasing focus on the aforementioned themes and decors which are only indirectly present in his early work, is Todo sobre mi madre (1999). In this film Almodovar presents an unconventional vision of HIV and AIDS while exploring literal and metaphorical transplants in an attempt to propose a new kind of authenticity. (3) Yet, though AIDS occupies a central place in this film, it appears in a distant, stylized manner, which symbolically represents an optimistic path towards health. I will argue here that for the first time the Spanish director rendered AIDS and HIV visible and yet paradoxically suppressed them by means of a typical almodovarian twist which implies an escape from realism (one which he has never espoused) toward a certain idea of tolerance in post-Franco Spain. (4) This tolerance is embodied principally by Manuela who judges neither her ex-husband (now a transgender woman), the prostitute she later befriends (Agrado who is also transgender), the actress whose self-centeredness was partially responsible for her son's death (Huma Rojo) nor the nun whose sexual improprieties has led to her contracting AIDS and thus being unable to care for the baby which Manuela will adopt as her own. This is thus a tolerance not only of sexual, gender or lifestyle difference, it is as though Manuela incarnated here a capacity for forgiveness which is specifically presented as a healing force, a kind of secular saintliness which nonetheless never appears to be super human. Manuela's caring manifests itself in particular with respect to how she deals with illness--her goodness is essentially based on her willingness to care for others. Manuela is both the ideal nurse and the ideal mother. Yet despite this emphasis on caring and a true acceptance of the ill other, in other ways, Todo sobre mi madre presents a flight from illness towards a miraculous cure, (5) while indirectly highlighting an ethical problem which privileges the healthy subject over the disabled or ill subject. Therefore, the politico-metaphorical reading of illness in this film (as a shared experience of pain to be overcome through acceptance of difference) inasmuch as it eschews any realistic representation of the illness itself leaves the latter a highly reduced role, one which perhaps paradoxically risks signaling a rejection of the ill. With this film the viewer is immersed in the medical milieu as this is the first time that Almodovar has dealt with HIV and AIDS in a direct fashion. (6) The Argentinean protagonist Manuela (Cecilia Roth) is a nurse who works as the coordinator of the transplant ward in a public hospital in Madrid. In this same hospital her son, Esteban (Eloy Azorin), dies when he is struck by a car while trying to get an autograph from the actress Huma Rojo (Marisa Paredes) whose taxi rushes off in the rain as he runs behind it. Her son's death forces Manuela to leave for Barcelona (where she lived before his birth) in order to find Esteban's transgender father (Toni Canto) who, before becoming Lola, was also named Esteban. Before Manuela finds Lola who is now dying from AIDS she also meets an old friend, the transgender Agrado (Antonia San Juan) and Sister Rosa (Penelope Cruz) who, while she was taking care of Lola slept with her, contracted the virus and became pregnant. In Barcelona, Manuela meets Huma Rojo, the actress her son was trying to get an autograph from when he died, and begins working as her assistant. Thus, a new life begins for Manuela made up of transformed and transplanted elements from her past which forge a new identity still characterized by her role as a caregiver. …

Don Quixote ed. by Tom Lathrop

204 Cervantes Reviews aristotélica en Cervantes, proponiéndonos un concepto de verosimilitud dinámico, orientado hacia el lector, pues aquella ya no radica en el contenido textual. Al mismo tiempo, esta noción de verosimilitud se basa en la experiencia de la ficción que “relativiza las formas tradicionales de imaginar el mundo” (145). Lejos de presentarnos un Cervantes relativista Fine apostilla que “el mundo aun permanece” (145), o, lo que es lo mismo, la búsqueda de la verdad. El Quijote es una obra transgresora, aunque esto no quiera decir, necesariamente, una ruptura con lo anterior. Cuando el lector llega al destino final de esta documentada, rigurosa y cuidada lectura semiótico-narratológica del Quijote echa en falta un desarrollo más detenido de este capítulo final, a mi juicio, el mejor del libro, sobre todo, teniendo en cuenta el gran conocimiento de las tensiones ideológicas y religiosas que maneja la autora, como quedó plasmado en el memorable congreso de Jersusalén en 2005 sobre este tema. Isabel Lozano-Renieblas Dartmouth College Isabel.Lozano-Renieblas@Dartmouth.edu Tom Lathrop, ed. and trans. Don Quixote. By Miguel de Cervantes. New York: Signet, 2011. xxxi + 1040. ISBN: 978-0-451-53181-0. TOM LATHROP, EDITOR OF THE QUIJOTE Commenting on the copy of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso found in Don Quixote’s library, the priest tells the barber, “if I find him here speaking a language that’s not his own, I’ll show him no respect, but if he’s in his original language, I’ll put the book on top of my head” (1.4:53). He goes on to criticize Captain Jerónimo Jiménez de Urrea’s Spanish translation of the Italian masterpiece and generally laments the depreciation of literary quality that is inevitably a result of the translation process. The priest is, of course, unaware of the irony of the fact that his words are presented here to the reader in translation; a mere approximation to the Volume 32.2 (2012) 205 Reviews original according to his own assessment. Furthermore, this is only the most superficial level of translation within a book whose fictional linguistic conversions are quite numerous (though dwarfed by the sheer quantity found in the real world). Let us not forget Cide Hamete Benegeli and the Arabic-speaking intermediary who deciphers the “original” for one of the many Hispanic narrative voices.1 If the issue of translation were not already complicated and murky enough regarding this text, this edition offers yet another variable to the equation: the tireless efforts of its editor, Tom Lathrop, to present the text of Don Quixote in its most pristine form. This noble cause may at first glance appear to conflict with the very nature of translation itself. If the goal is preservation, then this is perhaps the polar opposite: alteration. Yet, the reader of this translation is privy to an edition whose thoroughness and rigor excuse the interloping language’s presence. Throughout his career Tom Lathrop has frequently and fervently argued against the “correcting ” that over more than four centuries has transformed some versions of Cervantes’s novel into a very different book. This desire to present Don Quixote, “errors” and all, springs from his belief that these so-called mistakes are instead carefully placed rhetorical ploys. The introduction to this edition trenchantly explains this interpretation of the ever-so-present “discordancias cervantinas” (to borrow a phrase from Julio Baena’s well-known title). Some may differ in opinion with regard to the extent of Cervantes’s intentional use of “mistakes,” but none can deny that Lathrop has done his readers a great service. His detailed notes not only elucidate some of the trickier passages—even when translated—but also mark the evolution of this text from the most “original” copies to the more widespread editions. Perhaps my personal favorite feature of this edition is the fairly direct style of translation. It appears that Lathrop was able to resist the temptation to play with the language in the name of style—an all too common pitfall. Surprisingly, this stoic resolve does not diminish the readability of the novel. I am particularly struck by...

