Spanish Culture Research Articles

Paratexts as Portals

In an understudied cluster of films from the 1920s in Spain that feature the tumultuous lives of female music-hall entertainers, posters, postcards, and magazines not only mirror the shape of windows, doors and thresholds, but also direct the flow of circulating images of women. These portable, paper media immobilize or propel women’s bodies into motion, constituting portals that enable or disrupt fame, security and “happiness.” Rectangular artifacts both don the walls, windows, and cabinets in these films' mise-en-scène, and drive the story, character development, and the production of gender and racial identity. These films show characters interacting with posters, postcards, and magazines in a way that becomes as determining as the gripping plots, enabling women to pivot between stark, atavistic, or impoverished rurality and electrifying urban spaces. In this article, I examine the governing status of paratexts and the female star image in early Spanish film culture by tracing the history of La gitana blanca, a film directed by Ricardo de Baños initially released in 1919 and then reedited and redistributed internationally in 1923. In its opening moments, La gitana blanca offers us a view into how paratexts not only saturated the media ecology of the 1920s but also were “responsible for popular culture’s encounters with countless story worlds.” In the context of Spanish film historiography’s master narratives, in which cultural hierarchies remain tightly enmeshed with gendered and racialized logics, a cross-media perspective proves instrumental in revealing the extent to which film culture mediated the real and fictive lives of women.

TRANSLATION AS A TOOL OF CONSTRUCTING INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS: A CASE STUDY ON THE RELATION BETWEEN TURKISH AND CUBAN CULTURES

With the cultural turn in Translation Studies, it has been accepted that translation is not just a linguistic but also a cultural activity. This cultural activity can appear in various forms such as a positive and constructive interaction or an asymmetrical power relation including assimilation, conquest and/or colonial activities between cultures. Literature, translation and translated literature can be used as a tool or strategy in this spectrum of complicated relations. The agents/actors taking an active role in these relations have become an object of study in Translation Studies as well as in all other fields of Social Sciences. Using his agent role as an ambassador, Ernesto Gomez Abascal wrote a fictional novel titled Havana’da Türk Tutkusu 1898 (Turkish Passion in Havana 1898) drawing inspiration from historical facts to construct a positive Turkish image in Spanish and Cuban literature and culture. Abascal was inspired by the future translator of the novel, Mehmet Necati Kutlu to write this book. Kutlu, who is an academician and an agent fostering the relations between Turkey and Latin American countries, reported his findings to Abascal about the Ottoman Empire and Cuban relations. Inspired by this information, Abascal wrote a fiction based on these historical records. This article will try to analyze the role of literature, translation and agents in the process of constructing cultural images through this example.

THE POETICS OF KAZAKH POET DÜKEN MESİMHANULI

With the cultural turn in Translation Studies, it has been accepted that translation is not just a linguistic but also a cultural activity. This cultural activity can appear in various forms such as a positive and constructive interaction or an asymmetrical power relation including assimilation, conquest and/or colonial activities between cultures. Literature, translation and translated literature can be used as a tool or strategy in this spectrum of complicated relations. The agents/actors taking an active role in these relations have become an object of study in Translation Studies as well as in all other fields of Social Sciences. Using his agent role as an ambassador, Ernesto Gomez Abascal wrote a fictional novel titled Havana’da Türk Tutkusu 1898 (Turkish Passion in Havana 1898) drawing inspiration from historical facts to construct a positive Turkish image in Spanish and Cuban literature and culture. Abascal was inspired by the future translator of the novel, Mehmet Necati Kutlu to write this book. Kutlu, who is an academician and an agent fostering the relations between Turkey and Latin American countries, reported his findings to Abascal about the Ottoman Empire and Cuban relations. Inspired by this information, Abascal wrote a fiction based on these historical records. This article will try to analyze the role of literature, translation and agents in the process of constructing cultural images through this example

ALLUSION AS ONE OF THE FORMS OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHARACTERS OF THE SERIES (BASED ON THE CONTENT OF THE SPANISH TELEVISION SERIES EL PUEBLO)

