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Lucero

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About

Lucero is the literary and critical journal edited, produced and published by the graduate students of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Berkeley. This journal is currently undergoing a transition to a digital format and will continue to be dedicated to Iberian, Latin American, US Latino and Luso-Brazilian Studies. Since its first issue in 1990, it has promoted a multicultural and multilingual dialogue in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The journal’s prestige has assured its place in the Modern Language Association (MLA) Index of publications. From 1990 to the present, Lucero has invited graduate students and scholars to participate in an interdisciplinary dialogue in which every volume focuses on a specific concern related to our disciplines.

The Kaleidoscope Effect

The theme of the 27th edition is the Kaleidoscope Effect. An optical instrument that fragments our visual perception, the kaleidoscope serves as a metaphor to comment on the creation of images, the trouble of unreliable senses, the spectator and their perspective, and other interactive processes influencing how we perceive the world around us. We are thrilled to include three submissions focused on different moments in time and sites around the Americas, with theoretical frameworks from visual studies, gender and performance studies, and linguistics.

Articles

“Daguerreotypes in the South at New York Prices:” A Paper Archaeology of John Armstrong Bennet

The study of nineteenth century photography has focused for the most part on paper photography, acknowledging the years of the daguerreotype as a period of curiosity and experimentation while disregarding the impact of this era today. Available scholarship has sought to study these early images through archival and material approaches, navigating recurring historiographic voids and image losses, often in the form of national histories of the medium. This essay builds on the overlap of some of these histories to reconsider the production of photography in the Americas, namely through daguerreotype portraits and their fashioning as commodities by print cultures aimed at creating and seeking new customers. To do so, the article follows John Armstrong Bennet, a multifaceted tradesman and occasionally a daguerreotypist, on his continental journeys between 1840 and 1877. Bennet’s written traces allow for an archaeological study of the relations between early photography and print, evidencing the complexities behind mechanical but not exactly multiple reproduction. Through Lisa Gitelman’s concept of paper knowledge (2014), the article considers the manifold manifestations of a hybrid form of authorship put forward by Bennet in the written form, be it in his advertisements, bureaucratic paperwork, or in his own oeuvre. Through the analysis of the written sources, it may be possible to grasp a fleeting likeness of the author behind these marketable ‘works of art’, and more importantly, link through his presence the expansion of a photographic frontier to that of liberalism, manifest in the ever-growing presence of multiple reproduction in the printed form.

Manifestations of Spinoza’s Potentia: “Un violador en tu camino” at Santa Martha Acatitla Women’s Prison

“Un violador en tu camino” is a protest-performance that combines language and movement to indict the state and expose its role in the perpetuation of violence against women. Created by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis, it was first performed in Santiago in November 2019. In the months following, it quickly spread beyond the borders of Chile, having been performed in cities from London to Istanbul to New Delhi to Mexico City to Montreal, and beyond the Spanish-speaking world, translated into over a dozen languages. This paper considers an attempt by incarcerated women at Santa Martha Acatitla Women’s Penitentiary in Mexico City to perform their own version of the protest within the prison walls. Through “Un violador en tu camino” the women at Santa Martha resist carceral discipline and produce an affectual connection with the outside that unsettles carceral space. This power of the protest lies in the coordination of voices and bodies in a combined affect, rendering it, as this paper argues, a manifestation of Spinozan potentia. Through the lens of Latin American feminist theory and drawing on recent work in performance, embodiment, and new materialisms, this paper aims to celebrate the power (potentia) of the women at Santa Marta by considering the theoretical stakes of their collective reclamation of body and voice. The reticence, fear, and ultimate refusal by prison authorities to authorize the performance of “Un violador en tu camino” within the prison walls speak to the power of their combined affect.

La possessió en el txitximec de Jonaz i llengües emparentades

Aquest article explora la possessió en el txitximec de Jonaz, el qual, amb una base de 800 parlants el 2004, és emprat a la Misión de Chichimecas, a l’est de la localitat de San Luis de la Paz (estat mexicà de Guanajuato). Es tracta d’una de les llengües més septentrionals de la família otopamé, adscrita al seu torn al tronc comú de l’otomang. No són gaires els estudis que s’han dut a terme a l’entorn d’aquesta varietat, la qual proveeix dades certament interessants per a estudis tipològics i relatius als universals lingüístics. Després d’un recorregut breu per les característiques principals del sistema lingüístic (a escala fonològica/fonètica, morfològica i sintàctica), abordarem el tractament que fa el txitximec de Jonaz de la possessió, tot emfasitzant la variació formal que es desprèn de la distinció establerta entre substantius alienables i inalienables. Amb aquest objectiu, es revisa i s’amplia l’anàlisi detallada de Lastra (2004), alhora que es compara la possessió en txitximec amb el tractament homòleg que en fan llengües emparentades, com ara el mixtec de Yosundúa (Farris 2004) o el txinantec de San Pedro Tlatepuzco (Merrifield i Anderson 2007). Al capdavall, es constata la vasta presència de substantius inalienables en el txitximec de Jonaz en comparació d’altres llengües de la mateixa família i, a grans trets, les llengües del món.

Book Reviews

Peter Neil Carroll. Sketches of Spain: Homage to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. ALBA Special Edition. Charlotte, NC: Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2024.

In this poetry book, Peter Neil Carroll compiles the voices and lived experiences of United States volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War.