All About Almodóvar?Todo sobre mi madreon the London Stage

In September 2007, a stage production of Pedro Almodovar's film Todo sobre mi madre received its world premiere at the Old Vic theatre in London. It marked the first official adaptation of the director's work in English, and the first stage version of one of his films that he had actively endorsed. In this article, I examine how this Spanish film came to be staged in Britain and then move on to a critical reading of the production. In my reading, I place special emphasis on two particular aspects. Firstly, I consider whether the theatrical version succeeds in offering a vision of Almodovar's film that functions effectively in an English sociolinguistic setting. Secondly, I analyse some of the processes by which the play transplants an already highly theatrical film to the stage.En Septiembre 2007, tuvo lugar en el Old Vic de Londres el estreno mundial de una version teatral de Todo sobre mi madre, la pelicula de Pedro Almodovar. Esta puesta en escena constituyo la primera adaptacion oficial de la obra del...

Revolution Within the Revolution: A Caracas Collective and the Face of Che Guevara

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes I gratefully acknowledge the Research Abroad Scholarship administered by the Faculty and Graduate Studies and Research, University of Alberta, for a four-month field work grant beginning in April 2007 supporting this case study. Additionally, this research was made possible by the support of Dr. Daniel Mato, my host mentor, responsible for the Programa Globalización, Cultura y Transformaciones Sociales de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales de la Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas. In this program, joint projects are undertaken with and supported in part by the Latin American Association of Sociology, and the Latin American Council of Social Sciences among others. I am grateful to Dr. Max van Manen for his help and judicious comments in editing the final version of this article. Likewise, the thoughtful and constructive comments of the anonymous external reviewers and others such as Dr. C. Adams and Dr. J. R. Kelly are well appreciated. All photographs in this article were taken by M.-C. Cambre unless otherwise credited. This original was famously copyright free. In a recent incident in Baghdad, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi flung his shoes at visiting U.S. President George W. Bush, and was immediately taken into custody as a result. The Associated Press reported that one day after the incident, Mr. al-Zeidi's apartment “was decorated with a poster of Latin American revolutionary leader Che Guevara” (Reid 2008 Reid , R. ( 2008 ). Shoe Thrower an Instant Hero . The Toronto Star (December 18), A4 . [Google Scholar], A4). The popular two-tone image also appeared around this time, the work of Irish artist, Jim Fitzpatrick, who slightly tilted the eye position upward prompting many to describe Guevara's attitude as defiant and courageous. Although this was not the raw, more vulnerable feeling transmitted by the original, it was just as infectious and promoted further spread of the image. (Spanish original) Mientras en Cuba persiste la dimensión pública de su figura, en el mundo capitalista perdura ante todo como un tópico central de la contracultura juvenil. El póster marca el territorio liberado en el cuarto del adolescente, donde el nonsense está cargado de significación. Ciertamente, Guevara no funda por sí solo el imaginario juvenil, pero en su legado confluyen algunos de sus rasgos principales: el impulso al nomadismo, el sentimiento anti-sistema, el ideal de una muerte romántica en el esplendor, todo ello dispuesto en una cierta facha nocturna. Un look rebelde que no tiene nada de trivial, dado que los iconos sólo son delgados en apariencia…manteniendo, sobre todo, el espíritu de la utopía igualitaria, en una referencia que perdura fundamentalmente en la militancia juvenil. They used this expression in their declaration to contrast with their self-identification as Marxist-Leninist Bolivarians (after Simon Bolivar who contributed to Venezuela's gaining independence from Spain in the early 1800s). The word barrio normally indicates neighborhood in Spanish but the way it is used in Caracas is to designate the ghettos where self-made shanty homes sprout up, usually on hillsides or around the bloques to house the overflowing numbers of people living in poverty. Professor María Victoria Canino teaches at the School for Sociology at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC). Her research projects include the sociology of science and technology, knowledge, and development, as well as studies on petroleum, power, and social organization. And yet it is Che's image rather than Alexis' on their shirts because their struggle and the hope they nurture transcends the boundaries of their neighborhood, city, nation: they feel the link with all other groups who, one might say, “fly the same flag.” “…Guevara trascendió ese origen para proyectarse en el…luchas de liberación multiplicaron el mito.” “…conforman un teoría orientada a la acción inmediata. Ensayos de agitación, relatos de la experiencia guerrillera, están escritos en un lenguaje llano y despliegan la retórica emotiva del panfleto.”