The article deals with the research of the speech features of the characters of the Spanish television series and also the analysis of the stylistic means of the development of speaker’s character according to his verbal behavior.
 The relevance of the study is conditioned by the interest in creating allusions and their functional significance as linguistic units with rich cultural meanings, and their pragmatic impact in characters’ speech.
 The aim of the research lies in distinguishing the role of allusions in creating the speech character of a speaker and their significance as a cultural and semantic form of speech.
 We used several methods, i.e., continuous sampling, systematization of the language units due to the definite criteria, component analysis, descriptive and cognitively-discursive approach.
 The article is based on the language material of the Spanish television series El Pueblo (The Settlement). The object of studying is its characters’ speech; the subject of studying is allusion as a stylistic method and its functions in verbal component of the audio-visual text.
 According to the problem of study, the list of words and word-combinations was compounded for being analyzed due to the criteria.
 Based on analysis and classification of the content we have got the statistic data. It was identified that 50% of the cases under analysis are allusive proper nouns, that clarifies that allusions reveal the information in compressed form, giving an opportunity for further profound and multiple interpretation.
 Upon conducting the research we came to a conclusion that there is a great variety of allusions on the characters and popular facts of the Spanish culture in the series El Pueblo, and their functions are not only aesthetic, expressive and educative, but forming the personality and the sense of each character.

Retracted: The Generation and Realization of Dunhuang Cultural Values from the Perspective of Crosscultural Communication: Based on Spanish and Chinese Culture.

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.1155/2022/5382213.].

Reflections of Enculturation and Acculturation in Chabacano Folklores of Zamboanga City

This qualitative, descriptive, and analytical research study aimed to describe the perception of Zamboangueño-Chabacano through a sociological lens. The examination of the data centers on Chabacano folklore gathered from several trustworthy sources. The enculturation and acculturation types of culture were used to categorize these non-material cultures. It is essential to comprehend Zamboangueo-Chabacano culture to preserve cultural traditions and develop programs that may be used in the classroom to promote greater literacy. Seventeen of the thirty-five described civilizations are enculturated, while 18 are acculturated. The Chabacano folklores that best capture the Zamboangueo-Chabacano culture emphasize respect for other people's languages, races, and cities, a firm belief in God, perseverance, diligence, courage, resourcefulness, and an acceptance of paranormal phenomena (kababalaghan). The research's findings corroborate the idea that the influence of Spanish culture and great devotion to Catholicism played an essential role in the lives of the Zamboangueño-Chabacano by showing that the majority of the culture depicted in Chabacano folklore is acculturation.

Folk magic in the Philippines, 1611–39

While studies of commerce and trade in Manila's ‘Golden Age’ are common, the impact of the city's multiethnic society on the daily lives of its inhabitants has often been harder to gauge. Based on 98 Inquisition cases, this article examines the widespread use of folk magic in colonial Manila, offering new insights into cultural interactions and inviting new reflections on the nature and extent of colonial domination. Folk magic—also known as hechicería—was an important part of cultural life within Spanish communities across the empire in the early modern period. Encompassing a variety of different practices, including the use of love charms, luck charms, spell-casting, and divination, it offered individuals opportunities to mediate their relationships, particularly with members of the opposite sex. These practices connected European folk traditions with Asian knowledge of botany, medicine, and spirituality to fulfil the needs of the Spanish community for magic. At the same time, this blending of Spanish and Asian cultures was subversive of colonial authority. Folk magic practices challenged the progression of ‘pious imperialism’ that pitted Christianity against indigenous traditions, creating spaces of cultural exchange where the balance of power between cultures was more evenly felt than often assumed.

Color vocabulary in Spanish and Georgian phraseological units and their linguocultural aspects

All languages reflect the theoretical, practical and cultural knowledge of man and his culture, which man acquires in the process of conceptualizing of the world. Linguoculturology draws special attention because it studies the relationship between language and culture. The reflection of the world (its objective reality) in human consciousness is represented by the connection between conceptual and linguistic worldviews. Color is a universal category, although in each language community it carries and maintains its special specificity. The basic vocabulary of colors can vary between cultures and languages. The main colors in the language create a worldview in the form of colors, in turn, they represent the linguistic image of the world. Phraseological units containing colors are an important phenomenon for the Spanish culture, which is also reflected in the language and gives it a special nuance and peculiarity. In the present report, we present a linguocultural analysis of those phraseological units that include the semantic elements of color in both Spanish phraseological and Georgian phraseological units.

The significance of exploring conceptual equivalence within the process of the cross-cultural adaptation of tools: The case of the Patient's Perception of Feeling Known by their Nurses Scale.

The exploration of conceptual equivalence within the process of the cross-cultural adaptation of tools is usually neglected as it generally assumed that the theoretical construct of a tool is conceptualized in the same way in both the original and target culture. This article attempts to throw light on the contribution of the evaluation of conceptual equivalence to the process of adaptation, and for tool development. To illustrate this premise, the example of the cross-cultural adaptation of the Patients' Perception of Feeling Known by their Nurses (PPFKN) Scale is presented. An adapted version of the Sousa and Rojjanasrirat (Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 2011, 17(2), 268-274) guidelines was used to translate and culturally adapt the PPFKN Scale to Spanish language and culture. A qualitative descriptive study was added to the traditional process of translation and pilot study to explore the concept in the target culture and recognize conceptual equivalence. Experts in the tool concept, bilingual translators and the author of the tool participated in the translation of the original tool into Spanish. A pilot study of the Spanish version with a sample of 44 patients and a panel of six experts from different fields evaluated its clarity and relevance. In addition, seven patients participated in a descriptive qualitative study using semi-structured individual interviews to explore the phenomenon in the new culture. A content analysis following the Miles, Huberman & Saldaña (Qualitative data analysis, a methods sourcebook, 2014) approach was used to analyze qualitative data. The cross-cultural translation and adaptation of the PPFKN scale into Spanish required a thorough revision. More than half of the items needed discussions to reach consensus regarding the most appropriate Spanish term. In addition, the study confirmed the four attributes of the concept identified in the American context and allowed for new insights within those attributes to appear. Those aspects reflected characteristics of the phenomenon of being known in the Spanish context and were added to the tool in the format of 10 new items. A comprehensive cross-cultural adaptation of tools should incorporate, together with the study of linguistic and semantic equivalence, the analysis of the conceptual equivalence of the phenomenon in both contexts. The identification, acknowledgment and study of the conceptual differences between two cultures in relation to a phenomenon becomes an opportunity for deeper study of the phenomenon in both cultures, for understanding of their richness and depth, and for the proposal of changes that may enhance the content validity of the tool. The evaluation of conceptual equivalence of tools within the process of cross-cultural adaptation will make it possible for target cultures to rely on tools both theoretically sound and significant. Specifically, the cross-cultural adaptation of the PPFKN scale has facilitated the design of a Spanish version of the tool that is linguistically, semantically and theoretically congruent with Spanish culture. The PPFKN Scale is a powerful indicator that evidences nursing care contribution to the patient's experience.

The symbol of the bull in Spanish literature and painting

Agriculture is the greatest achievement of man. The development of farming revolutionized the culture of ancient peoples and fundamentally changed their lives. A man associated the ox with agriculture because the ox represented the pulling power, the main "tool" for tilling the land. That is why ancient man associated the bull with fertility, deified or turned it into a sacred animal of the deity. All this led to the worship of the bull, which was reflected in the religion and culture of the ancient states. In this regard, Spain is no exception. The symbol of the bull appeared on the Iberian Peninsula for the first time in the prehistoric period. It was a "primitive" cave wall painting that Picasso considered the pinnacle of art. Thus, his article discusses the importance of the bull as a symbol for Spain and what mark it has left in Spanish literature and painting. The emphasis is on crucial prose and poetry as well as authors, poets and visual artists who have written or drawn about bullfighting. Spain, the symbol of the bull has taken deep roots, the bull has become part of the Spanish identity, and the corrida - a bullfight - has become a public feast for the Spanish people. That is why the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset notes that it is impossible to understand the history of Spain without understanding the bullfight. We find the bull in all areas of Spanish culture. For example, in traditional Spanish dance and song. Flamenco embodied the symbol of the bull in such a way that, for many, flamenco and corrida are perceived as one genre of art. The bull was a source of inspiration for writers, poets, artists, composers. They tried to convey the world of bullfighting, the atmosphere of the celebration, and the sublimity of the fighting bull. Many artists were fascinated by this eternal struggle between man and nature. They have always been attracted to the spectacle that is only characteristic of bullfighting - dancing and playing with death and fate... Because of this, Spain is the only nation to make death a public spectacle, according to Lorca. This attribute sets this nation apart from all others. It should be noted, nevertheless, that many authors, especially those who are associated with the generation of ´98, were not drawn to the bull theme and instead perceived bullfighting as a symbol of Spanish provincialism and backwardness. Miguel de Unamuno is one such author.

Using Emotional Text Mining to Explore the Cultural Representation of Organ Donation in Spanish and Italian Culture

Spain is considered the world leader in the field of Organ Donation (OD). Italy has adopted the Spanish model in its health system but failed to reach the Spanish primacy. This work investigates the cultural elements influencing the choice to donate in Italy and Spain. We collected from two newspapers of Italy and Spain, all the published articles (2001–2021), containing the respective translation of OD. The two final corpora were analyzed through the Emotional Text Mining methodology. The analysis produced 4 CR for the Italian corpus and 5 CR for the Spanish one. The principal CR for Spain is viewing the OD as a national project, while in Italy, the donation is viewed as a life-saving product. In Italy, the theme of death is viewed as unacceptable. In Spain, the principal context in which donation is discussed is the family. Another difference is related to the developmental process: Italy is rooted in established promotional models, while in Spain, the desire for innovation emerges. Finally, OD is connected to other fields in Spain. In conclusion, this study allowed us to understand deep cultural differences between Spain and Italy in OD. Results ought to be used to improve promotional campaigns to citizens.

Olive Symbolism in Palestinian and Spanish Poetry: A Comparative Study

This comparative study aims at highlighting the symbolism of the olive tree in Palestinian and Spanish poetry. Since the olive tree is elemental in both cultures, the study attempts to tackle four main themes of such a dominant tree: resistance, peace, eternity, and homeland. In order to conduct the study, a number of poems employing the olive tree are investigated and analyzed in order to highlight the closeness between the Palestinian and the Spanish cultures. The study tries to prove the matchfullness between the symbolism of the olive tree in both poetries. The selection of the poems is based on the common ground of the olive tree symbolism in Palestine and Spain. The only theme in which the poetry in the two cultures does not completely coincide is resistance. In Palestinian poetry, the olive is used to signify resistance against occupation, while this tree is employed to denote the resistance to socioeconomic classism, urban sprawl, and natural disasters. In order to make an outstanding comparison in the three other themes, the author selected poems of both cultures where the olive tree signifies international symbolizations.

Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present: Structures of Feeling by Jo Labanyi

Reviewed by: Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present: Structures of Feeling by Jo Labanyi Richard Cleminson Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present: Structures of Feeling. By Jo Labanyi. (Selected Essay, 11) Cambridge: Legenda. 2019. xii+349 pp. £80. ISBN 978–1–78188–932–9. The great advantage of the Legenda 'Selected Essays' series is the combination in one volume of a set of prodigious works by highly influential authors such as Jo Labanyi. The task for the reviewer is, consequently, a somewhat daunting one, however satisfying the reading of the individual chapters may be. This book, set out in six parts and containing previously published essays, constitutes a key contribution to Spanish Cultural and Literary Studies. Running through the collection is the author's attention to 'structures of feeling', drawing on Raymond Williams's notion, as a driver and explanatory resource for the comprehension of a diverse array of cultural production primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part I focuses on romanticism; Part II on the realist novel and art; and the remaining parts centre on the twentieth century, with the final sections on historical memory. The first chapter, originally published in the Hispanic Research Journal in 2004, addresses the understudied (and nowadays rarely taught, at least in British universities) eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century in order to reconsider the contribution made to European discourses on modernization and romantic love by literary production from the period. In a deft reappraisal of works by the Spanish Romantics who turned to the medieval period, Labanyi argues for the interconnectedness of Spain with European representations of love, thereby disrupting the [End Page 269] 'primitive' and anti-modern stereotypes foisted on Spain by less careful observers. Rather than rigid categories and set characteristics, Labanyi invites the reader to consider the unruly influence of alternative expressions of subjectivity by engaging in a kind of historical 'border studies' 'that tries to think across the historical "divides" produced by established schemes of periodization' (p. 11). Coupled with the identification of the structures of feeling manifested in alternative stories and readings, this borderland subjectivity perused against the grain forms the hilo conductor of Labanyi's book. The romanticized versions of love, drawn on an Arabic past, provide 'the basis for future models of the nation' (p. 15). Nation-forming was also influenced by the representation of important moments from the past or instances of daily life as events around which to coalesce and expose 'the public to representations of the past organized in a particular way', thereby schooling the public 'in modes of viewing appropriate to modern citizens' (p. 88) and emphasizing the generative force of painting in constructions of feeling and identity in the present (Chapter 8 in Part II). Novels and films are other sources of (re)presentation of images in the early twentieth century and under the Franco regime. Drawing on work by Klaus Theweleit on the genesis of the 'fascist character' in men, the chapter on Giménez Caballero's Genio de España (1932) shows how the author drew on a version of modernism that was defined by an appeal to the irrational, 'allowing it to reach the masses by speaking to the unconscious' (p. 122). Such an interpretation permits Labanyi to complicate the acceptance of certain traits of modernism by both left and right rather than assume an implicit anti-modernism on the part of Spanish fascists. Caballero's writings and speeches were ingrained with gendered aspects and the fear of the loss of unity, whether by means of the republican divorce law of 1932 or the separation of Catalonia from Spain. Rather than rejecting or eschewing the Jewish contribution to Hispanic civilization, his desire was to incorporate said contribution(s) into Spain's imperial history just as other races had been dissolved by Spanish males into the broader imperial project begun centuries before. The wide-ranging Chapter 11 on commonalities and differences between Maeztu, Giménez Caballero, and Madariaga as well as their usages of Don Juan and romantic love to prop up their own political visions is, alongside the first chapter on Arabic love and the last chapters on the intricacies of...

Constructing Proletarian Nation(s): PSOE Internationalism in the Second Republic (1931–1932)

AbstractThis article seeks to enhance our understanding of the nature of socialist internationalism, in particular by considering the place of the nation in its functioning and essence. For this purpose, the concept of inter-nationalism is used to study the particular case of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) during Spain's Second Republic. In the first section, we focus on the meeting of the executive of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) in Madrid in 1931, and the subsequent May Day celebrations in the city. In the second, we analyse the use of internationalism by the PSOE in the debates on the decentralization of the Republican state. This article will argue that the PSOE made use of internationalist events to further the internal and external consolidation of the Republic, and its own position in government. Furthermore, internationalism served to uphold the unity and unique qualities of Spanish politics and culture. These considerations enable us to point to both the political and cultural dimensions of the PSOE's identification with Spanish nationalism, and to assert both the nation's importance in socialist internationalism and its role in socialist political culture during the interwar period.

Federico Garcia Lorca’s «Canciones Españolas Antiguas»: dialogue of the poet with Flamenco tradition

The relevance of the study The author’s interaction in his creative work with folklore is one of the main ways of shaping national composers’ musical school. Spanish music culture is not an exception. There was discovering the uniqueness of flamenco culture through the searching of musical personal identity during the end of the XIX–first decades of the XX century. Original rhythms, modes and harmony specialty were inspiring for composers who searched the code of musical national composers’ school. Federico Garcia Lorca was one of them. His work «Canciones Españolas Antiguas» became not only restrained documentation of folkloric finds. His scientific interest was realized there with his own well-known authored style what provoked us to have some doubts about song’s origin. Was that songs stylization or authentic? How high was composer’s influence percent? The answer can be founded only through assesses the knowledge of flamenco tradition. We could find out real author’s creative participation thanks determining authentic flamenco components in the songs. These are the reasons and became the basis of the proposed article.
 The main objective of the study is to characterize the collection "Spanish ancient songs" by F. D. Lorca as creative project which arose at the intersection of the tradition of flamenco and author's style.
 The methodology of study includes historical method (in searching of context and historical background creation of collection «Spanish ancient songs»), biographical method (for clarify details of creation the collection, musical environment what was connected with Lorca’s views on the folk), comparative (for the comparing folkloric sources with author’s variants) structural-functional, system analysis, genre-style what allows to give characteristic of collection and to prove it’ artistic integrity as a song cycle.
 Results and conclusions. In the process of studying «Canciones Españolas Antiguas», it became clear that the balance of authenticity and authorial activity in this case can be ascertained only by relying on the knowledge of general folklore paradigms.We found out genres as sources for building the collection which were taken from flamenco culture. The «oriental» intonation nature of melodies saturated with melismas, mostly of a dance nature, is preserved. But the composer does not soften all these characteristic features, trying to bring them to the panEuropean musical standard, on the contrary, he strengthens them by using dissonant harmonies. He brings the rhythmic sophistication of authentic samples to the point of unpredictability thanks to the frequent use of hemiola, accents on weak parts, and syncopation. Impetuous performance and rubato, characteristic of the para cantar form of life (flamenco music focused on the singer), the composer conveys with the help of laconic remarks about tempo, dynamics, articulation, touches.

The Art of Barniz de Pasto and Its Appropriation of Other Cultures

This study analyzes the techniques and decorative motifs of several works made using barniz de Pasto, highlighting their characteristics in order to establish comparisons with artistic phenomena of Asia and Europe. A possible link can be observed between barniz de Pasto and the Namban and Pictorial style Japanese export lacquer works of the 17th and 18th centuries. A search for similarity is justified by the documentary and material evidence of Japanese works created in these styles being transported from Japan to the Viceroyalty of New Spain by Manila galleons via the trade route between Acapulco and Callao. Additionally, traces of the Spanish culture have been recognized in barniz de Pasto. For example, printed images that circulated in the Viceroyalty of Peru have been observed on a coffer. This appropriation, also observed in the mural painting of a Central Andean church, and the presence of the image of Amaru, a Quechua deity, on the same coffer, marks the Central Andes as one of the possible places where the practice of barniz de Pasto could have been established. All of this points to Central and South America’s great ability to appropriate foreign cultures and fuse them with their own during the viceregal period, as manifested in the art of barniz de Pasto.

La figura del subalterno en la narrativa post-autoritaria española y polaca: Propuesta de lectura comparatista (Homo Polonicus de Marek Nowakowski, Los mares del sur de Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Amado amo de Rosa Montero)

ABSTRACT The paper aims to develop a comparative perspective that allows the reader to explore the traces of authoritarian systems in contemporary Polish and Spanish culture. The point of departure is the research of Polish scholars from the Post-Dependence Studies Centre, who examine Polish culture with postcolonial tools adapted to the post-communist context. From there, the article attempts to formulate a methodological framework – the so-called post-authoritarian subaltern studies – applicable to post-Franco and post-communist culture, particularly the presence of subaltern characters in contemporary cultural texts. In accordance with the proposed methodology, the author analyses three texts: Homo Polonicus (1992) by Marek Nowakowski, Los mares del sur by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (1979) and Amado amo (1988) by Rosa Montero.

Blood and Pearls: Cazoopin (Colonial Spaniards) in the Comcaac Region of Mexico

ABSTRACT In collaboration with Comcaac (Seris) Indigenous community members from the Sonoran coast of Mexico, this study integrates ethnographic, archaeological, documentary, and oral historical data to better understand the Comcaac past relevant to the present. This is the first publication of Comcaac historical accounts about the Cazoopin, or colonial Spaniards, extending back to AD 1750 and earlier. We document Comcaac people’s first encounters with Spanish sailing ships and their opportunistic adoption of Spanish material culture. Oral accounts are combined with evidence from archaeological survey of named places and archival documents, particularly Pimentel’s Diary of Governor Ortiz Parrilla’s 1750 expedition to Tahejcö (Tiburón Island). For the Sonoran colonial period, previous reconstructions have been based on archaeological evidence and archival documents written by Spanish Empire representatives; here, we encourage the incorporation of Indigenous voices to understand economic, social, political, and ecological dimensions of the past that condition the creation of different historical narratives.

Digitizing Divas: Pedagogical Approaches to Contemporary Spanish Visual Culture

Abstract: The ubiquity of multimodal advertisements, digital platforms, and social media has increasingly exposed twenty-first-century students to different elements of visual culture, thus facilitating their familiarity with interpretations of visual signs and iconography. It is my contention that instructors of Spanish can utilize elements of Spanish visual culture in their classroom to provide increased opportunities for deep cultural analysis and the development of students' overall communicative competence. Engaging with authentic materials relating to the popular Spanish singer Rosalía Vila Tobella is one way to achieve such competencies. The artist's global popularity and visual embodiment of Spanish culture in her music videos and social media posts offers students useful opportunities to reflect on issues of visuality relating to gender, race, and Spain's unique geographic and symbolic position as a southern European nation with linkages to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Drawing on the work of visual theorists such as Roland Barthes and Stuart Hall, I suggest students can reflect on Rosalía's visual oeuvre both through the identity-based tensions and within a larger genealogy of Spanish iconography. By creating their own multimodal publications about the artist through digital platforms such as Flipsnack, Google Sites, or Canva, students can study the politics of representation within the context of Spanish culture in a manner that facilitates visual learning beyond the confines of the traditional written assignment. Analyzing the visuality of Rosalía and her representation of Spanish culture teaches students practical linguistic skills related to their established online presence as "digital natives."

First report of Gnomoniopsis smithogilvyi causing chestnut brown rot on nuts and burrs of sweet chestnut in Spain.

About 60% of the nut production of sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) in Europe originates in Spain (FAOSTAT, 2022), mostly (91%) in Galicia (NW Spain). In September 2021, premature fall of immature chestnut burrs and nuts of C. sativa was observed in eight orchards of Pontevedra and Ourense (provinces of Galicia). Chestnut green burrs had turned brown and fallen off, and the nuts showed brown lesions in kernels and embryos. Some nuts had become mummified. Symptomatic samples of burrs and nuts, including mummified fruits, were collected. Small pieces of samples were surface-disinfected with 2% sodium hypochlorite, and plated onto potato dextrose agar (PDA) plates. Colonies were creamy white to gray or light brown, and presented a woolly to felty mycelium with a dense development in concentric circles. Brownish to black conidiomata, produced abundantly, were globose to sub-globose. Conidia were hyaline, oval, obovoid, fusoid and multi-guttulate, and 6.6±0.78 [5.07 to 9.01] μm x 3.2±0.43 [2.41 to 4.38] μm in size. These features matched those described for Gnomoniopsis smithogilvyi (Shuttleworth et al. 2012), syn. G. castaneae (Visentin et al. 2012; Shuttleworth et al. 2015). Genomic DNA was extracted from mycelium developed in 22 burrs and nuts, and 30 pure cultures. The rDNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS), fragments of the β-tubulin (TUB2) and the translation elongation factor-1α (TEF-1α) genes were amplified using ITS1F (Gardes and Bruns 1993) and ITS4 (White et al. 1990), T1/Bt2b (O'Donnell and Cigelnik 1997), and EF1-728F/EF1-986R (Carbone and Kohn 1999) primers, respectively. Two isolates (EFA 924A, EFA962.4A) were deposited in the Spanish Type Culture Collection (Paterna, Valencia), and their sequences submitted to GenBank (accession nos.: ITS: OM319846, OM319848; TUB2: OM417078, OM417080; TEF-1α: OM417081, OM417083). BLASTn analyses showed: for ITS and TEF-1α sequences, ≥99.7% identity to the ex-type of G. smithogilvyi (ITS: JQ910642, 474 matching bp; TEF-1α: JQ910645, 335-338 matching bp), and for TUB2 sequences, ≥99.1% identity to G. castaneae (LN999975, 446-453 matching bp). Pathogenicity tests were carried out on surface disinfected nuts of Castanea sativa `Raigona´. A superficial wound was made in the pericarp of each nut. A 2-mm mycelial plug of a 7-days-old culture of G. smithogilvyiwas then inoculated: twenty nuts with isolate EFA924A and twenty with isolate EFA962.4A. Twenty nuts inoculated with sterile agar were used as control. The holes were sealed with Parafilm®. Nuts were incubated in a moist chamber at 22±2°C. Two replicated tests were carried out. Four inoculated and four control nuts were inspected for the presence and progress of rot symptoms every seven days. Three weeks after inoculation, all remaining inoculated nuts were completely rotted, whereas all control nuts remained healthy. Gnomoniopsis smitholgilvyi was reisolated from all inoculated nuts, and it was not recovered from the controls. This pathogen causes chestnut brown rot on sweet chestnut worldwide (EPPO, 2022), causing also shoot cankers on chestnut (Lione et al, 2019). This is the first report of G. smithogilvyi causing chestnut brown rot on nuts and burrs of C. sativa in Spain. Future studies on the incidence of this pathogen and its impact on chestnut yield should be carried out in the main European producing countries, i.e. Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece, where the disease has been detected and represents an emerging threat to chestnut production.